Superb

Can't recommend this highly enough. So rewarding. Stunning prose and superb narration brought this story vividly to life. Listened to passages over and over. For some reason, I had trouble getting into it at the beginning, but I'm so glad I stuck with it. What a writer John Updike was! My favourite audiobook so far

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deservedly a modern classic

A superb book but re-reading this after many years I was struck by how unflinching a look at American life it is. The crucial "bath" scene thrums with tension and foreboding. Updike is some writer.

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Deeper than it seems

The present tense can make it sound like a series of observations rather than reflections, but it leaves you to do the reflecting, so it stays with you.

Very interesting author's notes.

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1 person found this helpful

Excellent book about a terrible man

William Hope narrates brilliantly as always. Written so beautifully that you almost forget at times just how terrible a person Rabbit is. Incredible prose as you follow a bored and selfish man turn his life and the lives of those around him to shit.

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Excellent narration.

The afterword is especially illuminating on Updike's literary art. The narrator brings the words to life. Perfect performance.

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"Glory Days"

Where does Rabbit, Run rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

In top 25%.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Rabbit, Run?

The description of Rabbit's drive from Pennsylvania to West Virginia.

Which character – as performed by William Hope – was your favourite?

Ruth.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No.

Any additional comments?

It is difficult to believe that “Rabbit, Run” (1960) was only John Updike’s second novel. From the first sentence, he, very unusually in fiction, employs the present tense but such immediacy is combined with a narrative point of view in which Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom’s views are not necessarily Updike’s and Updike’s views are not necessarily Rabbit’s. The views from these blended perspectives do not appear profound, leading the critic, Harold Bloom’s pronouncement that Updike has a major style (which became even more remarkable in the fiction to come over a long career) but a minor subject. Set against this is a view that I’ve heard expressed by readers I know and respect, and who have read the whole run of four Rabbit novels, together with one long story, “Rabbit Remembered”, that Rabbit Angstrom is one of the great American characters, especially in “Rabbit Redux”, to be set alongside Huckleberry Finn, Isobel Archer, Jay Gatsby, Augie March, and so on. Updike, in this version, tells a great story about ordinary, mostly white, lower- and sometimes middle-class Americans, and conveys the lost promise of a nation that, paradoxically, can momentarily be regained.

“Rabbit, Run” can be read as a standalone novel about Harry Angstrom in the very late 1950s, in a dull job and an unhappy marriage but knowing that, “I once did something right. I played first-rate basketball. I really did. And after you're first rate at something, no matter what it kinda takes the kick outa being second rate." The descriptions of Brewer and and its suburb, Mt Judge, and of the almost anonymous roads and roadside outlets that Rabbit encounters on his initial journey from Pennsylvania to West Virginia, are acutely perceptive of mid-twentieth-century Americana and, at the same time, down-to-earth realistic, presumably a consequence of Updike’s dual narrative perspective. A description of a diner and the dinner Rabbit eats outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania is so American, its blankness and yet its attractiveness, and is followed by an account that is much more than a mere account of what he hears on the different radio stations as he drives: songs, news bulletins (“Tibetans battle Chinese Communists in Lhasa … somebody tied with somebody in St Petersburg Open)”.

Moreover, there is a good deal of pain and some scenes of emotional intensity, with a sense, throughout the novel, of things happening and yet staying the same: “Now he is somewhere here”, Rabbit tells himself when a man filling Rabbit’s car with petrol, shortly after he breaks away from his life in Brewer, asks “Where you’re headed?” However, I will have to read the rest of the Rabbit series primarily because I have found it difficult to reach a satisfactory conclusion about Rabbit Angstrom, even one that recognizes his complexity. He is so mixed-up and causes so much damage and yet Updike is so sympathetic to him. I can, of course, appreciate Rabbit’s attractiveness – as I can respond to the evocative qualities of the central character in Bruce Springsteen’s song, “Glory Days”, about a small-town former sports hero. But Rabbit is a complete mess and only occasionally does he show real insight and then, it seems, not in a developmental way, even allowing for the lack of clarity in any life. Insight is there, but intermittently and invariably forgotten, for example, in the description of the home he is deserting: his little boy's broken toy; the closet door that always catches on the television; his and Janice’s sagging bed; the imitation wood-grain furniture. Here, the details tell against Rabbit's actions, particularly Nelson's broken toy, but they are fascinating more in their own right than in a larger context.

It should be acknowledged that Updike – influenced, as he confirms, by James Joyce’s “Ulysses” – includes indirect monologues by women characters, Janice and Ruth. These are, for me, entirely persuasive and reveal Rabbit’s behavior for what it is but what is odd is that Updike seems not to allow Rabbit to be as informed as we are, and the structure of the novel, suggest that Updike regards Janice and Ruth’s insights as less significant.

The least interesting aspect of “Rabbit, Run” are the sex-scenes, though these were sufficiently controversial at the time for Updike’s publisher to insist on some editing. The edits were later restored. Yet, one description of a sex scene is still remarkable, mostly for how long the description continues.

In case it seems that I have given away the ending, I should say that Rabbit’s flight south occurs near the start of the novel, as though Updike is reacting to the be-all-and-end-all driving that is at the heart of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” of 1957). Now for Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit is Rich(1981) and Rabbit at Rest (1990).

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12 people found this helpful

Superb narrator

If you could sum up Rabbit, Run in three words, what would they be?

insightful,absorbing,memorable

What was one of the most memorable moments of Rabbit, Run?

Rabbit meeting up with his old coach

What does William Hope bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

he bring the characters to life - in all their variety - without caricature.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No - I wanted to savour the language and William Hope's performance.

Any additional comments?

I wish more English people would read Updike. There is a richness, complexity and understanding of human nature that is particular to Updike's handling of the medium.
Film feels like a smaller medium after reading Updike(and Bellow).

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6 people found this helpful

Hard to get started but glad I did.

I have previously read Couples and some short stories. Admire the writing. I have to rate the
narrator very highly. He was so good - he had to
do a number of different voices -he did it well
and he had a real feel for writing.

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2 people found this helpful

Classic

A beautifully written story introducing us to Rabbit, a character to love and hate. The narrator really brings it to life.

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Wow this book is horrible!

Got to be the hardest listen I have encountered. Why have I given it 4 stars you may ask? The writing is so poetic, it's impossible to stop listening to, I hate this book - I really do, but it is so beautifully written. I never want to come into contact with this book ever again. I truly hate it. And that is the point of the story - the human condition is so depressing.
The narration is frightening in its Americana esque perfection. To sum up, it's brilliant writing - I'm suffering!

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4 people found this helpful