Rabbit, Run
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 First edition cover | |
| Author | John Updike |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
Publication date | November 12, 1960 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 320 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0394442067 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| Followed by | Rabbit Redux |
Rabbit, Run is a 1960 novel by John Updike. It depicts three months in the life of a 26-year-old former high school basketball player named Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom, and his attempts to escape the constraints of his life. It spawned several sequels, including Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich and Rabbit At Rest, as well as a related 2001 novella, Rabbit Remembered.
Plot introduction
Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, a hemmed-in 26-year-old, leaves his pregnant wife Janice on the spur of the moment.
Plot summary
Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is 26, has a job selling kitchen gadgets, and is married to Janice, his former high school girlfriend. They have a two-year-old son named Nelson, and live in Mount Judge, a suburb of Brewer, Pennsylvania. He believes that his marriage is a failure and that something is missing from his life. Having been a basketball star in high school, Harry finds middle-class family life unsatisfying. On the spur of the moment, he decides to drive south in an attempt to escape. He soon returns home, however, where he visits his old basketball coach, Marty Tothero.
Tothero introduces Rabbit to Ruth Leonard, who is a part-time prostitute, and they begin a three month affair. During this time, Janice moves back into her parents' house. Rabbit, jealous of a past fling between Ruth and a local man, forces Ruth into submitting to fellatio (presented here as a degrading sex act), and on the same night Janice goes into labor. Rabbit leaves Ruth and rushes to the hospital.
Janice gives birth to a baby girl, whom she and Rabbit name Rebecca June. Rabbit returns to live with his wife, and accepts a job at his father-in-law's car dealership. Rabbit attends church one morning, and fueled by the flirtatious overtones, she trys to get Rabbit to have sex with her. When he refuses, she slams the door on him. The next morning Janice, while drunk and afraid that Rabbit has left for good, accidentally drowns their infant daughter in the bath. When Rabbit returns for the funeral, he refuses to take the blame for the baby's death, ultimately running away once more. He returns to Ruth and finds her pregnant. She puts forward an ultimatum: file for divorce or she will get an abortion. Unable to make a decision, Rabbit runs away once more, leaving the novel's ending in midair.
Characters in "Rabbit, Run"
- Harry Angstrom, a.k.a. Rabbit, a 26-year-old married man. He was a basketball ace in high school and nows works as a kitchen gadget salesman.
- Miriam Angstrom, Rabbit's 19-year-old sister whom he likes a lot.
- Mr. Angstrom, Rabbit's father.
- Mrs. Angstrom, Rabbit's mother.
- Janice Angstrom, Rabbit's wife. She became pregnant at age 21 and rushed into marriage with Harry. She is an alcoholic and a couch potato, and stupid to Harry's account.
- Nelson Angstrom, Harry's and Janice's 2-year-old son.
- Rebecca June Angstrom, Harry's and Janice's infant daughter. Janice drowns her in a bath while in a drunken stupor.
- Mr. Springer, Janice's father. He works as a used-car salesman.
- Mrs. Springer, Janice's mother. She is harshly critical of Harry when he leaves Janice.
- Jack Eccles, a young Episcopalian minister who tries to mend Harry's and Janice's broken marriage.
- Lucy Eccles, Jack Eccles's wife. She blames the lack of love in her marriage with Jack on his job taking up too much of his time.
- Fritz Kruppenbach, a pompous Lutheran minister.
- Ruth Leonard, Rabbit's mistress with whom he lives for a while. She is a former prostitute and lives alone in an apartment for two people. She is weight-conscious. She lives with Harry for three months.
- Margaret Kosko, a friend of Ruth's. She is contemptuous of Tothero.
- Mrs. Smith, a widow whose garden Rabbit looks after while away from his wife. She is 73 years old.
- Marty Tothero, Rabbit's former basketball coach. He was popular in high school but got dismissed from his job due to a 'scandal'. He cheats on his wife but gives marital advice to Harry. After suffering two strokes, he becomes physically crippled.
- Ronnie Harrison, Rabbit's former basketball nemesis. He has slept with Margaret Kosko and Ruth Leonard.
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References to other works
- Previously, Updike had written a short story entitled Ace In The Hole, and to a lesser extent a poem, Ex-Basketball Player, with similar themes to Rabbit Run.[1]
- Protagonist Rabbit's name was inspired by Beatrix Potter's children story The Tale of Peter Rabbit.[citation needed]
- John Updike said that he wrote Rabbit, Run in response to Jack Kerouac's On the Road, and tried to depict "what happens when a young American family man goes on the road – the people left behind get hurt."[2]
- To a lesser extent, echoes of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye can also be found.[3]
Literary significance
The novel is credited to be one of the first novels to use the present tense in its narration. Updike stated that "in Rabbit, Run, I liked writing in the present tense. You can move between minds, between thoughts and objects and events with a curious ease not available to the past tense. I don't know if it is clear to the reader as it is to the person writing, but there are kinds of poetry, kinds of music you can strike off in the present tense."[4]
Film adaptation
In 1970, the novel was made into a film directed by Jack Smight. The script was co-written by Updike and Howard B. Kreitsek.[5][6] The poster reads, "3 months ago Rabbit Angstrom ran out to buy his wife cigarettes. He hasn't come home yet."[7]
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Trivia
The text of the novel went through several rewrites. Knopf originally required Updike to cut some "sexually explicit passages," but he restored and rewrote the book for the 1963 Penguin edition and again for the 1995 Everyman's omnibus edition.[8]
References
- ^ Interview with John Updike at Penguin Classics
- ^ Interview with John Updike at Penguin Classics
- ^ You Cannot Really Flee: By David Boroff New York Times article, Nov 6, 1960 pg. BR4
- ^ "The Art of Fiction", John Updike
- ^ IMDB page for the film adaptation
- ^ New York Times Movies entry for the film adaptation
- ^ The Internet Movie Poster Awards: Rabbit, Run
- ^ John Updike, "Introduction" to Updike, Rabbit Angstrom: A Tetralogy (New York: Knopf, 1995), p. ix.