In “The First Frames of America’s Slow Fade: John Updike’s ‘Rabbit’ Novels,” written for The PineBelt News, Mik Davis began, “A key part of American Literature is to frame the common experience of life with the common aspects of culture. Following the destruction of Europe during WWII, the consumerist culture of America was a key component in our ascension to the world’s dominant superpower. It was not merely having everything that had taken root during previous rings of evolution all at once. It was the combination of societal change, technology, and the expansion of cities, workplaces and culture. It is fitting that not all of this rapid growth can impact everyone. In purely Darwinian terms, someone or something must be left behind.”
One such someone was Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, who, “like Reading, peaked too soon.” Davis argued, “The work of Updike is not meant to be satirical although it does seek to mirror societal change and honestly weather the alteration and abandonment of social mores. However, it is the friction of two worlds in motion that sets him apart from other writers. To most, the events that set televisions aglow or the songs on the radio are a mood setter. To Updike, they are the changing frames around the portrait of a family and the community in decline. Not crisis. However, one might say the crisis around the family may be the factor that changes those frames over time from a gilded gold-leaf ornate locally-forged metal to a simple hand-painted orange/red wood where the grain shows through and perhaps the knots as well.”
