Rabbit Is Rich

By John Updike

Pulitzer Prize winning novel in 1982.

Third in the series, this novel finds Rabbit in his 40's, enjoying a little prosperity, at a calmer point in his life. His son, Nelson, is grown and off at college. Rabbit and his wife, Janice, are living with his wife's mom and Rabbit is working at the car lot owned by his wife and her mom, which is now a Toyota dealership. Thanks to Janice and her family, Rabbit is living in security and comfort and a sort of contentment. He and his wife also enjoy a mild social life with their friends at the country club, Rabbit continuing to play the golf he was introduced to in the first novel.
The snake in this little paradise turns out to be Nelson, who comes home unexpectedly with a girl, Melanie, moving into the same home with Rabbit, his wife and his mother-in-law. Nelson is an unhappy boy, trying to be a man, and blaming Rabbit for his misery. Nelson is still angry at Rabbit for the death of Jill, a drifter girl from the second novel who died in a house fire. Somehow, Nelson thinks Rabbit abandoned Jill to her fate, blaming Rabbit for not being there when the house was torched.
So Nelson blames and resents his father and his father resents Nelson, especially when Nelson pushes his way onto the dealership, talking his mom and grandma into letting him try to sell cars. This means that Jan's old lover from the second novel, Charlie, has to be sent packing because the business can't support an extra salesman. Rabbit feels bad for Charlie, whom he has come to regard as a friend, but can't stop what is happening since Janice and her mom are the owners of the business.
Then Nelson reveals that he has a girlfriend he met at college who is now pregnant. This is not Melanie, the girl he brought home, but is another girl, called Pru. This girl soon arrives to move into the house too, Melanie having left by then. All in all, the big house is starting to feel a little crowded and Rabbit wants to move into a house of his own, against the objections of the wife's mom, who is afraid of being left alone in the big house.

This novel isn't exactly jammed pack with action. At least in this one Rabbit doesn't slap any women around which is an improvement. But he has frequent fantasies of bashing his wife's head in, so he hasn't changed that much, he's still a jerk: "Janice giggles. Some day what would give him great pleasure would be to take a large rock and crush her skull in with it." This skull crushing fantasy recurs at several points in the book. Of course he doesn't bash her in the head since she is his meal ticket and he owes all his new prosperity to her and her car dealership.
Nelson turns out to be a chip off the old block with similar murderous fantasies. "It would be nice, as long as he was standing, to take up one of the beer bottles and smash it down into the curly hair of Melanie's skull and then to take the broken half still in his hand and rotate it into the smiling plumpnesses of her face, the great brown eyes and the cherry lips, the mocking implacable Buddha calm." He even pushes his pregnant girl friend down a steep stair case because he is angry at her. Rabbit and Nelson are more alike than they realize.
The first novel had some understated sex scenes, the second had more explicit sex scenes and this one has very graphic sex scenes. Is it education or degradation? I don't know but if you don't enjoy reading such stuff then give this one a skip because the book is chock full of it. Other than that, it has been kind of fun watching Rabbit live his rather ordinary life, even though I find Rabbit rather repulsive. Next one in the series is Rabbit at Rest in which Rabbit ends up where we all do. Doesn't sound like it will be a lot of fun to read.

For another review see Fifty Books Project.

New Words

Stanchions: a stanchion is a prop or support, usually a piece of timber in the form of a stake or post, used for a support. 'Scrolling cast-iron light stanchions not lit since World War II.'

Redbellies: a form of bullying or hazing in which a person is held down and the stomach slapped until it is reddened. 'Rabbit has known Ronnie for thirty years and never liked him, one of those locker-room show-offs always soaping himself for everybody to see and giving the JVs redbellies and out on the basketball court barging around all sweat and elbows trying to make up in muscle what he lacked in style.'

Nassau: a popular competition among recreational golfers. Points are awarded to the winner of the front nine, back nine and overall 18. Each point usually represents a separate bet. 'Harry's team lost the Nassau, but he feels it was his partner's fault.'

Ferhuddled: confused, mixed up, fractured. 'The boy means well in his way but he's all ferhuddled for now, and the girl, I don't know.'

Soignée: polished and well-groomed; showing sophisticated elegance. 'She was less soignée than formerly; the tiny imperfection at one corner of her lips had bloomed into something that needed to be covered with a little circular Band-Aid.'