Yet Another Reason I Am Thankful I Do Not Live in the 1950s

Well, I am kind of getting into Rabbit, Run by John Updike. I have to say I did not expect the book to literally be about a guy running, but that's pretty much what it is about: a guy running...away from his family. In one scene I read 2 nights ago, he runs right into the arms of Ruth, a prostitute. The first thing Rabbit notices about this working girl when he meets her is her size. Updike describes her as "fat...but not that fat. Chunky, more. But tall, five eight or nine...Her thighs fill the front of her pseudo-silk pale-green dress so that even standing up she has a lap." A later description is no more flattering: "...Rabbit sees from behind that her heels, yellow with strain, tend to slip sideways in the net of lavender straps that pin her feet to the spikes of her shoes." Later he describes her back as cushiony, her legs as fat, and her stomach as a "bowl belly." No lie.

Well, Rabbit, classy cat he is, eventually gets around to asking Ruth what her weight is. Was this an appropriate question for a man to ask a woman in the 1950s? I don't know. Perhaps you were only allowed to ask such questions of hookers. What I do know is that I was wholly unprepared for her response: "One forty-seven." Wait a minute. Seriously, John Updike? 147 pounds? This woman you describe as fat in every other sentence for like 20 pages weighs 147 pounds? And she is 5'8'' or 5'9''? You are nuts. Perhaps you should have consulted a woman before you wrote this section because a 5'9" woman of an average build who weighs 147 pounds looks one way: thin.