Frank Fitzpatrick, an Updike Society member who’s written about Updike a number of times in the past, has posted a new article at the Philadelphia Inquirer:

“Frank’s Place: A fictional hoops hero who will endure”

Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, Fitzpatrick writes, “could become basketball’s most enduring hero ever. . . . Today you won’t find his name in the Hall of Fame at Springfield or his throwback jersey in the Modell’s at the mall. But don’t let that fool you. This lean, 6-foot-2 Berks Countian was a basketball immortal, one who long after time swallows Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, and LeBron James will be recalled, read about, and discussed.”

Good point.

As Fitzpatrick notes, “If you assume the lessons of great literature will survive longer than the memories of great athletes, then Rabbit will easily outlive his flesh-and-blood counterparts. Who today, for example, can name a whaler other than Captain Ahab?”

Another good point, and one Updike himself makes in Rabbit, Run about his ex-basketball star when he plays a pick-up game with young boys who don’t realize he was once a high school star and one of the biggest names in Berks County: “They’ve forgotten him; worse, they’ve never heard of him.”