The writing is undoubtedly very sophisticated - perhaps overly mannered - and the subject - a failing marriage - was gloomy. My first Updike - not my last, but I won't rush to read the next one. ( )

Blech ( )

Updike's Rabbit series kept me interested, reading about characters unlike people I'd had experience with. ( )

I found this a slightly frustrating book because a bit like a second-rate school band, although it occasionally threatened to become something beautiful, at each chance it failed to hold the note. The two main problems are a protagonist who is hard to relate to, and the unhelpful passage of years. I guess the author can only be blamed for the former, but it's a big problem.

Rabbit Angstrom's motivations are never clear or interesting, and he never confronts his problems with any kind of energy or intellect. His obvious over-attachment to his successful school days quickly becomes annoying, as he is totally unable to even acknowledge it and begin the path toward building a life.

I guess, in a way, this might relate to the fact that the book hasn't dated well. There was a time when the mere suggestions that the American Dream wasn't quite enough for some people was heretical enough to gain an author a reputation as a literary figure. However, time has provided much sharper critiques of the American Dream, and revealed that even in the early sixties more insight could be found in the work of, for instance, the Beats or Richard Yates than in this novel.

However, the novel is well written, with a confident style and some beautiful observations, such as in this passage, which refers to Rabbit revisiting the streets he grew up in, "The houses, many of them no longer lived in by the people whose faces he all knew, are like the houses in a town you see from the train, their brick faces stern in posing the riddle, Why does anyone live here?" It is also occasionally overwritten, particularly in the breathless passages that try to emulate a stream of consciousness.

Overall, it's promising enough to make me want to read more by Updike, considering his reputation, but not quite my cup of tea in the end.

( )

I'm figuring this book would hit different if I read it in 1962 or even 1992, but 2022 it was. So I guess, a lot of details in describing the town and the plot, so it was easy to envision the characters and plot, but not exactly a bunch of folks distinguishing themselves.