And yet I've managed to live in this state 23 years without hearing a single thing about him. Kind of like my stunned realizations that Walt Whitman lived in New Jersey and Poe had a house in Philly. Also amazing is that he wrote "Rabbit, Run" when he was 28.
I took a break from 1800s Russia and revisited 1960s/80s America with "Beloved" by Toni Morrison and "Rabbit, Run" by Mr. Updike, both of which were listed by the New York Times as the best fiction of the past 25 years. They sort of cheated by including the Rabbit 'series'.
Briefly on "Beloved" - it scared the crap out of me at several points (ghost story) and was extremely shocking at others (chain gangs, Sweet Home) but overall I enjoyed Morrison's voice and especially the dialogue. Favorite character = Stamp Paid. I'd like to read one of her novels set in more modern times.
"Rabbit Run" was also shocking, but mostly at the selfishness of Harry Angstrom. This book was on my good ol' canon list. It actually reminded me of the movie "American Beauty" if it happened to a guy half Kevin Spacey's age and forty years earlier. Even more relevant, "Revolutionary Road" with a gender role reversal. Which brings up the weirdest thing about this book - I kept envisioning Harry and Janice as a middle-aged couple, even though they were like mid-twenties. Possibly because most mid-twenties people I know today don't have a family and a house.
Updike succeeds in capturing the essence of domestic discontent and restlessness (Rabbit runs .. constantly) and managed to do this in such a way that a situation written in 1961 is still equally true today. I'm not sure if that speaks to the quality of the writing or the lack of quality in American family life. Probably both. It's horrific visions like these that lurk in the back of my mind, and probably in the mind of any twentysomething approaching that invisible line between eligible single and old maid. The trendy thing to do is travel abroad for a few months ... and hopefully it's more successful than Harry driving to the Gulf.
Bottom line is: Updike was able to capture a particular American truth (if that's the word?) in "Rabbit, Run", and I enjoy being surprised when I see the copyright date.
Things that finally happened:
- watched "Last Year at Marienbad" and "Muriel" by Alain Resnais (more on that later)
- started reading through Kundera's "Encounter"
