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This isn't a book for those who have no patience for idiotic behavior. Rabbit continually makes idiotic decisions. He follows his feelings and notions around. His path is like a 'rabbit trail', and I wonder if that is ultimately why Updike chooses the name 'Rabbit'. Unfortunately, there is no one around Rabbit to inspire him to more constructive behavior. Rabbit's high school basketball stardom (he is in his mid-20s during the story) seems to undermine him, as that makes the 'work-a-day world' (that he sees around him) seem 'second rate'. A preacher befriends Rabbit, but the preacher is more caught up in befriending Rabbit than guiding him. There is some humor in the preacher giving himself credit when Rabbit's path sometimes goes in the 'responsible way'(we all like to laugh at the "Bumbling, Pretentious Man" that the preacher sometimes is). Surely, this is the "blind leading the naked".

I liked this book and I think that it is quite an accomplishment, but I am not in a rush to read the remaining Rabbit books (as this is the only Rabbit book that I've read). I think its basic setup ('lost Rabbit and lost young people with no one to look up to') captures a zeitgeist of modern times. I think that the book rings true with what many of us see around us. The 'blind leading the naked' is a universal problem (Duh!!) and I like the way that Updike captures the problem. I like that Updike didn't make this in a 'morality play' or a 'hero story', as that would betray the realism of the book. There is a lot of 'sex thought' in the book and there are 'sex scenes' in the book. Updike does not 'fade the scene to black' when sex comes up. Updike keeps it real.

I am in no rush to read the other Rabbit books because although Rabbit works well as a 'character study', he is not much of a 'character'. He doesn't summarize his thoughts and feelings in a way that resonate with me. I found myself doing a lot of work tracking Rabbit's thoughts (or in many cases the narrator translates Rabbit's thoughts to make them more palatable for a literary audience), as he is from a different milieu and education than I. This is a book about 'non-educated folks' whose target audience is 'educated folks'. There is some awkwardness in this gap between the characters and the reader.

Also, I struggled with Updike's occasional use of run-on (almost 'Faulknerian') prose to describe Rabbit's thoughts. I wished Updike didn't try 'flower up' Rabbit's thoughts with fancy metaphors (this provides some of my 'awkwardness' that I mentioned earlier). I am more of a Richard Yates guy. Yates 'works in the same area' (disconnection of people from their society), but his prose is more direct (less 'flowery', less poetic).

Although this is a 3rd person story that sticks closely to Rabbit's thoughts and actions, I especially enjoyed the author's short 'forays' into the minds of the other characters. It enhanced the book greatly to get these short glimpses into the backgrounds and motivations of the other characters.