It's 1979 and Rabbit is no longer running. He's walking, and beginning to get out of breath. That's OK, though - it gives him the chance to enjoy the wealth that comes with middle age. It's all in place: he's Chief Sales Representative and co-owner of Springer motors; his wife, at home or in the club, is keeping trim; he wears good suits, and the cash is pouring in. So why is it that he finds it so hard to accept the way that things have turned out? And why, when he looks at his family, is he haunted by regrets about all ...
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It's 1979 and Rabbit is no longer running. He's walking, and beginning to get out of breath. That's OK, though - it gives him the chance to enjoy the wealth that comes with middle age. It's all in place: he's Chief Sales Representative and co-owner of Springer motors; his wife, at home or in the club, is keeping trim; he wears good suits, and the cash is pouring in. So why is it that he finds it so hard to accept the way that things have turned out? And why, when he looks at his family, is he haunted by regrets about all those lives he'll never live?
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Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $1.25, fair condition, Sold by Once Upon A Time Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Tontitown, AR, UNITED STATES, published 1982 by Fawcett.
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Fair. This is a used book. It may contain highlighting/underlining and/or the book may show heavier signs of wear. It may also be ex-library or without dustjacket. This is a used book. It may contain highlighting/underlining and/or the book may show heavier signs of wear. It may also be ex-library or without dustjacket.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $1.36, fair condition, Sold by Your Online Bookstore rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Houston, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Trade Paperbacks.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $1.49, good condition, Sold by Owls Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Toledo, OH, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Trade Paperbacks.
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Good. All pages and cover are intact. Possible slightly loose binding, minor highlighting and marginalia, cocked spine or torn dust jacket. Maybe an ex-library copy and not include the accompanying CDs, access codes or other supplemental materials.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $1.49, good condition, Sold by Hippo Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Toledo, OH, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Trade Paperbacks.
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Good. All pages and cover are intact. Possible slightly loose binding, minor highlighting and marginalia, cocked spine or torn dust jacket. Maybe an ex-library copy and not include the accompanying CDs, access codes or other supplemental materials.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $1.49, fair condition, Sold by Hippo Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Toledo, OH, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Trade Paperbacks.
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Fair. Noticeably used book. Text is legible but may be soiled and have binding defects. Heavy wear to covers and pages contain marginal notes, underlining, and or highlighting. Possible ex library copy, with all the markings/stickers of that library. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, and dust jackets may not be included.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $1.49, fair condition, Sold by Hippo Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Toledo, OH, UNITED STATES, published 1982 by Fawcett.
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Seller's Description:
Fair. Noticeably used book. Text is legible but may be soiled and have binding defects. Heavy wear to covers and pages contain marginal notes, underlining, and or highlighting. Possible ex library copy, with all the markings/stickers of that library. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, and dust jackets may not be included.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $1.58, good condition, Sold by Owls Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Toledo, OH, UNITED STATES, published 1981 by Knopf.
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Good. All pages and cover are intact. Possible slightly loose binding, minor highlighting and marginalia, cocked spine or torn dust jacket. Maybe an ex-library copy and not include the accompanying CDs, access codes or other supplemental materials.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $1.58, fair condition, Sold by Owls Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Toledo, OH, UNITED STATES, published 1981 by Knopf.
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Fair. Noticeably used book. Text is legible but may be soiled and have binding defects. Heavy wear to covers and pages contain marginal notes, underlining, and or highlighting. Possible ex library copy, with all the markings/stickers of that library. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, and dust jackets may not be included.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $1.58, fair condition, Sold by Hippo Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Toledo, OH, UNITED STATES, published 1981 by Knopf.
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Seller's Description:
Fair. Noticeably used book. Text is legible but may be soiled and have binding defects. Heavy wear to covers and pages contain marginal notes, underlining, and or highlighting. Possible ex library copy, with all the markings/stickers of that library. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, and dust jackets may not be included.
Add this copy of Rabbit is Rich to cart. $1.58, good condition, Sold by Open Books Ltd rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Chicago, IL, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Ballantine Books.
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Good. Open Books is a nonprofit social venture that provides literacy experiences for thousands of readers each year through inspiring programs and creative capitalization of books.
Rabbit Angstrom, the protagonist of John Updike's Rabbit quartet, is repellent in his human frailties--lust, nostalgia, resentment, evasion, abdication of adult responsibility--and can be said to mirror his own country.
Rabbit is Rich finds Harry Angstrom newly rich with his inheritance of his father-in-law's Toyota dealership amid the oil crisis of the 1970s. He and his wife belong to a country club, live with Janice's mother, and their son Nelson who arrives with his pregnant wife-to-be Pru. There is a Caribbean idyll in which wives are swapped, a visit to an old lover Ruth, now gone to seed, and a grandchild.
From these simple plot elements, the author inhabits the fully realized eponymous character, whose perspective dominates the novel, with epic amplitude and scope. Updike's baroque style is best served by being filtered through Rabbit's consciousness in all its crudity. The male gaze is relentless. Yet Updike has created a character who, to me, is quintessentially American in his careless racial epithets, his endless sexualizing of women, his bewildered homophobia, his habitual dwelling in pastness. He is a man who is "a failed boy."
The author's manipulation of time in the novel is masterful and seemingly without effort. It is fair to say that the interiority of the women characters is given short shrift, but these after all are Rabbit's books.
Updike's depiction of marriage, sex, intergenerational strife, aging and American working lives is immensely compelling and persuasive. Paradoxically, the limitations of Rabbit's point of view opens up the author's vision of America over a four-decade span in the four novels.
What major writer would allow his main character to engage in a reverie about the disco queen Donna Summer, as Updike does here? The absorption of Seventies pop culture is quite remarkable. If Rabbit's attitudes are often provincial, sour, constricted and jaundiced, at the same time the novel has a marvelous fullness and a shocking candor, especially about sex.
In Rabbit is Rich, Harry Angstrom is Huck Finn not quite grown, with a wife, a son he resents, and a granddaughter, but with no more territory to light out to. It's all closed off now, and he simply awaits another "nail in the coffin." This is a superb novel.
