Rating: 
Summary: So Long Rabbit
Review: I hate to be a curmudgeon when it comes to Pulitzer Prize winners and great writers like John Updike, but this final installment featuring Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom has flaws that took away my enjoyment of the book. Clearly Updike uses the characters frequently as mouthpieces to expound on society. Unfortunately, a lot of times it seems very contrived, especially when coming from characters other than Harry. The story itself is interesting enough, but meanders and is too long. He could have written the same story in half the number of pages. The best part about the book is the juxtaposition of Harry's self-righteous anger at his son's addiction-when he himself is addict to food and has little, if any, will power to resist his own temptations. Overall, a qualified thumbs up.
Rating: 
Summary: Reflecting on Rabbit
Review: I think one has to read all four Rabbit novels in order to feel the full brunt of Updike's writing. I read the first three last month while backpacking around Europe, and it was a strangely religious experience to reflect upon Rabbit's quintessentially American life from a vantage point across the ocean. I returned home and devoured this book quickly, finding it even more profound than the first (maybe because as a twenty-something, this is the first book that takes place during an era that I can remember). I can say little about Updike's writing that enhances what has already been said by so many: superlatives do not suffice. It is forceful, poetic and complete. I think his true genius in the Rabbit novels lies in the development of the characters themselves. I can't decide if Rabbit is hopelessly unaware, or else just so completely aware that he is on a higher plane than the mess that surrounds him, soaring over it all like he used to soar over the basketball court. Rabbit is indeed flawed, but he ultimately redeems himself, if only by his hulking, larger-than-life presence, and is mostly forgiven.
Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Series
Review: If you have not read the entire 4 book Rabbit series, do yourself a favor and buy them immediately. The books get better as you read on. Seldom will you read novels as real and touching as these about the life of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. The story is good, the plot relevant to the times, and the writing phenomenal. These are some of the few novels out there that are good AND good for you. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: They grow up and they never change
Review: In this book, the Angstroms are semi-retired and living in Florida. Rabbit has a heart condition and he's not doing anything to improve his health. His son Nelson has grown into a wreck of an adult, to which Harry and his wife deserve the lion share of the blame. The parents are so old and respectable now, you forget what they put their son through, until he reminds them. You really want to root for Harry to overcome all of the obstacles he faces, like you root for charming outlaws to outrun the posse. You sense that Zeus and the Gods are sitting on Mt. Olympus using Harry Angstrom as their plaything. Despite the fact that Updike is given literature status (this book won the Pulitzer), it's very easy to get into. This isn't long and arduous James Joyce prose, but an easy to follow modern day story that will make you think. The series is either a scathing indictment of latter 20th Century middle-class America that invents their own agony or it's just Updike's view of how normal people live. Whichever, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys serious fiction.
Rating:
Summary: They grow up and they never change
Review: In this book, the Angstroms are semi-retired and living in Florida. Rabbit has a heart condition and he's not doing anything to improve his health. His son Nelson has grown into a wreck of an adult, to which Harry and his wife deserve the lion share of the blame. The parents are so old and respectable now, you forget what they put their son through, until he reminds them. You really want to root for Harry to overcome all of the obstacles he faces, like you root for charming outlaws to outrun the posse. You sense that Zeus and the Gods are sitting on Mt. Olympus using Harry Angstrom as their plaything. Despite the fact that Updike is given literature status (this book won the Pulitzer), it's very easy to get into. This isn't long and arduous James Joyce prose, but an easy to follow modern day story that will make you think. The series is either a scathing indictment of latter 20th Century middle-class America that invents their own agony or it's just Updike's view of how normal people live. Whichever, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys serious fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Rabbit comes full circle
Review: In this final book in the Rabbit quartet, Harry Angstrom hits his fifties. Despite his wealth and condo in Florida, his life has not become comfortable. Family turmoils continue, with Nelson behaving strangely, his daughter-in-law sending romantic signals, his wife defending their son's weaknesses while becoming more independent of Rabbit as she enters the working world.
Throughout the book, Rabbit reflects on his age and his mortality, graphically portraying the realities and fears of late middle age in a way that brings the reader, regardless of age or sex, vividly into the life and thoughts of an aging man.
Continuing a gradual increase in literary quality throughout the quartet, this is a powerful novel. Occasionally slowed by overly long passages or excessive description, it does an excellent job of integrating the small details of life with Rabbit's larger reflections and philosophical outlooks. Updike is especially talented at portraying the hypocrisies, tensions, idiosyncrasies, and failures in communication, so common in life. Updike shows us what it is to be human, what it means to live, and how it's possible to run incessantly, without ever arriving anywhere.
This book can stand on its own, but is most fulfilling read as the fourth book in the series.
Rating:
Summary: A good book with a full bodied story.
Review: John Updike completes Rabbit Angstrom's life with Rabbit at
Rest. Putting to close the longevity of Rabbit's full,
verile, and sympathetic life. Being in a marriage he's been
uncomfortable with from the start and longing for the days when he was younger, Rabbit finally finds his peace and rests. But not before the women in his life make it complicated and his son gives him another fit. I truly enjoyed Rabbit at Rest. If you have not read the first three in the series, not to fear. Updike brings you into
the Rabbit's web and spins the tale to keep you up-to-date with his loving, yet neurotic Rabbit. Has anyone seen my bunny slippers lately?
Rating:
Summary: A solemn portrait of one man's struggle with his mortality.
Review: John Updike has once again resumed his running commentary on the state of the human condition as seen through the eyes of the colorful Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Howells Medal, Rabbit at Rest is the most revealing and perhaps the finest book in the famed Rabbit series. This, the fourth installment, finds its protagonist coping with the uncertainty regarding the rapid approach of old age and impending death. In his usual style, Updike floods the senses with exquisite description as well as smart and humorous dialogue, ever strengthening the bond between reader and protagonist. And, as pages turn, the writing becomes so fine and the knowledge of subject so intimate that one begins to wonder if this tale is purely fictional. The quantity of insight and fulfillment gained by reading this book is immeasurable, and its only flaw is that it had to end
Rating:
Summary: A solemn portrait of one man's struggle with his mortality.
Review: John Updike has once again resumed his running commentary on the state of the human condition as seen through the eyes of the colorful Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Howells Medal, Rabbit at Rest is the most revealing and perhaps the finest book in the famed Rabbit series. This, the fourth installment, finds its protagonist coping with the uncertainty regarding the rapid approach of old age and impending death. In his usual style, Updike floods the senses with exquisite description as well as smart and humorous dialogue, ever strengthening the bond between reader and protagonist. And, as pages turn, the writing becomes so fine and the knowledge of subject so intimate that one begins to wonder if this tale is purely fictional. The quantity of insight and fulfillment gained by reading this book is immeasurable, and its only flaw is that it had to end
Rating:
Summary: Not enough
Review: My commentary will be totally unoriginal; I'll just paraphrase Forster's words on a Bennet's novel which seem a fitting postlude. "Our daily life in time is exactly this business of getting old which clogs the arteries of Rabbit Angstrom, and the story that sounded so healthy and stood no nonsense cannot lead to any conclusion but the grave. It is an unsatisfactory conclusion. Of course we grow old. But a great book must rest on something more than an "of course", and though "Rabbit at Rest" is strong, sincere, sad, it misses greatness.
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