Spiritual Iffyness

James Yerkes wrote a book about John Updike's thoughts and messages on religion. Yes, one author wrote about another and they both used printed media to spread their message. Somewhere the space time continuum is collapsing. Yerkes, whom I give credit for having studied Updike far longer and deeper than myself, quotes Updike by saying that there are three great "secret things" in humanity: they are sex, religion and art. This gives me pause; first because if I had known that two months ago all of this shit would have certainly been easier to write. The other is because of how these things are found in the Rabbit books.

Sex is not gratuitous in the Rabbit novels. There is no great love for the physical act found in Rabbit. Even in his younger days he seemed tired of sex, as though during his high school days and time in the Army he had had his fun. But these are not the sex novels. We covered sex and Updike's thoughts on the subject are contained in Couples. So, moving on.

Art. At this I shrug my shoulders. Rabbit is no art fan. Brewer is devoid of artistic culture, there is no Short North district there and no public sentiment that more art is better for the city and its denizens. I have yet to read Updike's "art" novel and I am doubting if there is one. But, the interesting thing here that leads into religion is this: Brewer, Pennsylvania is completely devoid of those sacred institutions of the spirit. This town never had an artist or a gallery. Never contained a live theater nor were there citizens who clamored for it. Hmm. I believe that I have discovered the "fatal flaw" of Harold "Rabbit" Angstrom and his universe and it is this: because there are no temples to the human spirit and no celebrations of human existence, the people lead empty lives. When they encounter hardship and tragedy, they look for answers. However, because there is no beauty and no spirituality they are left looking around for something that never existed. So, because they do not know what they never had they feel empty but do not understand why.

For the third secret thing, we have said much on religion and Updike. I am finding that because Rabbit has no real religious institution to turn to (even one he despises or forsakes) he is left at a loss when things in his life go badly. For Rabbit there is no beauty and no faith. He is caught in a spiritual iffyness because he wants to do good and be positive, but those tasks become difficult when he never knew really what was good and what was bad. It is like this: if all a person ever knew about art were paintings by Monet he would be a poor judge of art. Not because Monet is a poor artist, but because the world of art is so much wider and fuller than one artist, not to mention the forms of art that occur outside of the canvas. The same can be said for spirituality. Rabbit has never had real spiritual awareness because there is no outlet for it in Brewer. He is caught with a vague notion of what is good and no way to exercise it.