Maybe I’m conflating writing about a character like Rabbit with glorifying a character like Rabbit. I didn’t even get the impression that he tried to write a good book-not even once, not at any turn of this inane plot line. But hey, if you like over-the-top descriptive language, tedious interior monologues, and zero character development, Updike might be just your size.

I hated his writing style on top of hating everything else. I am not one of those critics who will recognize his exhaustive genius just before I delicately call his more troublesome themes into question. Dean Moriarty in On the Road walks out on multiple families and still manages to be a sympathetic character.īut for me, Updike’s style was no redemption. The Golden Notebook shares several perverse themes with Rabbit, Run, as well as its bleak perspective-but I loved reading it. The Great Gatsby is a gorgeous book about marital infidelity. Most of my animosity probably stems from finding this entire plot personally offensive, but even that could be saved by exceptionally beautiful writing.

Dude agrees, then walks out “to the deli”… and breaks into a run.

Dude goes back to Ruth, who threatens to get an abortion if he doesn’t divorce Janice and marry her instead.

FINALLY feeling some remorse does not stop Dude from loudly accusing his wife of murdering their baby at the burial service.

Janice starts drinking, hits their two-year-old, and accidentally drowns their infant.

When she doesn’t-mostly because she just had an episiotomy, gave birth, and put up with Dude’s abandonment-Dude gets mad and leaves.

Dude tries to ply Janice, a former alcoholic, with whisky so that she’ll sleep with him.

Dude leaves Ruth (now also pregnant) and goes back to his wife, just in time for her to give birth.

Dude interrogates Ruth about her sexual history and, upon discovering she once gave an ex-boyfriend a blow job, demands one for himself.

Dude solicits sometimes-prostitute/soon-to-be-girlfriend Ruth and whines about using contraception.

Dude tries to cope with the fact that he peaked in high school as the star of the basketball team.

Dude quits his pregnant wife, Janice, and two-year-old son, for the same reason he quits smoking: just because he felt like it.

It’s filled with spoilers, which should save you the trouble of actually reading the book: Here’s a sneak peek at John Updike’s most famous novel, featuring Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom in the role of Dude. Runners up include The Grapes of Wrath and Things Fall Apart-but even they fell short of provoking the kind of thorough and profound hatred I feel for this unintentional horror story. So far, I have not hated any book on The List as much as I hated Rabbit, Run.

Rabbit run novel