Good art makes you feel.  And great art pulls you in while you barely even notice.  This is one of those books that may completely alter your mood without appearing to half try.

The trouble is that “Rabbit, Run” is a dark book that explores dark places.  It’s about Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom and his mostly failing attempts to deal with the people and world around him.  Though always exquisite, the writing is alternately subtle and crass.  Several times, I had to re-read paragraphs, just to try and understand the full impact of what was happening in complicated interactions between the characters.  And the sex is somehow especially powerful and graphic – yet unromantic – although it’s rarely described in detail.  It must have been truly scandalous when it was written in 1960.

Regardless of the bleak subject, the language is beautiful, so students of writing and craft should thoroughly enjoy Updike, who recently passed away.  For example, the author takes simple and relatively mundane events and makes them sparkle: “She yanks powerfully at the lever of the ice-cube tray and with a brilliant multiple crunch that sends chips sparkling the cubes come loose.” I love the long run-on paragraphs interspersed with short sentence fragments.

I’ve got to give it a top score on the Hurst scale.  I see why it’s a classic.  And it absolutely pulled me in and altered my mood.  I’d put it in the same vein as books like “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” or albums like Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”.  The artist beautifully crafted these tools to work themselves into you.  You just have to be in a place where you can integrate them properly.  It’ll probably take me a few days to get past the dim world view in this one.  In the meantime, I’ll have to order myself a MagiPeel peeler.