Rabbit at Rest as time capsule

 I've been (re)reading John Updike's 1990 novel Rabbit at Rest, the final novel in the Rabbit series that spanned much of JU's literary life (there was a short story/short novel published subsequent to R@R). It's probably best to read the 4 Rabbit novels in sequence and the development of character and of family relationships over time is a large part of the pleasure, but I think there's still plenty to get from reading R@R as a stand-alone; JU's writing, often criticized as over-the-top and too plenteous is on full display here, as the narration, which closely follows Rabbit's life - he's now a 56-year-old retiree spending half the year in Florida mostly playing golf; the narrative begins w/ the arrival of the Angstroms' son, Nelson, and his wife (Pru) and 2 kids, all involved in a deeply troubling family crisis - and the trick of the narration is that JU captures Rabbit's thoughts, feelings, fears, maladies, and milieu and expresses all of this in a way that would be far beyond Rabbit's capacity to do so. There are incidental pleasures throughout, on every page - in the first (of 3) sections in particular as Florida ca 1988 was rife for satire and moral and aesthetic outrage. The novel, like each of the quartet, is a closely observed sense of the U.S. at a particular moment in history; w/ some writers, that might make the work seem and feel dated, but w/ Updike the novel now reads like a time capsule, just pried open. In some ways it feels much more than 30 years ago, and there are many "relics" (e.g., family outings to the movies, searching for phone booths to call home). If there are any flaws in the first quarter or so of the novel it might be the too-obvious groundwork - we can see so much more than Rabbit can - re his son's Rx abuse and Rabbit's weird sexual pursuit of his daughter-in-law. Plus, though the leaves fall where they may, Rabbit does not feel or seem at all like man in his 50s; by today's measures and expectations he seems as if he must be in his 70s - or is that just me carping?