Rabbit Angstrom

So, for Christmas I asked for 3 books: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, Best Food Writing 2009, edited by Holly Hughes, and Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels: Rabbit, Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit is Rich, Rabbit at Rest by John Updike. I received all 3 and have already completed the first two. Stiff was amazingly wonderful, and I highly recommend it, unless you are squeamish. In that case, please skip it -- or have a trashcan handy as you read it. Mary Roach is, however, hilarious, and I loved this book. I just finished reading all the food essays. Some were great, and some I struggled through. However, I have to say that my main thought while reading most of the essays was, "This book is for rich people." Not that I don't enjoy thinking about the new movement to eat more offal or the foie gras debate, but, you know, these are issues that do not concern most Americans. I mean, this is a country that gave Barack Obama a hard time for enjoying arugula, for goodness sake.

I have finally moved on to the four novels about Rabbit Angstrom. When I requested this tome, I was under the impression that it was a boxed set of the four John Updike novels, not a 1500 page composite of the four novels. I would have much preferred to read each novel separately, but oh well. I requested it on a whim. I remember discussing John Updike briefly in college and reading about the importance of his Rabbit novels but had sort of forgot about him until he was mentioned in one of the best novels I read last year, American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. The Laura Bush-esque protagonist meets the character who is supposed to be Karl Rove, and they discuss Rabbit Angstrom. What a fun scene. I doubt it would have ever actually happened, but I like to think about Laura and Karl discussing literature while George W. is hitting the campaign trail. (That's when it happens in the novel.)

I am embarking on the quest of reading all 4 novels with little to no background information and only some confidence that I will be able to finish. I say that because I am about 20 pages into Rabbit, Run and I am not so sure what I think of this Rabbit fellow. He seems like a royal jerk at the moment. However, that has not stopped me from enjoying a book before, so we shall see. I shall persevere in the hopes that I will soon be hooked.

Don't worry. While I did choose to write my first blog entry about reading John Updike, I am not planning to dedicate my blog to this endeavor. I am sure that would limit my readers to about 1, my faithful husband. Scratch that. I am not sure even he would sit through my literary musings for very long.