"The novels of John Updike have spawned a criticism remarkable in its contentiousness," Bernard A. Schopen wrote in Twentieth Century Literature. "His books have evoked critical outrage, bewilderment, condescension, commendation, and an enthusiasm approaching the fulsome. The same novel might be hailed as a major fictional achievement and dismissed as a self-indulgence or a failure." In John Updike, Susan Henning Uphauser wrote,

Rabbit, Run has elicited a spectrum of responses so varied that it is difficult to believe that critics are writing about the same novel. Many first reviewers admired Updike's style but repudiated the novel, emotionally offended. Recent criticism identifies Rabbit, Run as the most powerful of Updike's novels. Yet its ability to offend remains.

And in John Updike's Novels, Donald J. Greiner wrote that it "continues to upset the unprepared reader." It does so for several reasons: chief among these are its explicit sexuality and its moral ambiguity.

Explicit Sexuality

Many reviewers have been deeply offended by Updike's explicit descriptions of sexual scenes. Eliot Fremont-Smith wrote in the Village Voice,

It must have been the sexuality that so upset the respectable critics. Their consternation had to do with what seemed a great divide between John Updike's exquisite command of prose and the apparent no-good vulgar nothing he expended it on.

Alfred Chester, one of the earliest reviewers of Updike, wrote, "A God who has allowed a writer to lavish such craft upon these worthless tales is capable of anything," according to Sanford Pinsker in New Essays on Rabbit, Run.

In many cases, these critics seemed to be allowing their disgust with Updike's descriptions of sex to color their perception of his work as a whole. Robert Detweiler wrote in John Updike, "As frequently happens, the furor accompanying the depiction of sexual amorality increased the difficulty of judging the novel's artistic quality. Most of the reviews appeared to be impulsive reactions to the subject matter rather than measured assessments." However, even in today's more permissive atmosphere, the novel still offends some readers, largely because of Rabbit's (and, some reviewers believe, Updike's) obsession with sex.

Despite this, those who are not offended have found depth and meaning in the novel that escaped some earlier critics. Donald J. Greiner wrote in John Updike's Novels that in the decades since the book's publication, as the furor over sexual explicitness has subsided, it has become apparent that in the book Updike takes a common American experience—the graduation from high school of a star athlete who has no life to lead once the applause diminishes and the headlines fade—and turns it into a subtle expose of the frailty of the American dream. It is now clear that he has written a saga of middle-class America in the second half of the twentieth century.

Moral Ambiguity

Because Updike does not offer a clear moral perspective in his books, some readers have asserted that Updike is unwilling or unable to deal with serious moral issues, that his books are self-indulgent rambling, and that he has nothing substantial to say. However, other critics see this ambiguity as a positive feature of the novel, contributing to its depth. As Erik Kielland-Lund noted in New Essays on Rabbit Run, "Updike's fiction consistently opens more doors than it closes and asks many more questions than there are simple answers to," and "Whether it is a question of freedom versus commitment, alienation versus belonging, faith versus skepticism, or egotism versus altruism, Updike manages to convey both the difficulty and the seriousness of the human condition."

Susan Henning Uphauser wrote that in her opinion these wildly...