Dead Poets

For the better part of a week now, I find myself being a little bit sad about the death of John Updike. Is this just a case of too much time on my hands? After all, it’s not like I knew the man – or, in fact – even knew all that much about him. Truth be told, other than the four Rabbit books, I never could get past the first few chapters of any of his others. Yes, I liked to read his criticism and enjoyed listening to interviews, but it wasn’t so much that I felt affection for John Updike. No, crazier than that, it was his fictional creation, Harry Angstrom (“Rabbit”) who pulled my heart strings.

In case you’re not familiar, Rabbit is the hero (well, more accurately, lead character) in a series of novels Updike wrote between 1960 – 90 about Rabbit. When we meet him, he's in his mid-20s, and he's already past his prime. Rabbit's life’s accomplishments pretty much peaked when he was a high school basketball star in a medium-small Pennsylvania town. From there, things essentially went downhill – at least in terms of how “accomplishment” is generally defined in America between the 60s to the 90s. Whatever you say about Updike (and Norman Mailer, not to mention many feminists, had a lot of negative things to say), it’s hard to argue with the grace of his writing. Some find his use of symbolism too obvious; i.e., Harry ANGSTtrom or his basketball mentor, Coach Tothero (“tot hero”), but I always found it added an amusing touch and certainly didn’t distract.

The Rabbit Trilogy-plus-One books are among the novels that I have to reread every few years to kind of reset my brainwaves. Like Doc from Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flats, Yossarian from Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, and Huck Finn; Rabbit is one of those guys, however fictional, that I can’t live without.

And as I’ve been thinking about this for the past several days, I’m a bit bemused by the theme here. I mean, none of these guys’ resumes especially speak of greatness. Rabbit, for example, is kind of a Bill Clinton type, minus the brilliance. I’d have cast James Caan to play him on screen – if there had ever been such a project. I’m a little bummed that there will never be a “Rabbit, Resurrected” but for now, re-reads will have to do.