Rabbit Comes to His Final Rest

John Updike died yesterday of cancer at the age of 76. I think most people would agree, along with Mailer and Bellow, he was a titan of 20th century American literature. I first got to know him through the Rabbit series of books: "Rabbit, Run,” 1960; “Rabbit Redux,” 1971; “Rabbit Is Rich,” 1981; and “Rabbit at Rest,” 1990. They chronicled the life Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom from high school basketball star to car salesman, householder, husband and father. Each book was a very real reflection of the times. The first book saw Harry growing up in the 50's and coming of age in a more innocent time. In "Redux" he starts a family and works at a job he hates while the counter culture and Vietnam war rage around him. In "Rich," we see him hit middle age at a time of excess and the wall street mentality "greed is good." And finally in "Rest" Harry faces his decline. Luckily I did not have to wait ten years for each book to come out. By the time I found the series we were already in the mid-80's and I had a short wait to close out the story.

What I appreciate about these books is how real his writing was and how perfectly he captured a simple life and put it in the sweeping context of its time. This is of course a well imitated storyline now, but Updike was an original. My love of these books was hard to reconcile with some of his other writing. I usually found it very hard to get through his criticism and reviews in the New Yorker. In fact I often avoided reading him so as not to turn me off the book he was reviewing. I only ever saw one interview with him, and I found him thoroughly engaging. He was a great man and he will be missed.