Sunday, September 25, 2005
Updike, Run
I'd managed to go a long time without reading Rabbit, Run. I hadn't been avoiding it, mind. I've enjoyed all of Updike's short fiction that I've read, and I've even taught "A&P," and I've enjoyed his poetry (although I don't think it's really first-rate), and I liked Memoirs of the Ford Administration more than I expected. But the book that put him on the map had fallen under my personal radar. Well, a lot of my current reading is aimed at filling in gaps like that.
The book is definitely an artifact of the Fifties. So much of the behavior and attitudes on which the story depends is tied to that post-Korea era, with memories of World War II still fresh, and the strains on and of family life being forced to the forefront of the American consciousness. But the heart of the book is in that strain, and the way it worked on some people not as freedom from the difficulties of the war years (two wars in rapid succession, after all; we think of WW II as long, but it was four and a half years, not long by current standards, and the time between the two wars was about as long as the war had been; one measure is that many men served in combat in both wars) but as a prison. For Rabbit Angstrom, family life and its expectations, and his own expectations, are a prison.
Of course, part of Rabbit's problem is that he hasn't yet grown up. He has no way of connecting with the world outside his own desires, no sense of what he wants for himself. He is, despite being a veteran and a father, unformed. Like so many American men then and since, he has no idea of how to be a grown-up on his own. All he knows is that the old rules no longer work. He has, pointedly, declined to join his father in the print shop. He's lighting out for the territories, but there is no frontier any more, and the unexplored lands are not in Pennsylvania -- they're in the unformed soul of Rabbit Angstrom.
It's hard to like Rabbit. He's a guy who twice runs out on women who are pregnant with his children, and though he does go back to one of them, he runs away from her twice more. He lacks ambition -- and I don't mean ambition in wanting to make a lot of money or to make a good career, but an ambition to define himself. Nonetheless, I did feel sorry for him, and felt the poignancy of his inability to commit to any kind of stability.
I suppose now I'll have to read the other books about him.
dmh
The book is definitely an artifact of the Fifties. So much of the behavior and attitudes on which the story depends is tied to that post-Korea era, with memories of World War II still fresh, and the strains on and of family life being forced to the forefront of the American consciousness. But the heart of the book is in that strain, and the way it worked on some people not as freedom from the difficulties of the war years (two wars in rapid succession, after all; we think of WW II as long, but it was four and a half years, not long by current standards, and the time between the two wars was about as long as the war had been; one measure is that many men served in combat in both wars) but as a prison. For Rabbit Angstrom, family life and its expectations, and his own expectations, are a prison.
Of course, part of Rabbit's problem is that he hasn't yet grown up. He has no way of connecting with the world outside his own desires, no sense of what he wants for himself. He is, despite being a veteran and a father, unformed. Like so many American men then and since, he has no idea of how to be a grown-up on his own. All he knows is that the old rules no longer work. He has, pointedly, declined to join his father in the print shop. He's lighting out for the territories, but there is no frontier any more, and the unexplored lands are not in Pennsylvania -- they're in the unformed soul of Rabbit Angstrom.
It's hard to like Rabbit. He's a guy who twice runs out on women who are pregnant with his children, and though he does go back to one of them, he runs away from her twice more. He lacks ambition -- and I don't mean ambition in wanting to make a lot of money or to make a good career, but an ambition to define himself. Nonetheless, I did feel sorry for him, and felt the poignancy of his inability to commit to any kind of stability.
I suppose now I'll have to read the other books about him.
dmh
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Mr. Harris,
Thanks again for the poignant, insightful clarity.
"artifact of the Fifties"
Your lens can be cathartic and empathetic to the victims of the 70's;
when those POW parents get released for time served not good behavior and emphatically do whatever it takes to make absolutely sure with hyper-vigilance they never go back to prison or any semblance there of.
On my media console sits a model WWII B24 with hard won air medals including DFC Distinguished Flying Cross from a veteran (my father, a lawyer and otherwise unfulfilled stranger)
I always assumed this abyss was a man just too busy keeping up in his arena of corporate battleground.
Then I came of age like a contracted deadline; the conscience designated by the state not a situational context, rather a date on the calender, studied, awaited anxiously for at least ten or fifteen years (Time served) this drop dead deadline to freedom from any and all obligations no ifs, ands or buts, negotiations or otherwise. Ahhhh....just to exist on the other side of the stone wall. (Period and absolutely)
All this planning, stratagem and dates unbeknownst to me; except I did receive a formal face to face hostile, vengeful, vulgar and obscene 2 week notice; subtext full of unexplainable wrath, more than then the fully loaded martini malatof. Unexplainable to me - clear to him. At this point he owes me nothing not even an explanation. Being generous and a effort at being civilized he shapes his argument that these are his issues and resentments they will impact me but it's not personal.
Time served, not a jailbreak, not remorseful or rehabilitated just set free at last and at any cost damn it.
Your memo rang a bell;
I will further and continually aspire to know and define myself, grow up, dream big, bring those dreams from formless to form, fulfill the good life with an active lifestyle. Pick up the genetic burden, heal with the scar tissue as the sins of the fathers visit upon the sons.
Thanks again for your insight into scared rabbit and what makes him run. I knew that from empirical experience after many years; first was being shell-shocked and dumbfounded then decades of being just plain busy, then later in life with a moment to look around and wonder what's next, there has got to be more and more significant to me; I thought back to re-integrate deeper with earlier passions, interests and endeavors and to get to that tender formative ground I first had to dig through that crust of bruised scar tissue to find the tender human soul that is fertile ground to transform and evolve into the bigger what's next.
I really enjoy your synopsis it won't keep me from the read; I may never find the time so to get a piece of the books import is quite a gift you have offered....Thank you. :)
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Thanks again for the poignant, insightful clarity.
"artifact of the Fifties"
Your lens can be cathartic and empathetic to the victims of the 70's;
when those POW parents get released for time served not good behavior and emphatically do whatever it takes to make absolutely sure with hyper-vigilance they never go back to prison or any semblance there of.
On my media console sits a model WWII B24 with hard won air medals including DFC Distinguished Flying Cross from a veteran (my father, a lawyer and otherwise unfulfilled stranger)
I always assumed this abyss was a man just too busy keeping up in his arena of corporate battleground.
Then I came of age like a contracted deadline; the conscience designated by the state not a situational context, rather a date on the calender, studied, awaited anxiously for at least ten or fifteen years (Time served) this drop dead deadline to freedom from any and all obligations no ifs, ands or buts, negotiations or otherwise. Ahhhh....just to exist on the other side of the stone wall. (Period and absolutely)
All this planning, stratagem and dates unbeknownst to me; except I did receive a formal face to face hostile, vengeful, vulgar and obscene 2 week notice; subtext full of unexplainable wrath, more than then the fully loaded martini malatof. Unexplainable to me - clear to him. At this point he owes me nothing not even an explanation. Being generous and a effort at being civilized he shapes his argument that these are his issues and resentments they will impact me but it's not personal.
Time served, not a jailbreak, not remorseful or rehabilitated just set free at last and at any cost damn it.
Your memo rang a bell;
I will further and continually aspire to know and define myself, grow up, dream big, bring those dreams from formless to form, fulfill the good life with an active lifestyle. Pick up the genetic burden, heal with the scar tissue as the sins of the fathers visit upon the sons.
Thanks again for your insight into scared rabbit and what makes him run. I knew that from empirical experience after many years; first was being shell-shocked and dumbfounded then decades of being just plain busy, then later in life with a moment to look around and wonder what's next, there has got to be more and more significant to me; I thought back to re-integrate deeper with earlier passions, interests and endeavors and to get to that tender formative ground I first had to dig through that crust of bruised scar tissue to find the tender human soul that is fertile ground to transform and evolve into the bigger what's next.
I really enjoy your synopsis it won't keep me from the read; I may never find the time so to get a piece of the books import is quite a gift you have offered....Thank you. :)
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