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I suppose this book could have been far worse. I hated Rabbit, and Janice. The 'trap a square conservative and make him live with his opposite' story never really seems very convincing either, and Jill and Skeeter are as annoying as Rabbit, just different. But Updike writes great descriptions, and when he is not channeling too much James Joyce I like his writing well enough to not mind the awful characters so much. The story, set in 1969, does seem to capture a good snapshot of life in that year
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It's 1969, ten years after the events of Rabbit, Run. Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom is 36 and his wife has just left him for a car salesman. Through a colleague he meets a teenage hippy girl runaway and a supporter of the Black Panther party, and we view the major social developments of the 60s from the unusual perspective of somebody who is more or less unsympathetic to them.
As with the first book in the series, I found this lacked lustre for the first half and took off in the second half. It seemed ...more
As with the first book in the series, I found this lacked lustre for the first half and took off in the second half. It seemed ...more
The second stage of Harry Angstrom, ten years later, finds Harry working as a printer at the Val in the dead end job he never wanted. Harry is described as “Now when he plays basketball he is heavy�. His son is 13 and he and his wife live in the massed produced, ranch style home in the new suburbia while the downtown areas are being turned into parking lots. In this story, Janice engages in an affair and leaves her husband. Harry is a conservative man in a flower child, dope smoking, Black Panth
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Although I liked the first one better, this book is still a beauty. Updike writes with a mastery and facility of our American way of speech. His words are beautifully descriptive.
For example:
"There was a time—the year after leaving, even five years after when this homely street, with its old-fashioned high crown, its sidewalk blocks tugged up and down by maple roots, its retaining walls of sandstone and railings of painted iron and two-family brickfront houses whose siding imitates gray rocks, e ...more
For example:
"There was a time—the year after leaving, even five years after when this homely street, with its old-fashioned high crown, its sidewalk blocks tugged up and down by maple roots, its retaining walls of sandstone and railings of painted iron and two-family brickfront houses whose siding imitates gray rocks, e ...more
Jan 25, 2016
Kyle Mahoney
marked it as to-read
Jun 17, 2017
Yvonne
marked it as to-read
Jan 07, 2021
Kayla Tocco
marked it as to-read
Feb 08, 2021
Christoffer Jacobsen
marked it as to-read
