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- <text id=90TT2169>
- <title>
- Aug. 13, 1990: Rabbit Stew
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Aug. 13, 1990 Iraq On The March
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- GRAPEVINE, Page 13
- Rabbit Stew
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>By Paul Gray/Reported by David Ellis
- </p>
- <p> Giving away the ending of a movie or novel is considered
- very bad form. But for weeks Manhattan's literary gossip has
- been twittering with the news that John Updike's Rabbit at
- Rest, which will be published in October, concludes with the
- death of its hero. What's more, Updike himself has been fueling
- this story, both in a June speech at the American Booksellers'
- Association convention in Las Vegas and in the New York Times
- Book Review. How to explain all this fuss about the fate of an
- imaginary character? Well, Harry C. ("Rabbit") Angstrom first
- appeared 30 years ago in Rabbit, Run and then re-emerged in
- Rabbit Redux (1971) and Rabbit Is Rich (1981). A lot of readers
- have periodically checked the progress of their lives against
- that of the onetime high school basketball star from eastern
- Pennsylvania. Rabbit's demise seems a gloomy reminder of
- individual mortality. Fortunately, despite all the chatter,
- there is an escape clause. In his Times essay, Updike never
- explicitly says Rabbit dies. Neither, as readers will discover
- in two months, does Rabbit at Rest.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-