Run, Rabbit, Run!

Rabbit, Run by John Updike was not really the book I was expecting. No, it's not a novel akin to Watership Down. It's also not really a story about a running basketball player (the only clue I could glean from my copy of the book). It is, in fact, a book about a man, Rabbit Angstrom, trying to escape his suffocating 1950s suburban life, and not really succeeding.


Readability: It's an easy book to read. My one problem was that parts failed to keep my attention and some descriptions just went on too long.


Enjoyability: This is one of those novels that for the longest time meander about and never seem to get to the point. That being said, I'm still not sure what the point is other than living in the 'burbs sucks, you can never really escape your family and don't go too crazy when you have your quarter life crisis.


Favorite quote(s):
"he knows so well the propulsive power of a wrong, the way a man battles against it and each futile blow sucks the air emptier until it seems the whole frame of blood and bone must burst in a universe that can be such a vacuum."

"You do things and do things and nobody really has a clue."

"What is this? He has a sensation of touching glass. He doesn't know if they are talking about nothing or making code for the deepest meanings."

"...hate suits him better than forgiveness. Immersed in hate, he doesn't have to do anything; he can be paralyzed, and the rigidity of hatred makes a kind of shelter for him."


Favorite character: Rabbit Angstrom. He is an interesting character, and a large part of what makes Updike's writing so good. On the outside Rabbit is a real asshole. He's selfish, abandons his family, treats most people around him like they are below him, is sexist and is generally an all around not so good guy. On this inside though Rabbit isn't so bad. He's trying to do right by everyone, even if he fails miserably at it.


Least favorite character: I don't know that I have one. I hated most of the characters in this book at some point but Updike manages complicate issues to a point where I don't feel that hatred is justified by the end of the book.


Social impact: Apparently this novel was considered pretty racy when it first came out. My copy of the novel states that, "Rabbit, Run is a shocking novel-not only because of its sexual candor, but because it challenges an image of life still cherished in America." I agree with this but apparently people in the 1960s couldn't handle it.


Greatest impact: There's a horrifying scene. You'll know it when you get there. Although, it's written so well that I'm slightly afraid it could happen to me someday...


Recommended for: People who like a good 'ol American Novel. Anti-American novel? Whatever.


Overall: I liked it, though not in the way I expected to. The characters are really well written. Also, Updike is kinda a hottie in this picture. Too bad he's dead...

I know, I said Rabbit, Run was next...but I just had to get this one done. MIDDLEMARCH BY GEORGE ELLIOT

Ooh my god. This book took me almost exactly a year of on-again, off-again, self-inflicted reading to finish. Note to others: do not try to read Middlemarch while you are in the middle of a masters program. Quite honestly, I’m having a difficult time writing this review because I really don’t want to think about this book anymore…we’ll see how well I far I get…also, not so sure I’m going to greenlight this one.

Middlemarch is subtitled A Study of Provincial Life. Now doesn’t that just sound riveting? It is the story of the members of a fictional town in England called Middlemarch in the 1830s. This book has a massive list of characters and covers many, many, subjects, but they’re basically the ones you’d expect from a novel of the time—marriage, the state of women, class, farming, medical practices, inheritance, religious experiences, and political reform. I know, you’re chewing at the bit to read this book. The central characters in Middlemarch are Dorthea Brooke, an idealistic bu,t sometimes foolish, young woman and Doctor Lydgate, a doctor, obviously. For the most part I enjoyed Dorthea’s storyline but not so much Lydgate’s…so there goes half the book.

Readability: The writing is dense, and a bit preachy. There were some sections I would be completely enjoying and then the book would take a nasty turn into the ramblings of old grumpy medical men, or gossip about some character I couldn’t remember. Also, it’s waaaaay too long.

Enjoyability (is that a word?): I’ll say I enjoyed parts of this book. I wish I had my own personal editor who would take out all the unnecessary jaunts into subjects completely unrelated to the storyline. In some books this works, but in this one it was just boring.

Favorite quote(s):

"I would not creep along the coast but steer out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars."

"But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope."

“What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?”

“Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot?”

“If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us.”

Favorite character: Dorthea, the main female protagonist. She makes many bad decisions and is stubborn, idealistic and dog

matic to a fault but her heart is in the right place. From a feminist perspective it bums me out a little bit that this independent woman ends up subordinate to two men and doesn’t end up following her passion

to be a great benefactor to society. Ooh well, the times, the times.

Least favorite character: Mr. Casaubon, Dorthea’s husband. Seriously, this man is horrible. He’s a jealous, suspicious intellectual who never really did anything with his life, and this makes him bitter, understandably so I suppose.

Social impact: A part of this novel that I wish I knew more about, being a political science major and all, were the aspects relating to the reform movement in England. The book takes place at a time when Parliament was in the process of being restructured in England. While I found some of this interesting, it was confusing because the author assumes you know exactly what happened in the movement and, not being an expert in 19^th century British politics, I don’t. It was also written by a woman—something not all that common at the time (thus the pen name).

Greatest impact: Sheer length.

Recommended for: People who want their reading stamina challenged by a novel. Anyone who enjoys 19^th century English romances, think Jane Austen but not as witty and longer. People interested in the English class system, position of women, social relations farming techniques and medical practices.