Disappointing and oddly unengaging, 13 Nov 2007
I was rather disappointed by this. The author takes great care to describe the details of the lives and performances of the Medieval players, but for me the story never really caught fire and I did not find myself interested in any of the characters. Bit of a slog, despite being a short novel and firmly within an area of my interest.

A good read - not great, 01 Aug 2005
I found the concept behind this book more exciting than the execution, unfortunately.

While the writing is above reproach, the book suffers due to the lack of length. All characters besides Nicholas are sketched out with the minimum of strokes, (in particular Margaret, the only female character in the group of players) and the events of the book seem to hurtle along to what I felt was a dissatisfing ending, with a hint of deus ex machina.

A good book to pass away a sunday evening, but for a more involving mediaeval murder mystery, go for Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

An insightful and captivating drama, 11 Dec 2000
The characters are brilliant and colorful. The time is one of famine and havoc during the 14th century, when a young preist fleeing from his sub-deaconship comes upon a group of travelling players. Nicholas Barber is his name and he tells his story of becoming a player. The death of one player is what prompts Nicholas to join and another could lead to his own. The troupe is on their way to Durham, England where they are promised as a gift from their partron lord. During their travels they come upon a town where they can bury their friend and replenish their purse but when they arrive they learn of another death. The murder of a young boy and the swift conviction of a young women. When the group decides to perform the play of the murder they are in for a wild ride. They do not know the whole truth but are determined to seek it out. "Morality Play" is a captivating drama that relates to many prime topics of the day despite the setting in the middle ages. It is worth the short time it takes to read.

You'll finish it in one sitting, 18 Jul 2000
Perfect: plainly written, not too long and absolutely fascinating. Buy and read this book now.

Brilliantly written, authoritatively researched, 30 Jun 1999
With impeccable research, and without a single inappropriate archaism or self-conscious "mediaevalism" Unsworth, with great subtlety, catches the spirit of the times. The images of death and corruption (both of body and soul) mirror the social, moral and spiritual collapse of mid-14th century England: the Black Death has literally halved the population, land has gone out of cultivation, labour is scarce, prices have risen, people are starving. The feudal system is disintegrating, hastened by the social and economic consequences of the Hundred Years' War. The colourful pageantry of the Christmas jousting masks the debasement of the chivalric code into greed, selfishness and brutality; the purity of the monastic ideal has been replaced by materialism and venality. No wonder there is an upsurge of millenarian sects prophesying the Last Days. The transition of drama from religious to secular is already in process, and Martin takes his players in a visionary and shocking leap forward, fusing the old Mystery Plays with the newer Morality Plays, and for the first time using real events and real people in his True Play of Thomas Wells. The process of detection and the build-up of tension are brilliantly handled; the language, techniques and traditions of mediaeval drama fascinatingly described. Though we can see where the story is leading, the denouement has enough surprises to be satisfying. Though you could read it just as a mediaeval whodunit, you would be missing a great deal. Don't be deceived by its 188 pages. This is a deep and many-layered book - increasingly rewarding with every reading.

Disappointing and oddly unengaging, 13 Nov 2007
I was rather disappointed by this. The author takes great care to describe the details of the lives and performances of the Medieval players, but for me the story never really caught fire and I did not find myself interested in any of the characters. Bit of a slog, despite being a short novel and firmly within an area of my interest.

A good read - not great, 01 Aug 2005
I found the concept behind this book more exciting than the execution, unfortunately.

While the writing is above reproach, the book suffers due to the lack of length. All characters besides Nicholas are sketched out with the minimum of strokes, (in particular Margaret, the only female character in the group of players) and the events of the book seem to hurtle along to what I felt was a dissatisfing ending, with a hint of deus ex machina.

A good book to pass away a sunday evening, but for a more involving mediaeval murder mystery, go for Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

An insightful and captivating drama, 11 Dec 2000
The characters are brilliant and colorful. The time is one of famine and havoc during the 14th century, when a young preist fleeing from his sub-deaconship comes upon a group of travelling players. Nicholas Barber is his name and he tells his story of becoming a player. The death of one player is what prompts Nicholas to join and another could lead to his own. The troupe is on their way to Durham, England where they are promised as a gift from their partron lord. During their travels they come upon a town where they can bury their friend and replenish their purse but when they arrive they learn of another death. The murder of a young boy and the swift conviction of a young women. When the group decides to perform the play of the murder they are in for a wild ride. They do not know the whole truth but are determined to seek it out. "Morality Play" is a captivating drama that relates to many prime topics of the day despite the setting in the middle ages. It is worth the short time it takes to read.

You'll finish it in one sitting, 18 Jul 2000
Perfect: plainly written, not too long and absolutely fascinating. Buy and read this book now.

Brilliantly written, authoritatively researched, 30 Jun 1999
With impeccable research, and without a single inappropriate archaism or self-conscious "mediaevalism" Unsworth, with great subtlety, catches the spirit of the times. The images of death and corruption (both of body and soul) mirror the social, moral and spiritual collapse of mid-14th century England: the Black Death has literally halved the population, land has gone out of cultivation, labour is scarce, prices have risen, people are starving. The feudal system is disintegrating, hastened by the social and economic consequences of the Hundred Years' War. The colourful pageantry of the Christmas jousting masks the debasement of the chivalric code into greed, selfishness and brutality; the purity of the monastic ideal has been replaced by materialism and venality. No wonder there is an upsurge of millenarian sects prophesying the Last Days. The transition of drama from religious to secular is already in process, and Martin takes his players in a visionary and shocking leap forward, fusing the old Mystery Plays with the newer Morality Plays, and for the first time using real events and real people in his True Play of Thomas Wells. The process of detection and the build-up of tension are brilliantly handled; the language, techniques and traditions of mediaeval drama fascinatingly described. Though we can see where the story is leading, the denouement has enough surprises to be satisfying. Though you could read it just as a mediaeval whodunit, you would be missing a great deal. Don't be deceived by its 188 pages. This is a deep and many-layered book - increasingly rewarding with every reading.

The best of the best., 19 Apr 2008
Re-reading old favourites has become a bit of a habit with me lately - simply because there are few new authors with half the talent of Robert Graves.

As one reviewer points out, quite rightly, this isn't history, but the reader can't help but wish it to be true. The character of Claudius is so well drawn and accounts so well for the paradoxies evident in the historical accounts of him that you feel it must be right. There is nothing in the story that cannot be verified in Suetonius or Tacitus and Graves' handling of the material leaves the reader with nothing but admiration for his explanation of those facts.

Truly magnificent.

History coming alive, 24 Oct 2007
"I, Claudius" and its sequel "Claudius the God" are definitely amongst the best books ever written on Imperial Rome, and quite probably amongst the best historical novels on any age or subject. No novelist could have devised a better plot than the actual events in those days, with fascinating characters such as Augustus, Livia, Germanicus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius himself, and an empireal court rife with intrigue and plotting, but I've never known it told better than Graves does.

It's a book that demands your full attention and concentration, just to keep track of the countless family ties, feuds and plots, but in fact that's part of the attraction. A breath-taking story, by a master storyteller who knows his subject matter extremely well!

Readable and compelling but not necessarily historically accurate, 18 Oct 2006
For so many people I, Claudius is THE novel about the first years of the Roman Empire and so has conditioned our whole reception of Rome and the rule of the emperors - and how Robert Graves would have laughed if he could have predicted that! Written as a 'pot-boiler' because he needed the cash, Graves deliberately fashions a decadent, immoral and corrupt milieu that has now passed into historical fact.

As a translator of Suetonius and Tacitus, two of the major sources he uses for his fictions, Graves is completely aware that both men had political agendas of their own when they chose to portray Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula etc in the way he did. Livia hardly gets a mention, along with the other imperial women, and Suetonius' portrait of Claudius himself is far less avuncular than Graves'.

Having said that, both this and the sequel Claudius the God are excellent novels: but just don't automatically assume they're also history because they're not.

"How many twisted stories still remain to be straightened out?", 26 Jul 2006
Published in 1934, poet Robert Graves's _I, Claudius_ tells the story of Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, known in Roman history as Claudius--an historian, a crippled stutterer, and widely regarded as an idiot. Claudius is isolated from the treachery of the Roman court during the years immediately after the death of Christ, protected by the fact that no one takes him seriously enough to want to assassinate him. Ultimately, however, Claudius ascends to the throne of the Roman Empire in 41 A.D. and rules brilliantly until he is assassinated in 54 A.D.

Through the first person narrative of Claudius, Graves tells the story from the beginning of the Christian era until Claudius's death fifty years later, recording the horrors visited on the Roman people by his family's rulers. Claudius's grandmother Livia, widow of Caesar Augustus--and one of the most treacherous women in history--manipulates the imperial succession through poisonings, assassinations, marriages, and secret alliances. The reign of her son Tiberius is bloody, murderous, and corrupt. His brother, the good soldier Drusus, is kept in foreign lands until he can be assassinated. Tiberius's succession by Caligula, his grandson and the protégé of Livia, takes Rome into even more terrifying debauchery. Claudius's ultimate succession to the throne upon the death of Caligula, his insane nephew, is regarded as a joke by the court--the installation of an idiot who will not challenge the imperialists. Ironically, Claudius is discovered to be a republican.

This first person account, with virtually no scenes of direct action, defies the first rule of novel-writing: to recreate, not "tell about" actions. Here every aspect of Roman history is filtered through the mind of Claudius, who "tells about" all the action as he knows it. Claudius, however, is so perceptive and so full of fascinating information about the characters and their motivations, that the reader creates his/her own action scenes from the information revealed by Claudius. Through Claudius, whom the reader comes to admire, the reader is able to evaluate what is happening in ways that direct-action scenes, with all their superficial excitement, do not allow.

Characters are complex, fully developed humans, instead of cardboard, costumed "ancients," and their machinations, though extremely bloody, show the conflicts that occur when absolute rule and republican sentiments contend for dominance, a conflict in which Graves says he saw parallels to World War I and its aftermath. Giving a new view of Claudius from what had traditionally been accepted, Graves's portrayal is historically accurate (based on then-new information) and psychologically perceptive, a brilliant novel which sets the standard for historical fiction. Mary Whipple

Disappointing and oddly unengaging, 13 Nov 2007
I was rather disappointed by this. The author takes great care to describe the details of the lives and performances of the Medieval players, but for me the story never really caught fire and I did not find myself interested in any of the characters. Bit of a slog, despite being a short novel and firmly within an area of my interest.

A good read - not great, 01 Aug 2005
I found the concept behind this book more exciting than the execution, unfortunately.

While the writing is above reproach, the book suffers due to the lack of length. All characters besides Nicholas are sketched out with the minimum of strokes, (in particular Margaret, the only female character in the group of players) and the events of the book seem to hurtle along to what I felt was a dissatisfing ending, with a hint of deus ex machina.

A good book to pass away a sunday evening, but for a more involving mediaeval murder mystery, go for Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

An insightful and captivating drama, 11 Dec 2000
The characters are brilliant and colorful. The time is one of famine and havoc during the 14th century, when a young preist fleeing from his sub-deaconship comes upon a group of travelling players. Nicholas Barber is his name and he tells his story of becoming a player. The death of one player is what prompts Nicholas to join and another could lead to his own. The troupe is on their way to Durham, England where they are promised as a gift from their partron lord. During their travels they come upon a town where they can bury their friend and replenish their purse but when they arrive they learn of another death. The murder of a young boy and the swift conviction of a young women. When the group decides to perform the play of the murder they are in for a wild ride. They do not know the whole truth but are determined to seek it out. "Morality Play" is a captivating drama that relates to many prime topics of the day despite the setting in the middle ages. It is worth the short time it takes to read.

You'll finish it in one sitting, 18 Jul 2000
Perfect: plainly written, not too long and absolutely fascinating. Buy and read this book now.

Brilliantly written, authoritatively researched, 30 Jun 1999
With impeccable research, and without a single inappropriate archaism or self-conscious "mediaevalism" Unsworth, with great subtlety, catches the spirit of the times. The images of death and corruption (both of body and soul) mirror the social, moral and spiritual collapse of mid-14th century England: the Black Death has literally halved the population, land has gone out of cultivation, labour is scarce, prices have risen, people are starving. The feudal system is disintegrating, hastened by the social and economic consequences of the Hundred Years' War. The colourful pageantry of the Christmas jousting masks the debasement of the chivalric code into greed, selfishness and brutality; the purity of the monastic ideal has been replaced by materialism and venality. No wonder there is an upsurge of millenarian sects prophesying the Last Days. The transition of drama from religious to secular is already in process, and Martin takes his players in a visionary and shocking leap forward, fusing the old Mystery Plays with the newer Morality Plays, and for the first time using real events and real people in his True Play of Thomas Wells. The process of detection and the build-up of tension are brilliantly handled; the language, techniques and traditions of mediaeval drama fascinatingly described. Though we can see where the story is leading, the denouement has enough surprises to be satisfying. Though you could read it just as a mediaeval whodunit, you would be missing a great deal. Don't be deceived by its 188 pages. This is a deep and many-layered book - increasingly rewarding with every reading.

The best of the best., 19 Apr 2008
Re-reading old favourites has become a bit of a habit with me lately - simply because there are few new authors with half the talent of Robert Graves.

As one reviewer points out, quite rightly, this isn't history, but the reader can't help but wish it to be true. The character of Claudius is so well drawn and accounts so well for the paradoxies evident in the historical accounts of him that you feel it must be right. There is nothing in the story that cannot be verified in Suetonius or Tacitus and Graves' handling of the material leaves the reader with nothing but admiration for his explanation of those facts.

Truly magnificent.

History coming alive, 24 Oct 2007
"I, Claudius" and its sequel "Claudius the God" are definitely amongst the best books ever written on Imperial Rome, and quite probably amongst the best historical novels on any age or subject. No novelist could have devised a better plot than the actual events in those days, with fascinating characters such as Augustus, Livia, Germanicus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius himself, and an empireal court rife with intrigue and plotting, but I've never known it told better than Graves does.

It's a book that demands your full attention and concentration, just to keep track of the countless family ties, feuds and plots, but in fact that's part of the attraction. A breath-taking story, by a master storyteller who knows his subject matter extremely well!

Readable and compelling but not necessarily historically accurate, 18 Oct 2006
For so many people I, Claudius is THE novel about the first years of the Roman Empire and so has conditioned our whole reception of Rome and the rule of the emperors - and how Robert Graves would have laughed if he could have predicted that! Written as a 'pot-boiler' because he needed the cash, Graves deliberately fashions a decadent, immoral and corrupt milieu that has now passed into historical fact.

As a translator of Suetonius and Tacitus, two of the major sources he uses for his fictions, Graves is completely aware that both men had political agendas of their own when they chose to portray Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula etc in the way he did. Livia hardly gets a mention, along with the other imperial women, and Suetonius' portrait of Claudius himself is far less avuncular than Graves'.

Having said that, both this and the sequel Claudius the God are excellent novels: but just don't automatically assume they're also history because they're not.

"How many twisted stories still remain to be straightened out?", 26 Jul 2006
Published in 1934, poet Robert Graves's _I, Claudius_ tells the story of Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, known in Roman history as Claudius--an historian, a crippled stutterer, and widely regarded as an idiot. Claudius is isolated from the treachery of the Roman court during the years immediately after the death of Christ, protected by the fact that no one takes him seriously enough to want to assassinate him. Ultimately, however, Claudius ascends to the throne of the Roman Empire in 41 A.D. and rules brilliantly until he is assassinated in 54 A.D.

Through the first person narrative of Claudius, Graves tells the story from the beginning of the Christian era until Claudius's death fifty years later, recording the horrors visited on the Roman people by his family's rulers. Claudius's grandmother Livia, widow of Caesar Augustus--and one of the most treacherous women in history--manipulates the imperial succession through poisonings, assassinations, marriages, and secret alliances. The reign of her son Tiberius is bloody, murderous, and corrupt. His brother, the good soldier Drusus, is kept in foreign lands until he can be assassinated. Tiberius's succession by Caligula, his grandson and the protégé of Livia, takes Rome into even more terrifying debauchery. Claudius's ultimate succession to the throne upon the death of Caligula, his insane nephew, is regarded as a joke by the court--the installation of an idiot who will not challenge the imperialists. Ironically, Claudius is discovered to be a republican.

This first person account, with virtually no scenes of direct action, defies the first rule of novel-writing: to recreate, not "tell about" actions. Here every aspect of Roman history is filtered through the mind of Claudius, who "tells about" all the action as he knows it. Claudius, however, is so perceptive and so full of fascinating information about the characters and their motivations, that the reader creates his/her own action scenes from the information revealed by Claudius. Through Claudius, whom the reader comes to admire, the reader is able to evaluate what is happening in ways that direct-action scenes, with all their superficial excitement, do not allow.

Characters are complex, fully developed humans, instead of cardboard, costumed "ancients," and their machinations, though extremely bloody, show the conflicts that occur when absolute rule and republican sentiments contend for dominance, a conflict in which Graves says he saw parallels to World War I and its aftermath. Giving a new view of Claudius from what had traditionally been accepted, Graves's portrayal is historically accurate (based on then-new information) and psychologically perceptive, a brilliant novel which sets the standard for historical fiction. Mary Whipple


Fascinating and very witty, 20 Jan 2008
What a fascinating character!

One of those books that I was reluctant to finish as the last page drew nearer.

Prior to reading this book I only knew Peter Ustinov as the delightful character Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie films. But I learned that he had a very long career in the theatre and that his talents seemed to include almost all areas in it.

His background alone makes for interesting reading. He is the child of Russian immigrants who settled in England but his (very talented) ancestors came from far and wide and included countries such as Ethiopia and Israel.

Parts of the book is written in the style of a soul searching dialogue between Peter Ustinov and himself, hence the title. He makes some insightful comments about life and the world. In general throughout the book I was struck by what appears to be the extreme intelligence of someone who oddly enough did not do well in school.

Many parts of the book are pure entertainment. I laughed aloud in many places. His descriptions of his eccentric relatives, his experiences in the army, how he dealt with rebellious students at Durham university are all very funny.

I can recommend this book. It is highly entertaining and amusing. But it also contains some insightful observations by a highly intelligent, observant and unique personality.


good car talk, 17 Apr 2003
Why i bought this i dont know.I put it in the car and the trip flew in.He has the sort of voice that relaxes you and makes time fly.

Disappointing and oddly unengaging, 13 Nov 2007
I was rather disappointed by this. The author takes great care to describe the details of the lives and performances of the Medieval players, but for me the story never really caught fire and I did not find myself interested in any of the characters. Bit of a slog, despite being a short novel and firmly within an area of my interest.

A good read - not great, 01 Aug 2005
I found the concept behind this book more exciting than the execution, unfortunately.

While the writing is above reproach, the book suffers due to the lack of length. All characters besides Nicholas are sketched out with the minimum of strokes, (in particular Margaret, the only female character in the group of players) and the events of the book seem to hurtle along to what I felt was a dissatisfing ending, with a hint of deus ex machina.

A good book to pass away a sunday evening, but for a more involving mediaeval murder mystery, go for Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

An insightful and captivating drama, 11 Dec 2000
The characters are brilliant and colorful. The time is one of famine and havoc during the 14th century, when a young preist fleeing from his sub-deaconship comes upon a group of travelling players. Nicholas Barber is his name and he tells his story of becoming a player. The death of one player is what prompts Nicholas to join and another could lead to his own. The troupe is on their way to Durham, England where they are promised as a gift from their partron lord. During their travels they come upon a town where they can bury their friend and replenish their purse but when they arrive they learn of another death. The murder of a young boy and the swift conviction of a young women. When the group decides to perform the play of the murder they are in for a wild ride. They do not know the whole truth but are determined to seek it out. "Morality Play" is a captivating drama that relates to many prime topics of the day despite the setting in the middle ages. It is worth the short time it takes to read.

You'll finish it in one sitting, 18 Jul 2000
Perfect: plainly written, not too long and absolutely fascinating. Buy and read this book now.

Brilliantly written, authoritatively researched, 30 Jun 1999
With impeccable research, and without a single inappropriate archaism or self-conscious "mediaevalism" Unsworth, with great subtlety, catches the spirit of the times. The images of death and corruption (both of body and soul) mirror the social, moral and spiritual collapse of mid-14th century England: the Black Death has literally halved the population, land has gone out of cultivation, labour is scarce, prices have risen, people are starving. The feudal system is disintegrating, hastened by the social and economic consequences of the Hundred Years' War. The colourful pageantry of the Christmas jousting masks the debasement of the chivalric code into greed, selfishness and brutality; the purity of the monastic ideal has been replaced by materialism and venality. No wonder there is an upsurge of millenarian sects prophesying the Last Days. The transition of drama from religious to secular is already in process, and Martin takes his players in a visionary and shocking leap forward, fusing the old Mystery Plays with the newer Morality Plays, and for the first time using real events and real people in his True Play of Thomas Wells. The process of detection and the build-up of tension are brilliantly handled; the language, techniques and traditions of mediaeval drama fascinatingly described. Though we can see where the story is leading, the denouement has enough surprises to be satisfying. Though you could read it just as a mediaeval whodunit, you would be missing a great deal. Don't be deceived by its 188 pages. This is a deep and many-layered book - increasingly rewarding with every reading.

The best of the best., 19 Apr 2008
Re-reading old favourites has become a bit of a habit with me lately - simply because there are few new authors with half the talent of Robert Graves.

As one reviewer points out, quite rightly, this isn't history, but the reader can't help but wish it to be true. The character of Claudius is so well drawn and accounts so well for the paradoxies evident in the historical accounts of him that you feel it must be right. There is nothing in the story that cannot be verified in Suetonius or Tacitus and Graves' handling of the material leaves the reader with nothing but admiration for his explanation of those facts.

Truly magnificent.

History coming alive, 24 Oct 2007
"I, Claudius" and its sequel "Claudius the God" are definitely amongst the best books ever written on Imperial Rome, and quite probably amongst the best historical novels on any age or subject. No novelist could have devised a better plot than the actual events in those days, with fascinating characters such as Augustus, Livia, Germanicus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius himself, and an empireal court rife with intrigue and plotting, but I've never known it told better than Graves does.

It's a book that demands your full attention and concentration, just to keep track of the countless family ties, feuds and plots, but in fact that's part of the attraction. A breath-taking story, by a master storyteller who knows his subject matter extremely well!

Readable and compelling but not necessarily historically accurate, 18 Oct 2006
For so many people I, Claudius is THE novel about the first years of the Roman Empire and so has conditioned our whole reception of Rome and the rule of the emperors - and how Robert Graves would have laughed if he could have predicted that! Written as a 'pot-boiler' because he needed the cash, Graves deliberately fashions a decadent, immoral and corrupt milieu that has now passed into historical fact.

As a translator of Suetonius and Tacitus, two of the major sources he uses for his fictions, Graves is completely aware that both men had political agendas of their own when they chose to portray Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula etc in the way he did. Livia hardly gets a mention, along with the other imperial women, and Suetonius' portrait of Claudius himself is far less avuncular than Graves'.

Having said that, both this and the sequel Claudius the God are excellent novels: but just don't automatically assume they're also history because they're not.

"How many twisted stories still remain to be straightened out?", 26 Jul 2006
Published in 1934, poet Robert Graves's _I, Claudius_ tells the story of Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, known in Roman history as Claudius--an historian, a crippled stutterer, and widely regarded as an idiot. Claudius is isolated from the treachery of the Roman court during the years immediately after the death of Christ, protected by the fact that no one takes him seriously enough to want to assassinate him. Ultimately, however, Claudius ascends to the throne of the Roman Empire in 41 A.D. and rules brilliantly until he is assassinated in 54 A.D.

Through the first person narrative of Claudius, Graves tells the story from the beginning of the Christian era until Claudius's death fifty years later, recording the horrors visited on the Roman people by his family's rulers. Claudius's grandmother Livia, widow of Caesar Augustus--and one of the most treacherous women in history--manipulates the imperial succession through poisonings, assassinations, marriages, and secret alliances. The reign of her son Tiberius is bloody, murderous, and corrupt. His brother, the good soldier Drusus, is kept in foreign lands until he can be assassinated. Tiberius's succession by Caligula, his grandson and the protégé of Livia, takes Rome into even more terrifying debauchery. Claudius's ultimate succession to the throne upon the death of Caligula, his insane nephew, is regarded as a joke by the court--the installation of an idiot who will not challenge the imperialists. Ironically, Claudius is discovered to be a republican.

This first person account, with virtually no scenes of direct action, defies the first rule of novel-writing: to recreate, not "tell about" actions. Here every aspect of Roman history is filtered through the mind of Claudius, who "tells about" all the action as he knows it. Claudius, however, is so perceptive and so full of fascinating information about the characters and their motivations, that the reader creates his/her own action scenes from the information revealed by Claudius. Through Claudius, whom the reader comes to admire, the reader is able to evaluate what is happening in ways that direct-action scenes, with all their superficial excitement, do not allow.

Characters are complex, fully developed humans, instead of cardboard, costumed "ancients," and their machinations, though extremely bloody, show the conflicts that occur when absolute rule and republican sentiments contend for dominance, a conflict in which Graves says he saw parallels to World War I and its aftermath. Giving a new view of Claudius from what had traditionally been accepted, Graves's portrayal is historically accurate (based on then-new information) and psychologically perceptive, a brilliant novel which sets the standard for historical fiction. Mary Whipple


Fascinating and very witty, 20 Jan 2008
What a fascinating character!

One of those books that I was reluctant to finish as the last page drew nearer.

Prior to reading this book I only knew Peter Ustinov as the delightful character Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie films. But I learned that he had a very long career in the theatre and that his talents seemed to include almost all areas in it.

His background alone makes for interesting reading. He is the child of Russian immigrants who settled in England but his (very talented) ancestors came from far and wide and included countries such as Ethiopia and Israel.

Parts of the book is written in the style of a soul searching dialogue between Peter Ustinov and himself, hence the title. He makes some insightful comments about life and the world. In general throughout the book I was struck by what appears to be the extreme intelligence of someone who oddly enough did not do well in school.

Many parts of the book are pure entertainment. I laughed aloud in many places. His descriptions of his eccentric relatives, his experiences in the army, how he dealt with rebellious students at Durham university are all very funny.

I can recommend this book. It is highly entertaining and amusing. But it also contains some insightful observations by a highly intelligent, observant and unique personality.


good car talk, 17 Apr 2003
Why i bought this i dont know.I put it in the car and the trip flew in.He has the sort of voice that relaxes you and makes time fly.

"He'll get by without his rabbit pie ... run, rabbit, run rabbit, run run run ...", 13 Aug 2008
'Rabbit, Run' is the first in a quartet of novels by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist that revolve around the varying fortunes of a former high school Basketball champion Rabbit Angstrom. All four novels were written at the end of the a decade and published at the beginning of the next, and give a subjective flavour of modern American life as lived in small-town mediocrity. Angstrom observes the rapid transformations of the late 1950s here, and later the 60s (Rabbit Redux), 70s (Rabbit is Rich) and 80s (Rabbit at Rest), but is rather buffeted by them, lucid but always overwhelmed.

Updike makes it clear in his fascinating afterword that Rabbit "was for me a way in - a ticket to America all around me. What I saw through Rabbit's eyes was more worth telling than what I saw through my own, thought the difference is often slight". Thus there is an exploratory unruliness to Updike's writing, an anything-goes, that enables the writer to abandon his lofty authorial seat and rove around, eyes wide open. It's a seedy, cynical novel with few really likeable characters. Visceral and provocative, it rarely shirks from a rather dank explicitness that belies it's early 1960s first publication (although, in fact, a number of forced original cuts have been reinstated here).

Despite the need to chronical the life and times Updike consciously avoids the bigger contemporaneous themes, but concentrates on what is lived and felt by ordinary people of the period. He delves with stealth, and without ceremony, into the perspective of a number of other characters, often in rambling stream-of-consciousness. One almost unpunctuated chapter depicts Rabbit's wife losing control in drunkedness and accidently drowning her baby. It's brutal and horrific, more so as the brakes are taken off the writing, expediting Janice's decline into drunken madness.

It is the stylistic freedom Updike permits himself which makes his writing so penetrating. He panders to no formalistic strictures, and thus - like Rabbit Angstrom - runs with irresponsible abandon into new predicaments. "Readers who expect novelists to reward and punish and satirize their characters from a superior standpoint will be disappointed", the author remarks in the afterword, "I sought to present sides of an unresolvable tension intrinsic to being human". 'Rabbit, Run' makes no concessions to resolution, and it begins the quartet as it continued, with a sense of maddening, but very human, indecisiveness.

Updike also adds in the afterword that Rabbit, Run was in part a conscious reaction to Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road', published a few years before, with its clarion call to break free from the constraints of conservative America. The book is an examination of "what happens when a young American family man goes on the road - the people left behid get hurt. There was no painless dropping out of the Fifties' fraying but still tight social weave". This is not to suggest Updike's novel is a cautionary note about the dangers of "cutting loose", but that it presents a bleakly unromantic alternative to the beat paradigm: that some people cannot extricate themselves from their lives cleanly or even satisfyingly. Certainly, there is nothing clean about Rabbit's escape, but a sense of bloody rupture suggested by his baby's premature death. "Boy, you really have the touch of death, don't you?", mocks Angstrom's prostitute mistress in the final chapter, and it is this morbid pallor that hangs inauspiciously over the whole novel. A vital, if dispiriting read.

rabbit run, 09 Apr 2008
this is the first book i have ever read of john updikes.i cant say i enjoyed reading this,but i dont think i was meant to. the main protagonist harry " rabbit" angstrom is probably the most self centred and morally repugnunt individual i have ever read about, but that is the beauty of this book.you feel yourself appalled at rabbits moral bankrupcy.
you forget that he is a fictional character.this is a beautifully written book.for all his faults i think i might end up reading the futher adventures of rabbit.he may be self centred,but he is an interesting read.

The dreariness of a 'second rate' suburban existence..., 01 Mar 2007
This book tells the story of the once great college sportsman Harry 'rabbit' Angstrom, who at the age of twenty six has made nothing of his former talent and feels trapped in a loveless marriage, to an alcoholic wife who is unable to keep their home and young son under control. Rabbit is stifled by his dreary suburban existence and cannot escape the feeling that having once been a 'first rate' sportsman, being second rate just doesnt cut it. Unable to accept his life as it is, Harry walks out on his wife and child and begins a complicated journey to rid himself of his dull existence. Along the way, meeting his one time sports coach Mr. Tothero and striking up an odd friendship with a priest.

The book explores the suburban experience of an outsider, one who cannot conform to the life he has become tangled up in. In much the same manner as writers like John Cheever and Richard Yates, this book explores the disasterous effects of characters whose expectations of life have been seriously diminished.

This book is really well written and has a clear narrative voice, while the reader may not agree with Harry's actions, we cannot help but become immersed in his world. This book is the first of four 'Rabbit' books which follow Harry throughout his life, but also acts as a great introduction to Updike. Highly recommended!

Rabbit, Run - John Updike, 04 Sep 2006
Many good writers can tell an engrossing story, but only the best manage to reach inside your head and grasp perceptions that you yourself had never acknowledged but instantly recognise, shudder or smile at, and empathise with when you read. Suddenly you are there with the characters, experiencing everything they see, feel, hear, smell, taste and touch, every twinge, every furrowed brow and fleeting thought. John Updike is one of those masters and many of his descriptions stay in your head forever. I can't look at rhododendrons without remembering his description of them in Rabbit, Run - 'when the first blooms came, they were like the single big flower Oriental prostitutes wear on the side of their heads...but when the hemispheres of blossom appear in crowds, they remind him of...the hats worn by cheap girls to church on Easter'.
All the Rabbit books are beautifully written. Rabbit's indecisiveness, his angst and discontent, are painted with an incredibly masterly touch, as are his effects on those around him. Updike captures not only characters but the whole human predicament. His insights are second to none - with a few well chosen words he can nail a feeling, thought or action where other lesser authors would struggle and use ten times as many less suitable words.
My only slight disappointment about Updike is that many of his characters are so stereotypically 'male'. They are able to fall out of love when their wives fall into depressed alcoholism, their hair thins, they lose interest in sex, or they become overweight, able to walk out on partners and kids without seeing to miss them, or with only a flicker of self-indulgent angst. But Updike's ability to synthesise people of all sorts is evident from his descriptions of peripheral characters, in particular, females, so his cynicism about the male race is not due to shallowness but a perhaps realistic perception of the superficiality and/or flaws of some men and women. A writer, then, not of cosy tales and romantic dreams, but of life in all its grit and truth, good, bad, ugly and funny. The man is a genius.




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soooo good!, 20 Oct 2005
In describing postwar America of the 1950s, many historians evoke images of the mundane: the organization man, the gray-flannel suit, mass exodus to suburbia, proliferation of television sets into middle-class households, and the sterility of "Leave it to Beaver" family life, all illustrating stagnation and complacency. Along with conformity, this almost involuntary collectivism brings alienation of the individual to a society of insecure citizens, who seem to constantly exchange sidelong glances with each other in search of cultural affirmation. Both Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952) and John Updike's Rabbit, Run (1960) exemplify vain struggles to assert individual identities in mid-century American culture. Updike successfully illustrates the introspective struggle of the "silent majority" through Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, the ambivalent non-hero of Rabbit, Run. Through themes of religion, physical action, and responsibility, John Updike suggests the stuffiness, disillusionment, and ambivalence pervasive in 1950s American life struggling to cope with a conformist postwar identity. One of the most prominent themes of Rabbit, Run is religious duplicity and a fundamental questioning of Christianity. This ambivalence is manifest through the rather ineffective Episcopalian minister, Jack Eccles, who exists as a collage of religious dogma, having taking his own muddled path of Protestantism away from that of his father and grandfather, also ministers. Eccles seems much more effective as a social worker than a minister, traveling around from house to house hoping to reconstruct Harry Angstrom's rubble of a nuclear family. He receives a rather severe reprimand from his colleague, Lutheran minister Fritz Kruppenbach who labels Eccles a "minister of God selling his message for a few scraps of gossip and a few games of golf" (154). As a result, even the most significant figure of religious guidance in the community seems confused about his social role. Updike continues to discredit religious faith in Rabbit's perception of the church. Early on, he admits to Ruth Leonard, his part time prostitute lover, that he does believe in some divine force, but immediately wonders if he is lying. If he is, he is hung in the middle of nowhere, and the thought hollows him, makes his heart tremble. Across the street a few people in their best clothes walk on the pavement...their clothes, they put on their best clothes: he clings to the thought giddily; it seems a visual proof of an unseen world. (81) Angstrom acknowledges the existence of a higher authority, but seems confused about its source or location. Later he observes the crowds filing into Eccles' parish, "even the plainest walk...glowing with beauty, the beauty of belief" (214). Though he questions Christian imposition of mores and standards on modern society, Angstrom still holds a fundamental appreciation and respect for the sacrosanct belief "in something." Several times Harry Angstrom experiences quasi-existentialist epiphanies, once on the golf course with his minister friend: Very simply he brings the club head around his shoulder into [the ball]. The sound has a hollowness, a singleness he hasn't heard before. [...] It hesitates, and Rabbit thinks it will die, but he's fooled, for the ball makes his hesitation the ground of a final leap: with a kind of visible sob takes a last bite of space before vanishing in falling. "That's it!" (121). In this figurative leap of faith, he discovers clear evidence of a God-like existence. Harry consistently reveals his belief in something resembling religious experience throughout the novel, though he rather bluntly rejects the traditional values of a Christian society. He oscillates between religious disillusionment and a somewhat curious acknowledgment of a higher power, but he never really develops any concrete idea or definition to explain his emotional phenomenon. Rather he offers only an ability to identify the feeling. Rabbit's religious confusion speaks to a larger community of skeptical believers, those generally experiencing a similar middle-class nonexistence as the main character. His spiritual restlessness subverts blind acceptance of Christianity as America's faith. Another dominant theme of Rabbit, Run lies in the exhilaration of physical perfection. Rabbit lives for the adrenalized intensity of physical and emotional climax, through his past basketball career, the perfect golf shot, or sexual dominance over his female counterparts. Intertwined with his religious disillusionment, the idea of physical perfection provides Rabbit with evidence of a greater existence above his mundane occupation as a MagiPeel salesman in suburban Brewer, Pennsylvania. He revels in his past success as a star basketball player, elated "that his touch still lives in his hands," a physical liberation from his "long gloom" of conventional life since high school glory days (3). Adulterous sexual activity provides the animalistic Rabbit with his other major physical release, though it ultimately leads to dejection as he reproduces at the rate of his namesake, impregnating both his wife, Janice, and his lover, Ruth. Even at sexual climax, Ruth envisions the transparent nature of Rabbit's urges, "as if she knows that as that moment of release, the root of love, he betrayed her by feeling despair" (77). The past glory of his basketball career, the fluke shot of an epiphanic golf drive, and the ultimate denial of his natural virility constantly push Harry to search for an ultimate, indefinable truth. Finally, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom expresses frustration in his denial of conventional responsibility. The images of running thread a circular loop through the narrative, from his initial drive to West Virginia at the beginning to his rather inconclusive, desperate attempt to "travel to the next patch of snow" (280). He runs away from his responsibility to his wife, his children, his lover, and Walt Disney's total merchandising of Disneyland on network television. Even in his physical self-removal to West Virginia, Harry meets an alien world: "He had thought, he had read, that from shore to shore all America was the same. He wonders, Is it just these people I'm outside, or is it all America?" (29) Harry's urge to run symbolizes the introspective dissatisfaction with American institutions, a rebellion against expectations, but one lacking a clear purpose and goal. Rabbit is Odysseus traveling to Ithaca, but without a map to guide his way. In his novel Rabbit, Run, John Updike explores themes of religion, perfection, and responsibility to illustrate the claustrophobia and ambivalence of an average American in the 1950s. Both Updike and Ellison point to the invisibility of the citizen, the disillusionment of individuality in a post-industrial age. What Updike refuses to offer is an ultimate solution to the problem, treating the platitudes of basketball Coach Tothero and Mickey Mouse television advice with a parodic contempt, refusing to accept the paradigms as cohesive solutions to social problems. Updike never suggests a solution to the protagonist's ailment, but demonstrates an indifferent acceptance of roles and responsibility through antagonists to Rabbit's eternal quest for personal freedom. Ultimately, Updike paints the portrait of a man searching for dignity in his possession of freedom, in his possession of the American life. Unable to find it, he runs in disgust.

Disappointing and oddly unengaging, 13 Nov 2007
I was rather disappointed by this. The author takes great care to describe the details of the lives and performances of the Medieval players, but for me the story never really caught fire and I did not find myself interested in any of the characters. Bit of a slog, despite being a short novel and firmly within an area of my interest.

A good read - not great, 01 Aug 2005
I found the concept behind this book more exciting than the execution, unfortunately.

While the writing is above reproach, the book suffers due to the lack of length. All characters besides Nicholas are sketched out with the minimum of strokes, (in particular Margaret, the only female character in the group of players) and the events of the book seem to hurtle along to what I felt was a dissatisfing ending, with a hint of deus ex machina.

A good book to pass away a sunday evening, but for a more involving mediaeval murder mystery, go for Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

An insightful and captivating drama, 11 Dec 2000
The characters are brilliant and colorful. The time is one of famine and havoc during the 14th century, when a young preist fleeing from his sub-deaconship comes upon a group of travelling players. Nicholas Barber is his name and he tells his story of becoming a player. The death of one player is what prompts Nicholas to join and another could lead to his own. The troupe is on their way to Durham, England where they are promised as a gift from their partron lord. During their travels they come upon a town where they can bury their friend and replenish their purse but when they arrive they learn of another death. The murder of a young boy and the swift conviction of a young women. When the group decides to perform the play of the murder they are in for a wild ride. They do not know the whole truth but are determined to seek it out. "Morality Play" is a captivating drama that relates to many prime topics of the day despite the setting in the middle ages. It is worth the short time it takes to read.

You'll finish it in one sitting, 18 Jul 2000
Perfect: plainly written, not too long and absolutely fascinating. Buy and read this book now.

Brilliantly written, authoritatively researched, 30 Jun 1999
With impeccable research, and without a single inappropriate archaism or self-conscious "mediaevalism" Unsworth, with great subtlety, catches the spirit of the times. The images of death and corruption (both of body and soul) mirror the social, moral and spiritual collapse of mid-14th century England: the Black Death has literally halved the population, land has gone out of cultivation, labour is scarce, prices have risen, people are starving. The feudal system is disintegrating, hastened by the social and economic consequences of the Hundred Years' War. The colourful pageantry of the Christmas jousting masks the debasement of the chivalric code into greed, selfishness and brutality; the purity of the monastic ideal has been replaced by materialism and venality. No wonder there is an upsurge of millenarian sects prophesying the Last Days. The transition of drama from religious to secular is already in process, and Martin takes his players in a visionary and shocking leap forward, fusing the old Mystery Plays with the newer Morality Plays, and for the first time using real events and real people in his True Play of Thomas Wells. The process of detection and the build-up of tension are brilliantly handled; the language, techniques and traditions of mediaeval drama fascinatingly described. Though we can see where the story is leading, the denouement has enough surprises to be satisfying. Though you could read it just as a mediaeval whodunit, you would be missing a great deal. Don't be deceived by its 188 pages. This is a deep and many-layered book - increasingly rewarding with every reading.

The best of the best., 19 Apr 2008
Re-reading old favourites has become a bit of a habit with me lately - simply because there are few new authors with half the talent of Robert Graves.

As one reviewer points out, quite rightly, this isn't history, but the reader can't help but wish it to be true. The character of Claudius is so well drawn and accounts so well for the paradoxies evident in the historical accounts of him that you feel it must be right. There is nothing in the story that cannot be verified in Suetonius or Tacitus and Graves' handling of the material leaves the reader with nothing but admiration for his explanation of those facts.

Truly magnificent.

History coming alive, 24 Oct 2007
"I, Claudius" and its sequel "Claudius the God" are definitely amongst the best books ever written on Imperial Rome, and quite probably amongst the best historical novels on any age or subject. No novelist could have devised a better plot than the actual events in those days, with fascinating characters such as Augustus, Livia, Germanicus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius himself, and an empireal court rife with intrigue and plotting, but I've never known it told better than Graves does.

It's a book that demands your full attention and concentration, just to keep track of the countless family ties, feuds and plots, but in fact that's part of the attraction. A breath-taking story, by a master storyteller who knows his subject matter extremely well!

Readable and compelling but not necessarily historically accurate, 18 Oct 2006
For so many people I, Claudius is THE novel about the first years of the Roman Empire and so has conditioned our whole reception of Rome and the rule of the emperors - and how Robert Graves would have laughed if he could have predicted that! Written as a 'pot-boiler' because he needed the cash, Graves deliberately fashions a decadent, immoral and corrupt milieu that has now passed into historical fact.

As a translator of Suetonius and Tacitus, two of the major sources he uses for his fictions, Graves is completely aware that both men had political agendas of their own when they chose to portray Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula etc in the way he did. Livia hardly gets a mention, along with the other imperial women, and Suetonius' portrait of Claudius himself is far less avuncular than Graves'.

Having said that, both this and the sequel Claudius the God are excellent novels: but just don't automatically assume they're also history because they're not.

"How many twisted stories still remain to be straightened out?", 26 Jul 2006
Published in 1934, poet Robert Graves's _I, Claudius_ tells the story of Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, known in Roman history as Claudius--an historian, a crippled stutterer, and widely regarded as an idiot. Claudius is isolated from the treachery of the Roman court during the years immediately after the death of Christ, protected by the fact that no one takes him seriously enough to want to assassinate him. Ultimately, however, Claudius ascends to the throne of the Roman Empire in 41 A.D. and rules brilliantly until he is assassinated in 54 A.D.

Through the first person narrative of Claudius, Graves tells the story from the beginning of the Christian era until Claudius's death fifty years later, recording the horrors visited on the Roman people by his family's rulers. Claudius's grandmother Livia, widow of Caesar Augustus--and one of the most treacherous women in history--manipulates the imperial succession through poisonings, assassinations, marriages, and secret alliances. The reign of her son Tiberius is bloody, murderous, and corrupt. His brother, the good soldier Drusus, is kept in foreign lands until he can be assassinated. Tiberius's succession by Caligula, his grandson and the protégé of Livia, takes Rome into even more terrifying debauchery. Claudius's ultimate succession to the throne upon the death of Caligula, his insane nephew, is regarded as a joke by the court--the installation of an idiot who will not challenge the imperialists. Ironically, Claudius is discovered to be a republican.

This first person account, with virtually no scenes of direct action, defies the first rule of novel-writing: to recreate, not "tell about" actions. Here every aspect of Roman history is filtered through the mind of Claudius, who "tells about" all the action as he knows it. Claudius, however, is so perceptive and so full of fascinating information about the characters and their motivations, that the reader creates his/her own action scenes from the information revealed by Claudius. Through Claudius, whom the reader comes to admire, the reader is able to evaluate what is happening in ways that direct-action scenes, with all their superficial excitement, do not allow.

Characters are complex, fully developed humans, instead of cardboard, costumed "ancients," and their machinations, though extremely bloody, show the conflicts that occur when absolute rule and republican sentiments contend for dominance, a conflict in which Graves says he saw parallels to World War I and its aftermath. Giving a new view of Claudius from what had traditionally been accepted, Graves's portrayal is historically accurate (based on then-new information) and psychologically perceptive, a brilliant novel which sets the standard for historical fiction. Mary Whipple


Fascinating and very witty, 20 Jan 2008
What a fascinating character!

One of those books that I was reluctant to finish as the last page drew nearer.

Prior to reading this book I only knew Peter Ustinov as the delightful character Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie films. But I learned that he had a very long career in the theatre and that his talents seemed to include almost all areas in it.

His background alone makes for interesting reading. He is the child of Russian immigrants who settled in England but his (very talented) ancestors came from far and wide and included countries such as Ethiopia and Israel.

Parts of the book is written in the style of a soul searching dialogue between Peter Ustinov and himself, hence the title. He makes some insightful comments about life and the world. In general throughout the book I was struck by what appears to be the extreme intelligence of someone who oddly enough did not do well in school.

Many parts of the book are pure entertainment. I laughed aloud in many places. His descriptions of his eccentric relatives, his experiences in the army, how he dealt with rebellious students at Durham university are all very funny.

I can recommend this book. It is highly entertaining and amusing. But it also contains some insightful observations by a highly intelligent, observant and unique personality.


good car talk, 17 Apr 2003
Why i bought this i dont know.I put it in the car and the trip flew in.He has the sort of voice that relaxes you and makes time fly.

"He'll get by without his rabbit pie ... run, rabbit, run rabbit, run run run ...", 13 Aug 2008
'Rabbit, Run' is the first in a quartet of novels by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist that revolve around the varying fortunes of a former high school Basketball champion Rabbit Angstrom. All four novels were written at the end of the a decade and published at the beginning of the next, and give a subjective flavour of modern American life as lived in small-town mediocrity. Angstrom observes the rapid transformations of the late 1950s here, and later the 60s (Rabbit Redux), 70s (Rabbit is Rich) and 80s (Rabbit at Rest), but is rather buffeted by them, lucid but always overwhelmed.

Updike makes it clear in his fascinating afterword that Rabbit "was for me a way in - a ticket to America all around me. What I saw through Rabbit's eyes was more worth telling than what I saw through my own, thought the difference is often slight". Thus there is an exploratory unruliness to Updike's writing, an anything-goes, that enables the writer to abandon his lofty authorial seat and rove around, eyes wide open. It's a seedy, cynical novel with few really likeable characters. Visceral and provocative, it rarely shirks from a rather dank explicitness that belies it's early 1960s first publication (although, in fact, a number of forced original cuts have been reinstated here).

Despite the need to chronical the life and times Updike consciously avoids the bigger contemporaneous themes, but concentrates on what is lived and felt by ordinary people of the period. He delves with stealth, and without ceremony, into the perspective of a number of other characters, often in rambling stream-of-consciousness. One almost unpunctuated chapter depicts Rabbit's wife losing control in drunkedness and accidently drowning her baby. It's brutal and horrific, more so as the brakes are taken off the writing, expediting Janice's decline into drunken madness.

It is the stylistic freedom Updike permits himself which makes his writing so penetrating. He panders to no formalistic strictures, and thus - like Rabbit Angstrom - runs with irresponsible abandon into new predicaments. "Readers who expect novelists to reward and punish and satirize their characters from a superior standpoint will be disappointed", the author remarks in the afterword, "I sought to present sides of an unresolvable tension intrinsic to being human". 'Rabbit, Run' makes no concessions to resolution, and it begins the quartet as it continued, with a sense of maddening, but very human, indecisiveness.

Updike also adds in the afterword that Rabbit, Run was in part a conscious reaction to Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road', published a few years before, with its clarion call to break free from the constraints of conservative America. The book is an examination of "what happens when a young American family man goes on the road - the people left behid get hurt. There was no painless dropping out of the Fifties' fraying but still tight social weave". This is not to suggest Updike's novel is a cautionary note about the dangers of "cutting loose", but that it presents a bleakly unromantic alternative to the beat paradigm: that some people cannot extricate themselves from their lives cleanly or even satisfyingly. Certainly, there is nothing clean about Rabbit's escape, but a sense of bloody rupture suggested by his baby's premature death. "Boy, you really have the touch of death, don't you?", mocks Angstrom's prostitute mistress in the final chapter, and it is this morbid pallor that hangs inauspiciously over the whole novel. A vital, if dispiriting read.

rabbit run, 09 Apr 2008
this is the first book i have ever read of john updikes.i cant say i enjoyed reading this,but i dont think i was meant to. the main protagonist harry " rabbit" angstrom is probably the most self centred and morally repugnunt individual i have ever read about, but that is the beauty of this book.you feel yourself appalled at rabbits moral bankrupcy.
you forget that he is a fictional character.this is a beautifully written book.for all his faults i think i might end up reading the futher adventures of rabbit.he may be self centred,but he is an interesting read.

The dreariness of a 'second rate' suburban existence..., 01 Mar 2007
This book tells the story of the once great college sportsman Harry 'rabbit' Angstrom, who at the age of twenty six has made nothing of his former talent and feels trapped in a loveless marriage, to an alcoholic wife who is unable to keep their home and young son under control. Rabbit is stifled by his dreary suburban existence and cannot escape the feeling that having once been a 'first rate' sportsman, being second rate just doesnt cut it. Unable to accept his life as it is, Harry walks out on his wife and child and begins a complicated journey to rid himself of his dull existence. Along the way, meeting his one time sports coach Mr. Tothero and striking up an odd friendship with a priest.

The book explores the suburban experience of an outsider, one who cannot conform to the life he has become tangled up in. In much the same manner as writers like John Cheever and Richard Yates, this book explores the disasterous effects of characters whose expectations of life have been seriously diminished.

This book is really well written and has a clear narrative voice, while the reader may not agree with Harry's actions, we cannot help but become immersed in his world. This book is the first of four 'Rabbit' books which follow Harry throughout his life, but also acts as a great introduction to Updike. Highly recommended!

Rabbit, Run - John Updike, 04 Sep 2006
Many good writers can tell an engrossing story, but only the best manage to reach inside your head and grasp perceptions that you yourself had never acknowledged but instantly recognise, shudder or smile at, and empathise with when you read. Suddenly you are there with the characters, experiencing everything they see, feel, hear, smell, taste and touch, every twinge, every furrowed brow and fleeting thought. John Updike is one of those masters and many of his descriptions stay in your head forever. I can't look at rhododendrons without remembering his description of them in Rabbit, Run - 'when the first blooms came, they were like the single big flower Oriental prostitutes wear on the side of their heads...but when the hemispheres of blossom appear in crowds, they remind him of...the hats worn by cheap girls to church on Easter'.
All the Rabbit books are beautifully written. Rabbit's indecisiveness, his angst and discontent, are painted with an incredibly masterly touch, as are his effects on those around him. Updike captures not only characters but the whole human predicament. His insights are second to none - with a few well chosen words he can nail a feeling, thought or action where other lesser authors would struggle and use ten times as many less suitable words.
My only slight disappointment about Updike is that many of his characters are so stereotypically 'male'. They are able to fall out of love when their wives fall into depressed alcoholism, their hair thins, they lose interest in sex, or they become overweight, able to walk out on partners and kids without seeing to miss them, or with only a flicker of self-indulgent angst. But Updike's ability to synthesise people of all sorts is evident from his descriptions of peripheral characters, in particular, females, so his cynicism about the male race is not due to shallowness but a perhaps realistic perception of the superficiality and/or flaws of some men and women. A writer, then, not of cosy tales and romantic dreams, but of life in all its grit and truth, good, bad, ugly and funny. The man is a genius.




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soooo good!, 20 Oct 2005
In describing postwar America of the 1950s, many historians evoke images of the mundane: the organization man, the gray-flannel suit, mass exodus to suburbia, proliferation of television sets into middle-class households, and the sterility of "Leave it to Beaver" family life, all illustrating stagnation and complacency. Along with conformity, this almost involuntary collectivism brings alienation of the individual to a society of insecure citizens, who seem to constantly exchange sidelong glances with each other in search of cultural affirmation. Both Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952) and John Updike's Rabbit, Run (1960) exemplify vain struggles to assert individual identities in mid-century American culture. Updike successfully illustrates the introspective struggle of the "silent majority" through Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, the ambivalent non-hero of Rabbit, Run. Through themes of religion, physical action, and responsibility, John Updike suggests the stuffiness, disillusionment, and ambivalence pervasive in 1950s American life struggling to cope with a conformist postwar identity. One of the most prominent themes of Rabbit, Run is religious duplicity and a fundamental questioning of Christianity. This ambivalence is manifest through the rather ineffective Episcopalian minister, Jack Eccles, who exists as a collage of religious dogma, having taking his own muddled path of Protestantism away from that of his father and grandfather, also ministers. Eccles seems much more effective as a social worker than a minister, traveling around from house to house hoping to reconstruct Harry Angstrom's rubble of a nuclear family. He receives a rather severe reprimand from his colleague, Lutheran minister Fritz Kruppenbach who labels Eccles a "minister of God selling his message for a few scraps of gossip and a few games of golf" (154). As a result, even the most significant figure of religious guidance in the community seems confused about his social role. Updike continues to discredit religious faith in Rabbit's perception of the church. Early on, he admits to Ruth Leonard, his part time prostitute lover, that he does believe in some divine force, but immediately wonders if he is lying. If he is, he is hung in the middle of nowhere, and the thought hollows him, makes his heart tremble. Across the street a few people in their best clothes walk on the pavement...their clothes, they put on their best clothes: he clings to the thought giddily; it seems a visual proof of an unseen world. (81) Angstrom acknowledges the existence of a higher authority, but seems confused about its source or location. Later he observes the crowds filing into Eccles' parish, "even the plainest walk...glowing with beauty, the beauty of belief" (214). Though he questions Christian imposition of mores and standards on modern society, Angstrom still holds a fundamental appreciation and respect for the sacrosanct belief "in something." Several times Harry Angstrom experiences quasi-existentialist epiphanies, once on the golf course with his minister friend: Very simply he brings the club head around his shoulder into [the ball]. The sound has a hollowness, a singleness he hasn't heard before. [...] It hesitates, and Rabbit thinks it will die, but he's fooled, for the ball makes his hesitation the ground of a final leap: with a kind of visible sob takes a last bite of space before vanishing in falling. "That's it!" (121). In this figurative leap of faith, he discovers clear evidence of a God-like existence. Harry consistently reveals his belief in something resembling religious experience throughout the novel, though he rather bluntly rejects the traditional values of a Christian society. He oscillates between religious disillusionment and a somewhat curious acknowledgment of a higher power, but he never really develops any concrete idea or definition to explain his emotional phenomenon. Rather he offers only an ability to identify the feeling. Rabbit's religious confusion speaks to a larger community of skeptical believers, those generally experiencing a similar middle-class nonexistence as the main character. His spiritual restlessness subverts blind acceptance of Christianity as America's faith. Another dominant theme of Rabbit, Run lies in the exhilaration of physical perfection. Rabbit lives for the adrenalized intensity of physical and emotional climax, through his past basketball career, the perfect golf shot, or sexual dominance over his female counterparts. Intertwined with his religious disillusionment, the idea of physical perfection provides Rabbit with evidence of a greater existence above his mundane occupation as a MagiPeel salesman in suburban Brewer, Pennsylvania. He revels in his past success as a star basketball player, elated "that his touch still lives in his hands," a physical liberation from his "long gloom" of conventional life since high school glory days (3). Adulterous sexual activity provides the animalistic Rabbit with his other major physical release, though it ultimately leads to dejection as he reproduces at the rate of his namesake, impregnating both his wife, Janice, and his lover, Ruth. Even at sexual climax, Ruth envisions the transparent nature of Rabbit's urges, "as if she knows that as that moment of release, the root of love, he betrayed her by feeling despair" (77). The past glory of his basketball career, the fluke shot of an epiphanic golf drive, and the ultimate denial of his natural virility constantly push Harry to search for an ultimate, indefinable truth. Finally, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom expresses frustration in his denial of conventional responsibility. The images of running thread a circular loop through the narrative, from his initial drive to West Virginia at the beginning to his rather inconclusive, desperate attempt to "travel to the next patch of snow" (280). He runs away from his responsibility to his wife, his children, his lover, and Walt Disney's total merchandising of Disneyland on network television. Even in his physical self-removal to West Virginia, Harry meets an alien world: "He had thought, he had read, that from shore to shore all America was the same. He wonders, Is it just these people I'm outside, or is it all America?" (29) Harry's urge to run symbolizes the introspective dissatisfaction with American institutions, a rebellion against expectations, but one lacking a clear purpose and goal. Rabbit is Odysseus traveling to Ithaca, but without a map to guide his way. In his novel Rabbit, Run, John Updike explores themes of religion, perfection, and responsibility to illustrate the claustrophobia and ambivalence of an average American in the 1950s. Both Updike and Ellison point to the invisibility of the citizen, the disillusionment of individuality in a post-industrial age. What Updike refuses to offer is an ultimate solution to the problem, treating the platitudes of basketball Coach Tothero and Mickey Mouse television advice with a parodic contempt, refusing to accept the paradigms as cohesive solutions to social problems. Updike never suggests a solution to the protagonist's ailment, but demonstrates an indifferent acceptance of roles and responsibility through antagonists to Rabbit's eternal quest for personal freedom. Ultimately, Updike paints the portrait of a man searching for dignity in his possession of freedom, in his possession of the American life. Unable to find it, he runs in disgust.

John Updike and The Mind of a Terrorirst., 22 Jan 2008
"Devils" Ahmad thinks. "These devils seek to take away my God. All day long at Central High School, girls sway and sneer and expose their soft bodies and alluring hair. Their bare bellies, adorned with shining navel studs and low down purple tatoos, ask, What else is there to see?"

So opens John Updike's book 'Terrorist,' which has been described as a political thriller which takes you into the mind of a terrorist. Certainly Ahmad is often easy to identify with. His opening thoughts, as he stands outside 'Central High', could be the thoughts of many westerners over forty, religious or irreligious, if you take out the reference to his God. The scene he witnesses and damns is common in many a town and city centre in England. However, I was willing to go along with the development of Ahmad's character to find out how he becomes a man, just eighteen, who is turned into a suicide bomber ready to make a gesture to equal the bombing of the twin towers.

We learn that he alone, 'feels Allah closer to him than the vein in his neck,' unlike the broken down unbelieving Jew who is both his counselor and soon to become very close to Ahmad's mother. She is an Irish lapsed Catholic who uses men and dabbles in oil painting to express her deeper self. Ahmad's Egyptian father, having failed to grasp the American Dream returned home while Ahmed was still a baby. It is through a photograph of him that Ahmad models his appearance of neat laundered shirt and black jeans each day separating him from the rest of his college peers except for Joryleen a black girl he is infatuated with who sings in the local pentecostal church and wears her religion as casually as she does her clothes.

We learn that Ahmad started studying the Q'ran at the age of nine with Shaikh Rashid, the cynical and dapper Imam who tells him that he should not pursue his studies but drive a truck. We have no background as to why the young boy wanted to take up his studies. Presumably we are meant to believe that it was the decadence of America portrayed in one scene as full of,

"Children among them wear towering hats of plastic foam, and those who might be their grandparents, having forsaken all thought of dignity, make themselves ridiculous in clinging outfits of many colors and patterns. Sunburned and overfed, some sport in complacent self-mockery the same foam carnival hats as their grandchildren wear, tall and striped ones as in the books by Dr. Seuss or headgear shaped like open-mouthed sharks or lobsters extending a giant red mitt of a claw. Devils. The guts of the men sag hugely and the monstrous buttocks of the women seesaw painfully as they tread the boardwalk in swollen sneakers. A few steps from death, these American elders defy decorum and dress as toddlers."

This is Ahmad's view of America after he has left college and taken a job as a van driver where he meets Charlie who inexorably draws Ahmad into his fate as a Holy Martyr. He will drive a van packed full of explosives, 'twice what McVeigh had', and detonate it in the weakest part of Lincoln Tunnel under The Hudson River.

As the day draws near we are taken convincingly into the horror of what is about to happen and we wonder if anything can stop it. The ending, when it comes is deeply unsatisfying and stretches credulity but the book has been written just well enough to get us to the end - albeit with many unanswered questions.

This is not Updike at his best and the novel seems opportunistic rather than an honest attempt to ask just what happened to plunge us all into the aftermath of '9/11' and what really drives young men to give up their lives taking thousands with them as an act of holy martyrdom.

A very disappointing read, 21 Dec 2007
I was so looking forward to reading this book as it had all the ingredients of a really great novel. It follows a Muslim boy as he struggles in an America he feels to be corrupt and sinful. There are many great observations in the book and these are probably what makes it worth reading. But for me at least, it fell far short of fulfilling its promise of explaining what exactly leads people to take extreme action in the name of religion, nor did it deliver the edge-of-your-seat conclusion I had hoped for.

I struggled to finish the book because I lost interest very early on, but I did soldier on to find out what happened in the end.

I'm afraid I don't recommend this book ... there are just too many good reads out there at the moment to waste time on this one (in my humble opinion)!

Our greatest living writer on top form., 08 Nov 2007
With Terrorist, the post 9/11 world has finally sparked John Updike into a motive dynamism more commonly found in the much tougher oeuvres of Mailer, Bellow and Roth. But what makes this book so remarkable is the successful and near seamless conjoining if this `greater subject matter' with his usual highly subtle brilliance - a limpid consciousness lifting from the page like a hologram the finer details of life.

It seams John Updike has taken a leaf from his own fictional alter ego Henry Bech - he's endeavoured to 'Think Big'. Terrorist is a substantial book that drives through the usual Updike terrain of beatific detail a big themed thriller. With his imperishable and matchless perceptual antennae tuned to his usual lyrical realism, there's also a meatiness some muscle hungry American critics have craved and failed to see in Updike before now, and it's deployed here in spades.

The impact of 9/11 on the Updike psyche has clearly empowered him to tell a few home truths. This is done through his foil for the proto-terrorist, a disbelieving Jew tinged with a world weary venom of his own. His hard hitting bite acts as a valid yet concerned contrast that effectively critiques the naïve purity of the young extremist Ahmad. It shows the parallel track on the American terrain where informed criticism steadily departs from the easily led otherworldly disdain of youthful religious fanaticism. But it also helps explain it: A remarkable achievement.


Our greatest living writer and on best form., 06 Nov 2007
With Terrorist, the post 9/11 world has finally sparked John Updike into a motive dynamism more commonly found in the much tougher oeuvres of Mailer, Bellow and Roth. But what makes this book so remarkable is the successful and near seamless conjoining if this `greater subject matter' with his usual highly subtle brilliance - a limpid consciousness lifting from the page like a hologram the finer details of life.

It seams John Updike has taken a leaf from his own fictional alter ego Henry Bech - he's endeavoured to 'Think Big'. Terrorist is a substantial book that drives through the usual Updike terrain of beatific detail a big themed thriller. With his imperishable and matchless perceptual antennae tuned to his usual lyrical realism, there's also a meatiness some muscle hungry American critics have craved and failed to see in Updike before now, and it's deployed here in spades.

The impact of 9/11 on the Updike psyche has clearly empowered him to tell a few home truths. This is done through his foil for the proto-terrorist, a disbelieving Jew tinged with a world weary venom of his own. His hard hitting bite acts as a valid yet concerned contrast that effectively critiques the naïve purity of the young extremist Ahmad. It shows the parallel track on the American terrain where informed criticism steadily departs from the easily led otherworldly disdain of youthful religious fanaticism. But it also helps explain it: A remarkable achievement.


Still mulling it over!, 27 Oct 2007
This is possibly the best book I've read so far this year. I would like to know what goes through the mind of a young person who lays down his life for what he believes in. What view of other human beings can legitimise, in someone's mind, killing innocent(?) people along with themselves. John Updike tries to paint a real character. He does seem to wrestle with these questions and I'm grateful to him for doing that. The end of the book puzzled me, but the fact that I am still trying to work through what I read, some time after I finished it, says something. This book did it for me. I think I'll remember it.

Disappointing and oddly unengaging, 13 Nov 2007
I was rather disappointed by this. The author takes great care to describe the details of the lives and performances of the Medieval players, but for me the story never really caught fire and I did not find myself interested in any of the characters. Bit of a slog, despite being a short novel and firmly within an area of my interest.

A good read - not great, 01 Aug 2005
I found the concept behind this book more exciting than the execution, unfortunately.

While the writing is above reproach, the book suffers due to the lack of length. All characters besides Nicholas are sketched out with the minimum of strokes, (in particular Margaret, the only female character in the group of players) and the events of the book seem to hurtle along to what I felt was a dissatisfing ending, with a hint of deus ex machina.

A good book to pass away a sunday evening, but for a more involving mediaeval murder mystery, go for Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

An insightful and captivating drama, 11 Dec 2000
The characters are brilliant and colorful. The time is one of famine and havoc during the 14th century, when a young preist fleeing from his sub-deaconship comes upon a group of travelling players. Nicholas Barber is his name and he tells his story of becoming a player. The death of one player is what prompts Nicholas to join and another could lead to his own. The troupe is on their way to Durham, England where they are promised as a gift from their partron lord. During their travels they come upon a town where they can bury their friend and replenish their purse but when they arrive they learn of another death. The murder of a young boy and the swift conviction of a young women. When the group decides to perform the play of the murder they are in for a wild ride. They do not know the whole truth but are determined to seek it out. "Morality Play" is a captivating drama that relates to many prime topics of the day despite the setting in the middle ages. It is worth the short time it takes to read.

You'll finish it in one sitting, 18 Jul 2000
Perfect: plainly written, not too long and absolutely fascinating. Buy and read this book now.

Brilliantly written, authoritatively researched, 30 Jun 1999
With impeccable research, and without a single inappropriate archaism or self-conscious "mediaevalism" Unsworth, with great subtlety, catches the spirit of the times. The images of death and corruption (both of body and soul) mirror the social, moral and spiritual collapse of mid-14th century England: the Black Death has literally halved the population, land has gone out of cultivation, labour is scarce, prices have risen, people are starving. The feudal system is disintegrating, hastened by the social and economic consequences of the Hundred Years' War. The colourful pageantry of the Christmas jousting masks the debasement of the chivalric code into greed, selfishness and brutality; the purity of the monastic ideal has been replaced by materialism and venality. No wonder there is an upsurge of millenarian sects prophesying the Last Days. The transition of drama from religious to secular is already in process, and Martin takes his players in a visionary and shocking leap forward, fusing the old Mystery Plays with the newer Morality Plays, and for the first time using real events and real people in his True Play of Thomas Wells. The process of detection and the build-up of tension are brilliantly handled; the language, techniques and traditions of mediaeval drama fascinatingly described. Though we can see where the story is leading, the denouement has enough surprises to be satisfying. Though you could read it just as a mediaeval whodunit, you would be missing a great deal. Don't be deceived by its 188 pages. This is a deep and many-layered book - increasingly rewarding with every reading.

The best of the best., 19 Apr 2008
Re-reading old favourites has become a bit of a habit with me lately - simply because there are few new authors with half the talent of Robert Graves.

As one reviewer points out, quite rightly, this isn't history, but the reader can't help but wish it to be true. The character of Claudius is so well drawn and accounts so well for the paradoxies evident in the historical accounts of him that you feel it must be right. There is nothing in the story that cannot be verified in Suetonius or Tacitus and Graves' handling of the material leaves the reader with nothing but admiration for his explanation of those facts.

Truly magnificent.

History coming alive, 24 Oct 2007
"I, Claudius" and its sequel "Claudius the God" are definitely amongst the best books ever written on Imperial Rome, and quite probably amongst the best historical novels on any age or subject. No novelist could have devised a better plot than the actual events in those days, with fascinating characters such as Augustus, Livia, Germanicus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius himself, and an empireal court rife with intrigue and plotting, but I've never known it told better than Graves does.

It's a book that demands your full attention and concentration, just to keep track of the countless family ties, feuds and plots, but in fact that's part of the attraction. A breath-taking story, by a master storyteller who knows his subject matter extremely well!

Readable and compelling but not necessarily historically accurate, 18 Oct 2006
For so many people I, Claudius is THE novel about the first years of the Roman Empire and so has conditioned our whole reception of Rome and the rule of the emperors - and how Robert Graves would have laughed if he could have predicted that! Written as a 'pot-boiler' because he needed the cash, Graves deliberately fashions a decadent, immoral and corrupt milieu that has now passed into historical fact.

As a translator of Suetonius and Tacitus, two of the major sources he uses for his fictions, Graves is completely aware that both men had political agendas of their own when they chose to portray Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula etc in the way he did. Livia hardly gets a mention, along with the other imperial women, and Suetonius' portrait of Claudius himself is far less avuncular than Graves'.

Having said that, both this and the sequel Claudius the God are excellent novels: but just don't automatically assume they're also history because they're not.

"How many twisted stories still remain to be straightened out?", 26 Jul 2006
Published in 1934, poet Robert Graves's _I, Claudius_ tells the story of Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, known in Roman history as Claudius--an historian, a crippled stutterer, and widely regarded as an idiot. Claudius is isolated from the treachery of the Roman court during the years immediately after the death of Christ, protected by the fact that no one takes him seriously enough to want to assassinate him. Ultimately, however, Claudius ascends to the throne of the Roman Empire in 41 A.D. and rules brilliantly until he is assassinated in 54 A.D.

Through the first person narrative of Claudius, Graves tells the story from the beginning of the Christian era until Claudius's death fifty years later, recording the horrors visited on the Roman people by his family's rulers. Claudius's grandmother Livia, widow of Caesar Augustus--and one of the most treacherous women in history--manipulates the imperial succession through poisonings, assassinations, marriages, and secret alliances. The reign of her son Tiberius is bloody, murderous, and corrupt. His brother, the good soldier Drusus, is kept in foreign lands until he can be assassinated. Tiberius's succession by Caligula, his grandson and the protégé of Livia, takes Rome into even more terrifying debauchery. Claudius's ultimate succession to the throne upon the death of Caligula, his insane nephew, is regarded as a joke by the court--the installation of an idiot who will not challenge the imperialists. Ironically, Claudius is discovered to be a republican.

This first person account, with virtually no scenes of direct action, defies the first rule of novel-writing: to recreate, not "tell about" actions. Here every aspect of Roman history is filtered through the mind of Claudius, who "tells about" all the action as he knows it. Claudius, however, is so perceptive and so full of fascinating information about the characters and their motivations, that the reader creates his/her own action scenes from the information revealed by Claudius. Through Claudius, whom the reader comes to admire, the reader is able to evaluate what is happening in ways that direct-action scenes, with all their superficial excitement, do not allow.

Characters are complex, fully developed humans, instead of cardboard, costumed "ancients," and their machinations, though extremely bloody, show the conflicts that occur when absolute rule and republican sentiments contend for dominance, a conflict in which Graves says he saw parallels to World War I and its aftermath. Giving a new view of Claudius from what had traditionally been accepted, Graves's portrayal is historically accurate (based on then-new information) and psychologically perceptive, a brilliant novel which sets the standard for historical fiction. Mary Whipple


Fascinating and very witty, 20 Jan 2008
What a fascinating character!

One of those books that I was reluctant to finish as the last page drew nearer.

Prior to reading this book I only knew Peter Ustinov as the delightful character Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie films. But I learned that he had a very long career in the theatre and that his talents seemed to include almost all areas in it.

His background alone makes for interesting reading. He is the child of Russian immigrants who settled in England but his (very talented) ancestors came from far and wide and included countries such as Ethiopia and Israel.

Parts of the book is written in the style of a soul searching dialogue between Peter Ustinov and himself, hence the title. He makes some insightful comments about life and the world. In general throughout the book I was struck by what appears to be the extreme intelligence of someone who oddly enough did not do well in school.

Many parts of the book are pure entertainment. I laughed aloud in many places. His descriptions of his eccentric relatives, his experiences in the army, how he dealt with rebellious students at Durham university are all very funny.

I can recommend this book. It is highly entertaining and amusing. But it also contains some insightful observations by a highly intelligent, observant and unique personality.


good car talk, 17 Apr 2003
Why i bought this i dont know.I put it in the car and the trip flew in.He has the sort of voice that relaxes you and makes time fly.

"He'll get by without his rabbit pie ... run, rabbit, run rabbit, run run run ...", 13 Aug 2008
'Rabbit, Run' is the first in a quartet of novels by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist that revolve around the varying fortunes of a former high school Basketball champion Rabbit Angstrom. All four novels were written at the end of the a decade and published at the beginning of the next, and give a subjective flavour of modern American life as lived in small-town mediocrity. Angstrom observes the rapid transformations of the late 1950s here, and later the 60s (Rabbit Redux), 70s (Rabbit is Rich) and 80s (Rabbit at Rest), but is rather buffeted by them, lucid but always overwhelmed.

Updike makes it clear in his fascinating afterword that Rabbit "was for me a way in - a ticket to America all around me. What I saw through Rabbit's eyes was more worth telling than what I saw through my own, thought the difference is often slight". Thus there is an exploratory unruliness to Updike's writing, an anything-goes, that enables the writer to abandon his lofty authorial seat and rove around, eyes wide open. It's a seedy, cynical novel with few really likeable characters. Visceral and provocative, it rarely shirks from a rather dank explicitness that belies it's early 1960s first publication (although, in fact, a number of forced original cuts have been reinstated here).

Despite the need to chronical the life and times Updike consciously avoids the bigger contemporaneous themes, but concentrates on what is lived and felt by ordinary people of the period. He delves with stealth, and without ceremony, into the perspective of a number of other characters, often in rambling stream-of-consciousness. One almost unpunctuated chapter depicts Rabbit's wife losing control in drunkedness and accidently drowning her baby. It's brutal and horrific, more so as the brakes are taken off the writing, expediting Janice's decline into drunken madness.

It is the stylistic freedom Updike permits himself which makes his writing so penetrating. He panders to no formalistic strictures, and thus - like Rabbit Angstrom - runs with irresponsible abandon into new predicaments. "Readers who expect novelists to reward and punish and satirize their characters from a superior standpoint will be disappointed", the author remarks in the afterword, "I sought to present sides of an unresolvable tension intrinsic to being human". 'Rabbit, Run' makes no concessions to resolution, and it begins the quartet as it continued, with a sense of maddening, but very human, indecisiveness.

Updike also adds in the afterword that Rabbit, Run was in part a conscious reaction to Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road', published a few years before, with its clarion call to break free from the constraints of conservative America. The book is an examination of "what happens when a young American family man goes on the road - the people left behid get hurt. There was no painless dropping out of the Fifties' fraying but still tight social weave". This is not to suggest Updike's novel is a cautionary note about the dangers of "cutting loose", but that it presents a bleakly unr