John Updike's human comedy
Subtitle: comic morality in The Centaur and the Rabbit novels
By: Brian Keener.
Series: Modern American literature : new approaches, 43
Publisher: P. Lang
Published: 2005
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 148
Subjects: Updike, John -- Humor.; Updike, John -- Characters -- Harry Angstrom.; Updike, John.; Updike, John -- Ethics.; Humorous stories, American -- History and criticism.; Angstrom, Harry (Fictitious character); Middle class men in literature.; Comic, The, in literature.; Mythology in literature.; Ethics in literature.
Description: "The comedy in John Updike's most important works - The Centaur; Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit at Rest; and "Rabbit Remembered" - defines a comic world and its morality. Although critics have failed to recognize the extent and the importance of Updike's comedy, his serious fiction does contain a good deal of farce, burlesque, and irony that, far from being peripheral or mere comic relief, depicts the absurd and contradictory nature of life. Within such a world, set in the everyday Pennsylvania of the second half of the twentieth century, human beings mature, or gain Kierkegaard's ethical sphere, by fulfilling their societal and generational responsibilities. George Caldwell of The Centaur is Updike's paragon, while Rabbit Angstrom embodies the comic hero who, through trial and error, finally matures. Overall, through an analysis of Updike's comedy, this book reveals a dimension of his fiction that is essential to understanding his work."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [139]-144) and index.
Table of contents: title: The comic paragon and the meticulous man in The Centaur; title: The comic hero's place in the generations in Rabbit, Run; title: The comic hero's renewal in the Rabbit Rudux; title: The role of comedy in dispelling illusion in Rabbin is Rich; title: The comic hero accepts his mortality in Rabbit at Rest; title: Nelson Redux in "Rabbit Remembered".