Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Updike, John (Hoyer) - Eliot Fremont-Smith

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ELIOT FREMONT-SMITH

Rabbit, Run, that heart-stopping epiphany of 21 years ago, should never have had a sequel, and now it's got two. John Updike's privilege, I suppose; one must bend with the facts, if not forgive. Rabbit Redux still seems a rude trespass on what had become, after all, the property of my imagination; yet without it there could be no [Rabbit Is Rich] …, no renewal of affection, no return of grace. The alter ego stuff aside, there's a juicy bravado to Updike's long loyalty to Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom that I can't help liking. The desperate, fleeing angel of Rabbit, Run is now, surprisingly, "family," and we're all growing older together. There's caring in this, and even some dignity—Rabbit still ruts as a rabbit will (his literally saving grace), but now he's most often called Harry, and jogs rather than runs. There's abrasiveness, too: Updike's mixed feelings, sense of challenge, volatile remnants of envy and anger, his...

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1. Introduction
2. Granville Hicks
3. Bernard A. Schopen
4. Miles Donald
5. Roger Sale
6. Eliot Fremont-Smith
7. Thomas R. Edwards
8. Daniel M. Murtaugh
9. Gene Lyons
10. V. S. Pritchett
11. Alfred Kazin
12. Donald J. Greiner
13. Russell Davies
14. Judy Cooke
15. Robert Taubman
16. Copyright