Grateful to have finished reading John Updike's 'Rabbit, Run'

I'm happy to have finished reading John Updike's celebrated American novel: 'Rabbit, Run'. It took a concerted effort to finish the novel. First, I read half, before shelving it, only months later to return to the novel and finish it in a flurry of excitement.

As a novel, 'Rabbit, Run', feels as if it is a twisted re-imagining of the archetypal hero's journey - a deeply embedded narrative structure in countless ancient stories - but this time playing out in the context of modern America; a world where existential dread and human aimlessness are haphazardly kept in check by sexual instinct and the redeeming vastness of natural beauty.

The title of the work hints at the plot of the novel. The protagonist Harry 'Rabbit' Armstrong, more or less gives up one day and precedes to 'Run' away from the suffocating responsibilities of his dissatisfying life. Instead of living for others, Rabbit chooses to live for himself, but, as the sole arbiter of his life - problems quickly ensue. He doesn’t so much as descend into debauched hedonism, but instead, and much more infuriatingly, turns wandering mystic that humiliates and shames his family in the eyes of conservatives in small-town America.

Unsurprisingly, Rabbit finds himself in a precarious position within society. Alienated from his family, he is more or less forced to seek out friends, to lighten the burden of his, unrestrained, vertigo-inducing, experience of freedom. However, his new friends, just like his family, have inevitably been embroiled in a litany of drama and seemingly trivial, yet irresolvable problems. As a charitable reader, one can’t help but empathize with Rabbit, a man who is slowly besieged on all fronts, and not for want of trying to improve his life.

From a first reading, a crucial insight from the novel introduces itself to the reader; the ancient idea, that the experience of human life at its foundation, is a duality, necessarily constructed out of moments of exuberant euphoria and intolerable suffering. Such a timeless theme underscores the entirety of ‘Rabbit, Run’, creating a gripping, challenging and at times tearful reading experience.