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I took a class on John Updike and "Rabbit, Run" is the centerpiece of his work. He wrote three follow-up "Rabbit" novels after this one, roughly 10 years apart. "Rabbit" Angstrom is a 26-year-old former high school basketball star with a new wife and a baby on the way. He is really stuck in his high school glory days and is dissatisfied with his current life, his job, his wife, and the responsibilities of fatherhood.

He escapes into the arms of a semi-pro prostitute and ends up through the book going back and forth betweeen her and his wife. The wife sinks quickly into alcoholism and accidentally drowns her new child in the bathtub, while drunk. At the end of the book, Rabbit simply runs away.

Although most readers and reviewers recognize that Rabbit is a very unlikeable man, I think there is more to it than him being an irresponsible self-centered jerk (although he certainly is all of those things). What I got from the book is the fate of those who peak too soon. For Rabbit, his glory days were in high school and it was downhill from there. I have known a number of people who followed that path and you probably do too. All those people in high school who were big shots, young men and women who never managed to surpass their high school fame and acclaim. Nothing else in their life ever quite came up to that level again.

Rabbit is a jerk but his situation is sad. It is sad that we judge our lives-and are frequently judged by others-by our accomplishments and not by the quality of who we are. When our self-worth is completely attached to what we do, what we accomplish, or what we earn, then our worth can be taken away from us in a moment. If our self-worth is determined by the quality of our humanity, by our compassion, generosity of spirit, and love, that can never be taken away no matter what happens to us.

I think that "Rabbit, Run" can teach us what is important in life and what is superficial and fleeting.

Learn more about this author, Bob Trowbridge.
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