Couples - John Updike

Written in 1968 but set in 1963-4, Couples is Updike's take on the sexual revolution as it was happening.  Ten couples in Tarbox, Massachusetts, mix, recreate, swing and fornicate.  It's the spirit of the times - after all, even the President is doing it.  But first Kennedy's baby dies, then Kennedy himself.  Piet Hanema and the pregnant Foxy Whitman outrage their social clique by becoming serious about one another.

Piet is the nearest thing we are given to a protagonist.  The bald dentist Freddy Thorne is, if anyone is, the antagonist.  But ten couples means twenty individuals; not all of them are equally active in the narrative and, unfortunately, none of them are especially likeable.  I would go further: some are more obnoxious than others.  I found it really hard to care.

That said, there is some wonderful writing here.  Updike is writing a modern novel, so he does it in a modern style.  Sometimes, with contemporary jokes and 'hip' talk, it doesn't retain its power forty-five years on.  Other passages, though, are simply magical.  There is a seascape towards the end which more than compensates for the tawdriness of some of the preceding material.

I was impressed.  I was not moved.

Pal Joey - John O'Hara

Probably O'Hara's most famous work today, thanks to the musical and musical movie, Pal Joey is in fact an epistolary novella, only 70 pages long in this omnibus edition from the 1980s.  Having not read O'Hara before, I did not know what to expect.  I certainly didn't expect it to consist entirely of semi-literate letters.  I envisaged Updike; what I got reminded me strongly of Nathanael West, which suited me just fine.

We never learn Joey's last name, nor that of his sole correspondent and sometime pal Ted, who is doing much better than Joey is the swing era of 1938-41, which is when the book was written.  As a novella it relies more on nuance than plot and as such succeeds remarkably well.  I loved the interview with 'girl reporter' Melba, the sad little affair with wealthy widow Mavis, and above all the magnificent coda of the 14th letter, 'Reminiss', where Joey reflects sourly on what might (should) have been.  The line - "I even wear a little rug up front but so does the Grooner and Freddie Astare" - encapsulates it all.  Wonderful.

Rabbit is Rich - John Updike

The third in the Rabbit Angstrom sequence and the last volume of the Rabbit omnibus, Rich is set in 1979-80.  President Carter is trying to rescue the hostages from Iran, big oil is sucking the life out of the US economy but Rabbit is rich, having inherited his father-in-law's Toyota franchise.  Harry is middle-aged now, part of the country club set, with a blossoming sex life at home and, later, abroad. Essentially, though, this is a novel about children, the next generation and how the indiscretions of their elders impact upon them.  Old Man Springer's actions have made Rabbit rich whilst anchoring him to Janice and lumbering him with the care of belligerent old Ma Springer, not that easy-going Harry objects to either.  Harry's infatuation with Jill (in Redux) has alienated him from his son Nelson whilst his earlier affair with Ruth (Run) may have resulted in an unknown illegitimate daughter who might possibly be the bewitching country girl who shows up one day in Harry's showroom.  Then Nelson arrives home (from Kent State) with amiable Melanie but it turns out he's really engaged to Pru/Tessa, who turns out to be carrying the Angstrom's grandchild.  A time, then, for taking stock - or, in Rabbit's case, one last indulgent spree.

I have loved all three of the Omnibus Rabbits and am so glad I didn't read them all in one go.  I'll be keeping an eye out now for Rabbit at Rest.

A Rabbit Omnibus - John Updike (2)

Rabbit Redux...  Ten years on from Rabbit, Run, Rabbit Angstrom's life falls apart again.  This time it's Janice who leaves him, seduced by the slick charms of Greek car salesman Charlie Stavros.  Rabbit finds himself footloose and fancy-free in the 1969 summer of sex, moon landings and Black Power.  Before long he and thirteen year-old Nelson are sharing their suburban home with wealthy dropout Jill and her dealer Skeeter, the Black Christ.  Rabbit's mother has Parkinson's and wall-eyed Peggy has also been abandoned by her spouse.  Enter Mim, Rabbit's sister, the wannabe movie star turned escort, doing what she does best to restore balance to the world of Brewer.

Brilliantly plotted, exquisitely written.  Updike perfectly captures the era when America began to lose faith with itself.

A Rabbit Omnibus - John Updike (1)

Okay, I should have read the American master years ago, but what can I say?  Better late than never.  This Penguin collection isn't, of course, the complete Rabbit, but the first three instalments, Run, Redux, and Rich.  I'm reading them separately amid my other reading, and will review them here in the same way.

Rabbit Run then, from 1960.  The story of a twenty-something who can't quite come to terms with adult responsibility.  He runs away, literally, three times.  Such a simple story with a handful of characters yet executed with such minute detail that it's like a compressed War and Peace.  There are no stereotypes here, no good guys or villains.  Everyone, down to Nelson the toddler, is three-dimensional, drawn with empathy and compassion.  Thus the tragedy, when it comes, is shattering.  I don't do plot spoilers in this blog, so let's just say I have never, in half a century of reading, come across that particular tragedy in any other novel.  It is one of those everyday catastrophes that we simply don't talk about - and here too, once it has happened, nobody really talks about it.

A stunning read.  A genius at work.