Fading
gently towards the venue for the November meeting, as from a gentle
three wood, the scribe arrived a little late on a cold night with frost
on the ground. However, the small group that waited in the living room
soon generated a heated discussion. It was Thanksgiving, so the choice
of an American novel seemed fully justified.
The proposer
introduced the author, John Updike, and the book, “Rabbit is Rich”, one
of a tetralogy telling the story of Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom from 1960
to 1990 (with a sequel to form a pentology in 2001). Updike was very
prolific, having moved from ‘Rabbit’ country in Shillington,
Pennsylvania to Harvard, Oxford, the New Yorker and so to a full time,
and very distinguished writing career, winning many major literary
prizes. The proposer cited modernism as an important influence on his
style, and suggested that his early concentration on poetry was also
clear in his writing, as for example in the superb metaphors in
‘Rabbit’. For example, “He can’t take his eyes off this girl….The
milky flecked shoulders, the dent of flesh where the halter strap digs.
Squeeze her and you’d leave thumbprints, she’s that fresh from the oven”
or “[Pop’s] emphysema just got too bad and you’d find him sitting in a
small chair all curled over like a hand sheltering a guttering candle
flame from the wind.”
The unusual,
possibly unique (according to the proposer) device was that every ten
years Updike imagined how his characters developed over the last decade.
As well as the characters being ten years older, the novelist is ten
years older, America is ten years older. This counter-pointing gives the
telling of the story of a life, and the story of the development of a
nation, unusual depth, richness and complexity.
Those
assembled discussed the uniqueness of this approach. Certainly there are
many book series where the character ages (Sunset Song was mentioned),
but not concurrently with the author. One member struggled to recall a
film trilogy that used the same device, the actors and director aging
with the text but no-one else had a Scooby. (Editor: that would be
Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013)
with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, Director Richard Linklater, obviously
after the Rabbit novels.) Ultimately, it is doesn’t really matter.
The proposer
suggested it was the funniest and most up-beat of the novels. It seems
to have a higher sexual content than the other Rabbit books, which some
may have found offensive or at least tedious. Actually, some thought the
‘instruction manuals’ quite amusing although perhaps too late to put
into practice.
As a potential weakness, the
long, beautifully formed descriptive and meditative passages, written
as a stream of consciousness, can seem (to some) overblown and can slow
down the movement of the story. However, surely they were germane to his
wider themes and quite hypnotic. There’s not much plot – they are
concerned with very ordinary lives, and the delicate interplay of family
relationships. Again, the proposer pointed out that they focussed very
much on a small community of interest; the inhabitants of Brewer had no
real interest or understanding of the wider world. He suggested, alas,
that this was true of a large American constituency, and perhaps a
constituency that had elected Donald Trump as president. Like Updike,
Trump has been accused of misogyny.
There was
general agreement about the quality of the prose, and the enjoyment of
the descriptive passages. For example, your scribe was particularly
taken with the early description of the ‘Hick’ couple, ‘milky pale’ (her) and ‘roughened and reddened’ (him) with the “fat
tired 71 or ‘2 Country Squire wagon soft on its shocks, with one dented
fender hammered out semi-smooth but the ruddy rustproofing paint left
to do for a finish”. That the milky pale girl was his illegitimate
daughter was lost on those who had not read the earlier novels, but
several hints were dropped in the text to the true aficionado.
After
agreement, some disparities emerged and voices were raised. First, there
was the question of context. To what extent were the references to
global events, such as Three Mile Island and the Oil Crisis, essential
to plot or character development and to what extent window dressing? For
example, several references are made to the changes in the car market
due to the oil crisis but how does this affect Harry, Nelson and the
rest of the Rich characters? It illuminates the concerns of the ordinary
American at the time, and as the proposer first said the novelist
tracks the concurrent development as the characters, and America, change
with each new decade. Acknowledging this, at least one of the few found
the lack of plot development disappointing in comparison with other
North American authors (McCarthy, Ford, Vidal were mentioned) but the
proposer argued strongly that this was the point. Suburban life is
indeed dull. Further, one couldn’t really appreciate the character and
contextual changes without reading the whole Rabbit thesis. As the
attendance was already small, perhaps a request to read all five books
would have reduced it further!
Another
member supported (to some extent) the suggestion that lack of event was a
failing. He cited some eminent criticism that had made this point.
Unfortunately, the dozy scribe didn’t record these but post-meeting
googling found “does on occasion write well … has nothing to say”
(Aldridge), “a minor novelist with a major style” (Bloom) and “you say
it best when you say nothing at all” (Schlitz and Overstreet). Maybe
Updike himself gave the best response in saying that he “gave the
mundane its beautiful due” but some liked novels to give higher meaning
to life, even the pessimistic one of the previous month given by David
Szalay, another story of ‘Everyman’. He compared Updike unfavourably to
Austen but the proposer was adamant about the essential quality of
Updike’s writing. Oh, well! This is a blog, not a review as such, and
many have commented more eruditely on Updike’s work. Schiff says that ‘few contemporary writers have received more attention than John Updike’
and any quick perusal of the internet will discover more theses on
Updike than his own prolific output of novels, short stories and poems.
As Wilde said, “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
Another
attendee went on to praise the excellence of the writing about
relationships, especially between the father, Harry, and the son,
Nelson. There were many such relationships beautifully depicted in the
book. He talked of the justified aggression of Harry towards his son;
how he found it difficult to be demonstrative, how he couldn’t really
get through the generation gap. Nelson doesn’t have to live his father’s
life, and yet he follows him into the ‘Lot’? Do we all regress towards
our parental mean? Perceptively, he went on to say that although Updike
wrote so well about relationships, he did not write so well about
individuals. This is an interesting suggestion and caused at least one
of us to re-assess the book.
As ever, the
discussion wavered from the topic. The subject of weddings was
mentioned, and one commented on how the low key nature of the wedding in
the novel accorded with his own experience, travelling many thousands
of miles to the US of A to find such a low key affair that he thought it
was hardly worth the effort! In contrast, another referred to a much
more lavish affair. In general, perhaps the marriage of Nelson and Pru
is not ‘made in heaven’ but is rather by accident, but as mentioned
before we didn’t have the full context in front of us.
Other themes
for debate that emerged included the casual racism (not so surprising
in Trumped America perhaps), and the lack of likeable characters,
although Charlie was named as an exception to the rule. We did not
consider the religious background to any great degree, indeed the
proposer suggested it did not figure prominently in this novel. However,
we did take to ‘Soupy’ Campbell, the religious celebrant with a
somewhat relaxed approach to the marriage vows, probably not an obvious
candidate for a Free Kirk ministry in the North of Lewis. Unlike the sex
scenes, which were probably not meant to be funny, the scenes with
‘Soupy’ were certainly humorous.
So what was
the final verdict? This was certainly a book worth reading, and perhaps
it did not wholly stand on its own. We would accept the proposer’s view
that all four or five should be read but life is finite, so we have to
make choices about where to concentrate. Of those present, there was a
50/50 split on whether the other books would be read.
Overall, we all left the meeting wiser and more knowledgeable about one of America’s greatest 20th
Century authors, and warmed by the unusual heat of the debate. It
was still cold outside, but fortunately we had but a short journey home
and so the heat sustained us.
