Under the astronaut moon
Under the astronaut moon (English Rabbit Redux ) is a 1971 published four-part novel by John Updike . The German translation by Kai Molvig was published in 1973. It is the second volume in the five-part Rabbit series that began in 1960 with Hasenherz .
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Former basketball star Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, now 36, now works as a typesetter for a local newspaper in his fictional hometown of Brewer, Pennsylvania, at his father's side. He continues to be a passive victim of private and social events. His wife leaves him and moves in with her lover of Greek descent, the oily car salesman Stavros. Harry and his twelve-year-old son are lonely and their situation is constantly thwarted by the chaotic state of the country in 1969, which was the result of the Vietnam Warand in serious racial riots, which has seen its citizens use more and more drugs and in which television is becoming increasingly important. The first part of the novel is also clearly under the impression of the first moon landing, which takes place at the same time. This explains the German title of the novel.
Updike's constantly recurring themes of guilt, sexuality and death are linked to the current political situation. In public discussions, Harry repeatedly takes the official American position that it is legitimate and necessary to defend American interests in Vietnam. He also sees the social rise of blacks with very mixed feelings, especially in his immediate environment.
Strangely enough, that doesn't prevent him from first taking an 18-year-old white Connecticut hippie girl named Jill into his house, whom he had met in a nightclub that was almost exclusively black. She has left her rich parents' home and is now disoriented in a white Porsche that has become disoriented. A little later, a police wanted African-American named Skeeter appears in their wake, who is also taken into Harry's house. He is a cynical drug dealer with large fantasies and a veteran of the Vietnam War. He sees in himself the new Savior to come. The heated and widely presented discussions between Skeeter and Harry reflect the social situation in the USA at that time particularly clearly. The main topics are the structures of rule in the USA, the supremacy of whites over blacks and the role of the Vietnam War in this structure.
Jill also befriends Harry's son Nelson, for whom she becomes a loving older sister and probably also the first fantasized sexual partner. All four together form a rather chaotic household for a short time, which Updike stages as a parody of the fairytale and unrealistic family and group life fantasies of the hippie scene of that time.
The neighborhood sees the presence of these maladjusted people, especially those of the “Negro”, with growing suspicion. One day Harry is approached by two neighbors outside the house and he is threatened unequivocally that they are not prepared to tolerate this situation any longer. A short time later, the house goes up in flames and Jill dies in it. The police see the culprit in Skeeter and are looking for him. In the novel itself, however, it becomes clear that the neighborhood is arson.
At the same time, the slow dying of Harry's mother is portrayed, the argument between Harry and his wife Janice, who is separated from him, about their possible future together and that of their son, about the equally bourgeois lifestyle of his sister Miriam, called Mim, who is a call girl at the West coast is alive and about its own future.
At the end of the novel, Harry loses his position as a typesetter because computer technology is slowly moving into his working world. He has lost his wife, his girlfriend, his house and his job and moves back to his parents' house, to the house of his childhood, and in the future sees himself financially dependent on his father's pension. He makes an appointment with his wife, possibly sexual, and ends up with her in a cheap hour hotel.
literature
- John Updike: Rabbit Redux (Eng. Under the astronaut moon , 1973)
- Kindler's new literary dictionary. CD-ROM 2000