John Updike: Rabbit is Rich
Paul Parnell
May 25, 2012
John Updike was born in 1932 in a small town outside of Shillington Pennsylvania. His
parents were both teachers by trade, but his mother quickly left teaching to become an inspiring
writer and was responsible for planting the idea of Updike future career path in his mind.
Updike’s maternal grandparents, and by extension his parents, were socially well off before the
depression hit. After the depression, the Updikes were of limited means, and like many families
his father had to work multiple jobs to keep food on the table. But Updike, by his own
admission, did not want for anything, as he had the conventional toys of the day such as a
Schwinn bicycle, Flexible Flyer sled, and a Jimmy Foxx fielder’s glove.
As a child, Updike was an obedient student who never understood why the other students,
particularly those in his father’s classes, would want to rebel against their teachers (Updike
likewise didn’t understand why people could be critical of the US involvement in Vietnam and
said as much in a letter to the New York Times, a position he was widely criticized for by his
fellow writers). Updike was driven to succeed by what he perceived as society’s disrespect of
his father --- the low salary, his students disrespect, and his multiple jobs, and his family name
which always caused a snicker at the word “Updike”. In Updike’s mind, the only way to avenge
these societal ills was for him to leave Pennsylvania. And so, after graduating as valedictorian of
his high school class, Updike went to Harvard on a full scholarship where he graduated summa
cum laude, and then to Oxford for a year where he studied drawing and fine art.
Since he was 6 years old, Updike struggled with psoriasis, a skin condition he inherited
from his mother. His skin condition, though easily managed with exposure to sunlight and rarely
a source of ridicule from his peers, had a profound effect on Updike. In his memoirs he claims
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to have married his first wife prior to his graduation from Harvard because “having once found a
comely female who forgave [him of his] skin, [he] dared not risk losing her and trying to find
another.” Once married, he began having kids so that he could surround himself with people
without psoriasis (psoriasis is inherited from the mother).
While in England, Updike’s skin condition worsened due to the lack of sun. In fact,
when he left England his skin condition had deteriorated to the point that Updike failed his draft
examination and he was denied his papers into the Army. Not being able to join the Army,
Updike went to New York, where he took a job at the New Yorker.
In 1957, after two years as
a contributor to the New Yorker, Updike left his job for Ipswich Massachusetts where the sunny
beaches cured his skin condition and he would be free to write full time.
After leaving the New Yorker, Updike began his career as an author in earnest, a career
in which he would write more than fifty books, including collections of short stories, poems,
essays, and criticism. Although influenced by Proust and Ulysses, Updike was primarily
influenced by James Thurber, J.D. Salinger, and English novelist Henry Green. His novels won
the Pulitzer Prize (twice), the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the
Rosenthal Award, and the Howells Medal. Also, a collection of essays, Hugging the Shore,
received the 1983 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.
Updike is perhaps best known for his Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom series of novels: Rabbit,
Run, published in 1960, Rabbit Redux, published in 1971, Rabbit is Rich, published in 1981, and
Rabbit at Rest, published in 1990. Although Updike had success outside the Rabbit series, he
won the National Book Award for The Centar, Updike won all three major literary awards for
Rabbit is Rich: the Pulitzer Prize, The National Book Award, and the National Book Critics
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Circle Award, and later Rabbit at Rest won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics
Circle Award.
After winning the National Book Award in 1981, Updike said he “felt that not only was
he being given a prize, but that a prize was being given to the idea of trying to write a novel
about a more-or-less average person in a more-or-less average household. That vindicated one of
his articles of faith since his beginnings as a writer: that mundane daily life in peacetime is
interesting enough to serve as the stuff of fiction. “
Growing up, Updike accompanied his father to basketball games and was exposed to the
heroics --- and inevitable fall from grace --- of high school basketball stars. Through this
experience, Updike created his everyman, Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a former high school
basketball star who could never replicate in life the success he had on the basketball court.
Rabbit, an uneducated tradesman, provided the prism through which Updike could tell the story
of America and everyday people, a story he himself, a Harvard educated writer, could not tell.
And so the Rabbit series became Updike’s running report of American society from the late
Fifties through the 1980’s, with each book being written at the end of a decade and published at
the begging of the next.
Updike did not originally set out to write four novels. Instead, Rabbit Run was his
response to Jack Kerouac’s On The Raod; an intended demonstration of what happens when a
young man goes on the road: the people left behind get hurt. It was during the time between
Rabbit Redux and Rabbit is Rich that Updike began to plan four completed novels that make up
the complete series. Each novel is longer than the previous, a sign, according to Updike, of his
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and Rabbit’s maturity.
As an aside, the more graphic language of Rabbit, Run, written during
the Beat Generation, was removed by the editors over concerns with the ongoing obscenity trials.
Although it may be hard to believe, Rabbit is Rich is the happiest of the four novels.
Unlike the other three novels where the reader is confronted with a jarring death, no one dies in
this novel, and in fact the plot, to the extent one exists, is about Nelson and Pru, and the birth of
Judith, the daughter Rabbit always wanted. Also the story contains scenes distinctly broad in
their comedy and delight, from Janice and Rabbit copulating on a bed of gold, to an unexpected
wedding half way through the novel, and the golf joke that no one cares to hear. But like all of
the Rabbit novels, Rabbit is Rich is an exploration of Updike’s views on the terror and pleasure
of sex, marriage, adultery, and parenthood all told through contemporary American life.
Updike concluded the Rabbit series with Rabbit at Rest in 1990. He decided to end the
series then because he, like Rabbit who was a few years older than himself, began to doubt his
own vitality and he was afraid that he only had a limited amount of time in which to write a
fitting conclusion to his mega novel. Though fearing for his death in the late 80’s, Updike fared
better than Rabbit and lived until January 2009, when he died at the age of 76.
Updike suggested that Rabbit is Rich is really a story about Pru’s pregnancy and Rabbit’s
coming to grips with his new placed in life as a grandfather, but the prize winning story, at least
in my mind, lies in the relationships Updike carefully crafts for us through his descriptive prose
and the way he is able to use those relationships to tell his uniquely American story.
Rabbit and Janice
It is apparent early on that Rabbit and Janice have anything but a loving marriage. From
Rabbit running from Janice before and after the birth of their daughter in Rabbit, Run, to the
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affairs chronicled in Rabbit Redux, in Rabbit is Rich, Rabbit and Janice have reached the point
of convenience where there is no longer a need, or maybe there is no longer the ability, to run
from each other or a need to be with someone else.
Throughout the novel, Updike reveals
Rabbit’s bitterness towards Janice for the death of their daughter, and the fact that everyone,
including Nelson, blames him for her death. There are several instances where Rabbit states that
Janice killed his daughter, and throughout the novel Rabbit contemplates emotional or physical
harm to Janice.
Rabbit obviously wants to leave Janice, “but he hadn’t left her, and now cannot. She is
his fortune.” In fact, that is all Janice is to Rabbit: his job, his country club life, and his vacations
to the Poconos. This lack of a meaningful female relationship creates an obvious void in Rabbits
life, a void that he tries to fill by chasing after his suspected daughter and Ruth. But Rabbit can’t
leave for them because were he to leave, he would have to give up all of material things and he is
simply not willing to do that.
Although Janice had her affair with Charlie, we really don’t get the sense that Janice has
the same level of spite towards Rabbit as he has towards her. When Rabbit returns from his runs
waiting for his heart to explode, Janice seems genuinely concerned for his health. Of course,
rather than acknowledge her compassion, Rabbit comments that “ that’s part of the fun, giving
her a scare, poor mutt what would she do without him, have to give up the Flying Eagle and
everything, go back to selling nuts in Kroll’s.” Also, after the return from their Caribbean
vacation, it is clear that Janice harbors ill will towards Thelma, even though Rabbit does not
harbor such feelings towards Webb.
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That’s not to say Janice adores Rabbit and is the subservient house wife she promised to
be long ago in Rabbit Run. Instead, she often stands up to Rabbit, particularly on matters
involving Nelson and the family business.
Rabbit was against Nelson moving home with
Melanie and was against Nelson working at the dealership, and yet Nelson wound up doing both
at Janice’s direction. And don’t forget, Janice was not crying about Nelson on the return from
their shortened Caribean vacation.
Again, when looking at the relationship of Rabbit and Janice, it is obvious that it is one of
convenience. Their marriage has always been propped up by the Springer’s who, for whatever
reason, have always supported Janice and Rabbit by providing them a home, and when Mr.
Springer died, a 50% ownership interest in the business. Rabbit and Janice only married because
Janice was pregnant with Nelson, and they are only married now because they have both become
complacent with their place in life. Rabbit, who is always looking for a way out, feels trapped
and resents Janice because of it. Not surprising, this resentment extends to Nelson.
Rabbit and Nelson
As the foundation of Rabbit’s unhappy marriage with Janice, it is easy to understand
Rabbit’s strained relationship with Nelson. At the beginning of the novel, Rabbit was at peace,
selling cars and playing golf, and drinking gin at the Flying Eagle. But then Nelson came home
with Melanie and screwed everything up; Rabbit’s balanced life was thrown completely out of
whack.
Rabbit did not want Nelson to move home, but he would eventually tell Janice “I like
having Nelson in the house,” “It’s great to have an enemy. Sharpens your senses.” And though
Nelson’s strong similarities to Rabbit are apparent to everyone else, Rabbit adamantly proclaims
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that Nelson is Springer through and through. Nelson is shorter than Rabbit and never was the
basketball star Rabbit once was. Also, Nelson is a freeloader, not a hard worker like the
Angstroms (not Rabbit, but his parents; he is of course a free loader just like Nelson, but never
appreciates the similarity).
Nelson similarly dislikes his father. When Updike switches narrators, we learn that
Nelson thinks his father is “so smug and satisfied.” When discussing the death of Becca and Jill
with Pru, he says “If I could just once make him see himself for the shit he is, I maybe could let
it go.” Nelson later says “Why doesn’t Dad just die? People that age get diseases.” Rabbit
caused a lot of pain for Nelson when he was growing up, but ironically, it is Nelson who is by his
father’s side when the end is near.
Rabbit and Nelson’s relationship is further strained by all of Nelson’s mistake – wrecking
all of the cars, dropping out of college, getting Pru pregnant -- and by his intrusion into the car
business at the expense of Rabbit’s only friend, Charlie Stavros. When Nelson decides to run
back to Ohio, Rabbit is upset, not for Pru and Judith, but because his vacation and his chance
with Cindy are cut short.
Rabbit was so close to the woman he wanted, but Nelson yet again
found a way to ruin it for Rabbit.
But despite their strained relationship, there are times in the book where Rabbit tries, at
least in his way, to be a father and Rabbit and Nelson’s father – son moments provide some of
the most interesting insights in the book. Rabbit tries to convince Nelson that Pru should have an
abortion and when that doesn’t work he tries to convince him to not marry her. Nelson of course
rebuffs his father’s advice on the premise that he is somehow better than him. But like his father,
Nelson ends up running away from Pru just as Rabbit had run from Janice (he, like his father is
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constantly running). Also, the scene at the car dealership where Nelson reacts to Rabbits
disapproval of his business venture into convertibles by wrecking the convertibles is one of the
more gripping moments of the novel that illustrates the dysfunction of their relationship and the
serious emotional problems that have resulted from Rabbit’s shortcomings as a father.
Arguably, Rabbit realizes, but is unwilling to admit, that he and Nelson are one and the
same. Like Rabbit, Nelson is looking to live at home with his parents and get a direct jump into
the family business. And like Rabbit, who has always been supported by the Springers, Nelson
looks to Ma Springer to support him and is family. But after looking at the similarities between
the two of them, it seems obvious that Rabbit’s dislike of Nelson is really an extension of his
dislike for himself.
Rabbit
To me, Rabbit and his struggles with what he has become – a far cry from his glory days
as a high school basketball star – and his own mortality is Updike’s greatest accomplishment in
the novel. By all accounts, Rabbit is a selfish, vile person, with no perception of the world
around him and the havoc and destruction his selfishness has brought on others. Other than
consumer reports, he really has no care for the news or what is happening in the world (by his
own admission he only occasionally reads the newspaper) or what is going on in anyone else’s
life. Instead, his only concerns in life are sex, golf, and material possessions, his cars, gold, and
silver. Yet for some unexplainable reason, I found myself rooting for him throughout the book.
As the book opens, we are introduced to Rabbit as a man in his late 40’s, with his youth
long behind him and he, like the rest of America, seemingly running out of gas. Despite Rabbit’s
successful Toyota dealership, country club membership, and gold coins, Rabbit is anything but
rich. His best, and arguably only friend, Charlie had an affair with Janice and can hardly be
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considered a true friend. His business is in fact controlled by Ma Springer and Rabbit is only
there to have something to do with his time. Rabbit’s country club life at the Flying Eagle is
hardly anything to envy, as his companions are similarly selfish, vile, and disinterested people.
And worst of all, Rabbit has a son who seems to only be good at wrecking his cars and disrupting
his life.
Rabbit is also constantly haunted by those who have predeceased him and it is clear that
he is beginning to contemplate, and in some instances look forward to, his own death. When
going on a run in the Pocanos, Rabbit thinks about “Becky a mere seed laid to rest, and Jill, a
pale seedling held from the sun, hang in the earth, he imagines, like stars, and beyond them there
are myriads, whole races like the Cambodians, that have drifted into death. He is treading on
them all, they are resilient, they are cheering him on, his lungs are burning, his heart hurts, he is a
membrane removed from the hosts below, their filaments caress his ankles, he loves the earth, he
will never make their mistake and die.”
As Rabbit continues to feel trapped in his life, however, his perception of mortality
changes. When Nelson begins smashing the convertibles, Rabbits “thinks the boy might now
aim to crush him against the door where he is paralyzed but that is not the case.” Afterwards,
Updike describes “these strange awkward blobs of joy bobbing in Harry’s chest. Oh what a
feeling.”
Later, when Rabbit has again ventured out to Ruth’s place to spy on the family he wishes
he had only to once again run at the risk of being discovered, Updike writes “the thing inside his
chest feeling fragile and iridescent like a big soap bubble. Let it pop. He hasn’t felt so close to
breaking out of his rut since Nelson smashed those convertibles.”
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Rabbit is in a rut. When he is at Webb’s house one night drinking with his other Flying
Eagle friends, he is terrified by the image he sees in the mirror: himself. But rather than try to
dig himself out, Rabbit digs deeper. He orchestrates a group trip to the Caribbean and ultimately
convinces Janice that they need to buy their own house so that they can entertain their friends. As
only Rabbit can do, his selfish pursuits only serve to make things worse for him.
When Rabbit is finally reunited with Ruth, we are once again reminded of the harm
Rabbit caused by his selfishness. Ruth’s visceral reaction to the sight of Rabbit is expected, but
the fact that she lets him stay in her home is also expected: there was always something about
Rabbit --- maybe it’s the high school basketball star in him that attracted her to him in the first
place – that keeps her from dismissing him. Seeing Ruth and photographs of her family, Rabbit
is envious of the life she has had as compared to his own. And despite Ruth’s insistence to the
contrary, he is convinced that Annabelle is his daughter.
As the novel closes, Rabbit is back in his rut, except now Nelson is back at school and
out of his dealership and he has the female companion he has always longed for – his new
granddaughter. As the book closes, Updike writes “Fortune’s hostage, heart’s desire, a
granddaughter. His. Another nail in his coffin. His.
Conclusion
Again, I believe the novel is really about the relationships that have developed over time,
not a centralized plot. Updike started the Rabbit series to show the pain caused by a husband
going on the road, and in many ways he continues that trend by showing us Rabbit’s
dysfunctional relationships with his wife, child, and himself, and the ever deepening rut he finds
himself in, which can all be traced back to his decision to run away from Janice. And so the
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Rabbit series, taken as a whole over four decades, really functions as a sad tale of a self centered
man who will never find happiness.
Discussion Points:
The book is successful, at least in my mind, because Updike is able to use the various
relationships to created a snap shot of American history.
Is the story really about Pru and the birth of Judith, or is it more about Rabbit coming to
grips with his place in life as a middle aged man?
Ma Springer, and the Springer family in general, really is the enabler that allowed Rabbit
to become what he has become. You get the sense that things would have been different, and
possibly better, had Rabbit stayed with Ruth.
Atypical of Updike, but Religion only plays a small part in Rabbit is Rich, and that is
mostly through Nelson.