Rabbit Redux by John Updike

Rabbit Redux by John Updike
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This a strange book. It takes place in the 1960s, and Rabbit is racist and misogynistic, like a lot of people were/are in real life. Rabbit experiences some growth on the racist front, though Rabbit is so flawed that it's very incomplete. I noticed no growth on his misogynism. More importantly, on the racial front, Updike’s writing is grotesque, even apart from and independently of the inner workings of his the character of Rabbit. I'm not a fan of striking books because they're out-of-date (as this one surely is) because we need to look at what seemed normal in a particular time period to understand where we are now. We are still deeply flawed now, and we need to examine why we've come such a small distance in the last 60 years.

The plot mostly creeped me out and seemed overly outlandish. The description of the book above calls it "sexy" and it's the opposite of sexy. All the sex scenes are sad and horrible to me.

Updike is a really good writer and there's a lot of good writing in this big flawed book. I liked the first book better, though I've heard some people say this is their favorite of the set. I can't say I actually enjoyed this one.

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Rabbit, Run by John Updike

Rabbit, Run by John Updike
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow, this is the most amazing writing about the worst male character, Rabbit. Talk about anti-hero! Rabbit is a misogynist, but that's not even his biggest problem. And Updike comes down pretty hard on his creation.

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The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike

The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked the writing in this one better than the first one- less flowery. I also thought that this one by showing the ways in which the women did and didn't change over the years, solidified that Updike really knew who they were. Regarding this, I think reviewers are unfair to Updike in his character not being feminist creations. I don't think reviewers would be so aghast if the author were a woman (but possibly a little). Yes, these aren't morally inspirational women, but neither are they the same evil cartoon of a person. They are three very unique and developed characters. Everybody has at least a bit of a dark side, these women are witches, so obviously they going to be darker, but they are unique and dark in different ways. And without Daryl in this one, there is no element of being manipulated by outside forces in this one. Which is, at a minimum, empowering.

The aging perspective of the characters is interesting and realistic. They seem very much of their time. (Though this point gets boring sometimes- I didn't really need to read about Sukie complaining about computers like every grandma on the planet.) I can definitely relate to Suzanne's daughter and her relationship with her mom Suzanne.

That said, the story was less interesting or maybe just less fun than the first. I know that's not a fair reason to give it less stars, but there it is.

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The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike

The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved the movie and I watched it several times, but I didn't realize it was based on a novel by John Updike for many years. And then it took me a few more years to think that it was probably different than the movie. It is remarkably similar in some places in the beginning- and Jack Nickelson did an amazing job capturing Daryl VanHorn. Susan Sarandon also did an amazing job being Jane, but the Alexandra (Cher) and Suki (Michelle Pfiffer) character are fairly different.

The prose is very embellished, wordy, and poetic. The story itself has a totally different point and thrust. The novel is amoral in a way the movie is not, and it's far more gruesome. In the novel, the wrong-doing of the witches, or people in general, is equated to acts of nature. It's different- but also it's not different. Aren't we over the conversation about whether people are just amoral animals? There's even research that some animals such as primates have some moral understanding of their own. We're not going to shrug off our responsibilities so easily.

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