Rabbit, Run by John Updike
(1960)
Recommended by Dan
So tall, he seems an unlikely rabbit, but the breadth of
the white face, the pallor of his blue irises, and a nervous flutter under his
brief nose as he stabs a cigarette into his mouth partially explain the
nickname.
As I type, I’m on the sofa
at the house Dan shares with Jude. I purposefully wanted to read Rabbit, Run this week; having liberated
myself from the project’s alphabetical order, I thought it would be fitting to
experience John Updike’s work while hanging out with the man whose favourite
book it is.
I’ve been staying with
Jude and Dan for a week. Here I am with Poppy, who lives with them (she’s my favourite
cat! Any excuse for a photo).
As it turned out, Dan and
I didn’t get much of a chance to talk on it. At the start of the week, and at
the start of my reading, I told him that it was brilliantly written, and that I found it very unforgiving. (‘But
that’s okay,’ I added).
I’ve known Dan for a long
time, and how I’ve related to him has evolved a lot. In my late teens, he was
the friend of a boyfriend; in my twenties, part of the ‘North London set’ of
people in bands who were always at the pub; from my later twenties onwards, Jude’s partner and then husband. It’s strange, but until
recently I’d seen Dan primarily through the lens of other people. That's changed over the last couple of years. Satisfying,
now, to be clear-eyed, and to have my own unique friendship with him.
Dan is a fantastic
musician and, like Dave, is in the awesome The Drink; he was also in Fighting Kites, Michaelmas and, many years ago, Adekola Sound. I feel I have a lot to learn
from him about experimental music, minimalism, and modern classical. As I’ve pointed out before, I tend to generalise the whole thing as an impenetrable
slab of cold marble, yet this week he played me Oren Ambarchi’s ‘Grapes From
The Estate’ and the emotional appeal of it was plain as day to me. Maybe next
time I look after Poppy I’ll turn off the internet, needle-drop Dan’s records,
and binge on the impressive pile of The
Wire magazines.
Rabbit, Run seems to be one of the Two Readers books that quite a lot of
friends have already read, and most not only had an opinion on it but an
opinion on how I might receive it. Most thought I’d admire it, but that I might
not like it too much.
Hard-hearted: the word seems to clatter after them as
they climb the stairs to the second floor.
Indeed, the word seems to
clatter after the whole of the novel. Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom is an unpleasant
man who, in his lack of compassion for others, borders on the sociopathic. In
the most famous line of the novel, Rabbit declares that if you have the guts to
be yourself, other people will pay your price.
Guts to be yourself. Guts.
That word in itself asserts what I found so incredibly impressive in Rabbit, Run's
characterisation. Rabbit believes that ‘being yourself’ (in his definition, indulging your
own drives and damning the consequences) stems from an inner honesty and not from selfishness. He sees the world
as rabbit-eat-rabbit, and if others aren’t prepared to cannibalise or be cannibalised,
then it’s their own lookout. He has nothing but contempt for them.
‘Forgive me. I’m in a very depressed mood.’
There’s nothing exactly wrong with his saying this, but
it rubs Harry’s inner hair the wrong way. It kind of clings. It says, Pity me. Love me.
Why is he like this? The
psychology in Rabbit, Run is subtly
explored. Rabbit was, once, a basketball prodigy, of whom great things were
expected. Now he’s demonstrating a kitchen mod-con called the MagiPeel. There
comes a point in all our lives where we stop having ‘potential’ and have to
actually deliver on it. If we don’t, the feeling is excruciating. Rabbit isn’t
one for lengthy oh-poor-me soliloquies; instead, he expresses his frustration at
underachievement in a far less sympathetic way. The book is called Rabbit, Run because that’s what he does.
Nothing – not a job, friends, home, marriage, fatherhood – is for life. Rabbit is never
able to withdraw his foot from its default position, that of wedging open the
escape hatch.
Janice, his pregnant wife,
is a constant reminder to Rabbit of how he isn’t living the life he wants. She is an alcoholic and a sloth, but with a sadness that is clear to the reader. Rabbit
ignores, is ignorant of, or is simply uncaring about the reasons that may
underlay Janice’s behaviour. At the start of the book, he leaves her.
‘I’m not that interested in her. I was, but I’m not.’
Ouch. When long-term
relationships break down, whether we are the dumper, dumpee, or at some more
mutual point on the spectrum, we’d like to believe it nobler than the simple
dulling effect of monotony. How many of us just think, ‘I’m sick of looking at
your face each morning, because all it does it get older and tireder and less
attractive?’ Far, far, far more of us than would ever admit it, I’d wager.
And what do we do when we
think this? Often, like Rabbit, we run, run to someone new, even if it’s only
in our heads. Rabbit runs to Ruth, a more obviously sexual being than Janice.
He doesn’t change his behaviour very much.
He repeats, ‘Did I?’ and pinches her arm, hard. He
hadn’t meant to do it so hard; something angered him at the touch of her skin.
The sullen way it yielded.
‘Ow.
You son of a bitch.’
Still she lies there, paying more attention to the sun
than him. He gets up on an elbow and looks across her dead body to the lighter
figures of two sixteen-year-olds standing sipping orange crush from cardboard
cones.
I didn’t like Rabbit (but
then I doubt you’re meant to). But I didn’t hate him, either. I both admired and
detested his unbridled id and part of me, a very small but very honest part, recognises
in him something of my own questionable past behaviour. But, right there,
that’s the difference between Rabbit and I: I am, at least, a little bit
ashamed of it.
A criticism levelled at
Updike is that he was an unapologetic misogynist (this Guardian piece is fairly
typical of the arguments). Updike’s treatment of women reminded me of my
favourite laugh-a-minute playwright, August Strindberg, who was also frequently
labelled as a big ol’ sexist. In Rabbit,
Run, as in (e.g.) Miss Julie, women
are equally complex and shitty as men, although patriarchal society moulds them
into a different complexity and shittiness. This includes affecting the pose of
victim, which both Ruth and Janice do, at points. Depressing, yes, sexist… I
didn’t experience it as such. It was perfectly in line with Updike’s angry
critique of interpersonal relationships and his brutal frankness about how
people take advantage of the power handed to them. Nowhere was this more
obvious than in the book’s disturbing scene of sexual coercion. I consider Rabbit, Run a depiction of misogyny,
while not being misogynist in itself.
The final section of the
book was a rather different beast to all this, and absolutely magnificent. If
you want to avoid a spoiler, stop reading now, but I feel I can’t discuss Rabbit, Run without revealing and
praising the treatment of this plot point. Janice and Rabbit’s baby daughter
dies as a result of parental neglect. The guilt, blame, shock, grief, and
community response that follows her death drips with profound desolation, while
never once threatening melodrama.
The coffin, with handles of painted gold, rests on a
platform draped with a deep purple curtain; he thinks the curtain might draw
apart and reveal, like a magician’s trick, the living baby underneath.
I would have, I’m sure,
applauded Rabbit, Run even had it not taken
this very intense turn. However, it is this that really does push it into the
realm of great achievement. It is an unflinching, uncensorious, unkind, undeniable,
masterpiece.
