Author: John Updike
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 264
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication Date: August 28, 1996; Originally in 1960
ISBN-13: 9780449911655
About the book
Rabbit, Run is the book that established John
Updike as one of the major American novelists of his—or any other—generation.
Its hero is Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a onetime high-school basketball star who
on an impulse deserts his wife and son. He is twenty-six years old, a man-child
caught in a struggle between instinct and thought, self and society, sexual
gratification and family duty—even, in a sense, human hard-heartedness and
divine Grace. Though his flight from home traces a zigzag of evasion, he holds
to the faith that he is on the right path, an invisible line toward his own
salvation as straight as a ruler’s edge.
My Review
I love reading very much, and if left to my own devices I
would not pick up this book. The reading of this book came, because it is
required reading for my college class. That being said, I found it interesting.
Things that I
liked: Within the pages of this story I find that the characters are
portrayed as if they were real human beings. What I mean is that they didn’t
seem like a character created just for the story. These characters seemed
life-like. They had issues that could and can happen in real life. At different
parts within the story the language, the dialogue, the way things were
described throughout was thought provoking. It made me things about things that
were going on within their lives and I tried to imagine what I would do in each
character’s shoes with the different situations. I really like how John Updike
was able to capture the character’s lives and create a story that someone,
anyone could relate to when reading the story.
Things that I didn’t
like: I really had a hard time getting into this story. The book was only
264 pages which in a normal reading day for me I would be able to finish this
within hours, but this book for some reason just fought me the whole way on
being read. There were moments where I couldn’t even get past two pages, and I
was falling asleep. The descriptions frustrated me a little bit when it came to
the characters. I couldn’t really get a clear picture on what they looked like.
There were also the characters themselves and some of their actions. But I
eventually got into the story and finished reading it, and then it was over.
The book ended.
Overall: I
would say that it was an okay read; it was interesting to read something that
was written before my time. I will have to read this again at a later date to
fully understand the story and it’s meaning within the modernism and post
modernism aspects. I look forward to reading other classics in the future.
