It's 1979 and Rabbit is no longer running. He's walking, and beginning to get out of breath. That's OK, though - it gives him the chance to enjoy the wealth that comes with middle age. It's all in place: he's Chief Sales Representative and co-owner of Springer motors; his wife, at home or in the club, is keeping trim; he wears good suits, and the cash is pouring in. So why is it that he finds it so hard to accept the way that things have turned out? And why, when he looks at his family, is he haunted by regrets about all ...
Read More
It's 1979 and Rabbit is no longer running. He's walking, and beginning to get out of breath. That's OK, though - it gives him the chance to enjoy the wealth that comes with middle age. It's all in place: he's Chief Sales Representative and co-owner of Springer motors; his wife, at home or in the club, is keeping trim; he wears good suits, and the cash is pouring in. So why is it that he finds it so hard to accept the way that things have turned out? And why, when he looks at his family, is he haunted by regrets about all those lives he'll never live?
Read Less
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $1.30, good condition, Sold by ZBK Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Woodland Park, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Trade Paperbacks.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Used book in good and clean conditions. Pages and cover are intact. Limited notes marks and highlighting may be present. May show signs of normal shelf wear and bends on edges. Item may be missing CDs or access codes. May include library marks. Fast Shipping.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $1.58, fair condition, Sold by BookHolders rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Gambrills, MD, UNITED STATES, published 1982 by Fawcett Books.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $2.29, fair condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Group.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $2.30, fair condition, Sold by Blue Vase Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Interlochen, MI, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Trade Paperbacks.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $2.48, fair condition, Sold by Dream Books Co. rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Denver, CO, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Trade Paperbacks.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fair. This copy has clearly been enjoyed-expect noticeable shelf wear and some minor creases to the cover. Binding is strong and all pages are legible. May contain previous library markings or stamps.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $2.55, good condition, Sold by newlegacybooks rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Annandale, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Group.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. The cover shows normal wear. Fast shipping and order satisfaction guaranteed. A portion of your purchase benefits Non-Profit Organizations, First Aid and Fire Stations!
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $2.57, fair condition, Sold by Once Upon A Time Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Tontitown, AR, UNITED STATES, published 1981 by Distributed by Random House.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fair. This is a used book. It may contain highlighting/underlining and/or the book may show heavier signs of wear. It may also be ex-library or without dustjacket. This is a used book. It may contain highlighting/underlining and/or the book may show heavier signs of wear. It may also be ex-library or without dustjacket.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $2.61, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Diamond rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1982 by Fawcett.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $2.68, fair condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Austell, GA, UNITED STATES, published 1982 by Fawcett Books.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $2.69, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Diamond rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1982 by Fawcett.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Rabbit Angstrom, the protagonist of John Updike's Rabbit quartet, is repellent in his human frailties--lust, nostalgia, resentment, evasion, abdication of adult responsibility--and can be said to mirror his own country.
Rabbit is Rich finds Harry Angstrom newly rich with his inheritance of his father-in-law's Toyota dealership amid the oil crisis of the 1970s. He and his wife belong to a country club, live with Janice's mother, and their son Nelson who arrives with his pregnant wife-to-be Pru. There is a Caribbean idyll in which wives are swapped, a visit to an old lover Ruth, now gone to seed, and a grandchild.
From these simple plot elements, the author inhabits the fully realized eponymous character, whose perspective dominates the novel, with epic amplitude and scope. Updike's baroque style is best served by being filtered through Rabbit's consciousness in all its crudity. The male gaze is relentless. Yet Updike has created a character who, to me, is quintessentially American in his careless racial epithets, his endless sexualizing of women, his bewildered homophobia, his habitual dwelling in pastness. He is a man who is "a failed boy."
The author's manipulation of time in the novel is masterful and seemingly without effort. It is fair to say that the interiority of the women characters is given short shrift, but these after all are Rabbit's books.
Updike's depiction of marriage, sex, intergenerational strife, aging and American working lives is immensely compelling and persuasive. Paradoxically, the limitations of Rabbit's point of view opens up the author's vision of America over a four-decade span in the four novels.
What major writer would allow his main character to engage in a reverie about the disco queen Donna Summer, as Updike does here? The absorption of Seventies pop culture is quite remarkable. If Rabbit's attitudes are often provincial, sour, constricted and jaundiced, at the same time the novel has a marvelous fullness and a shocking candor, especially about sex.
In Rabbit is Rich, Harry Angstrom is Huck Finn not quite grown, with a wife, a son he resents, and a granddaughter, but with no more territory to light out to. It's all closed off now, and he simply awaits another "nail in the coffin." This is a superb novel.
