updike novels poll

for some reason, toward the end of time-- a sino-american war has severely fucked up the united states but not enough to disrupt ski trips/golf tournaments; there are semi-intelligent scrap heap electrocreatures that roam the countryside in search of oil; the 66 year old protagonist performs oral sex on a 13 year old runaway, argues with a domineering wife.

Certainly the end of something or other, one would sort of have to think.

For me, a split between Roger's Version and S., probably leaning toward S., his epistolatory novel.

I think he reached his peak in the 80s, and his powers declined dramatically in his last 4 or 5 novels.

Rabbit Is Rich, easily.
Rabbit At Rest close 2nd

also, here's another (failed) poll:

what is the best john updike novel?

beside the Rabbit novels, i think his best stuff are his short stories.

i guess i didnt know there were bech sequels?

have maybe read halfof these, maybe a lil less, but i agree the rabbits then his shorts

I've given this guy a few chances, and failed -- even the Rabbit books! And I love Cheever and his more maladroit longer fiction! What am I doing wrong?!

i have a visceral reaction to updike, just reading a page of him gives me the hives. i used to attribute this to his sexism but after trying again a while back i think it's more the fact that i can't read one of his metaphors without thinking 'um, no, that's not really like that at all.'

He chokes on his exquisiteness.

Sounds like something Sorrentino said about him.

The surface of Mr. Updike's writing twitches and quivers incessantly.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

THe comic writer accepts reality as intelligible in itself, not as a poor drab thing that awaits his gilding.

Although, truth be told, even as a non-fan, I am disappointed by the low turnout.

^ gibberish

i read him just for the gilding.

diagonally reminded me that i need to reread u and i

Wow, S. did well. I was the Rabbit at Rest vote, I believe.

hmpf, it's prob not 'brazil' huh? just read the 3some scene that could be like the basis for the charlotte gainsborough scene in nymph()maniac vol2 ¯\(°_0)/¯

Meanwhile, Tristao had acquired, thanks to diplomatic pressure from above, a job at a fusca factory. The cars, little Volkswagen "beetles" painted the shades of tan and brown that gave them the name fusca in Brazil, were manufactured in a giant shed whose northern end, like a hungry mouth, took in Volkswagen parts and whose southern end, like a tireless anus, emitted the completed fuscas.

should i change my display name to "like a tireless anus" y/n

if the name fits

two votes for S. is weird

i recently finished it, i did end up liking it, there are some cool sections but it def takes some patience, the epistolatory nature does some interesting things w/r/t magnifying sara's new england blue blood pedigree & stubbornness

The irrepressible combinations of the real! A very tall, willowy young black, with a shaved head and upon its baldness a many-colored skullcap, was carrying balanced across this spectacular head like a fantastic turban one of those padded semi-chairs, having a back and arms but no legs, with which people prop themselves up in bed; the thing was bright peach in color and wrapped in a transparent plastic that crackled as we passed, while crossing in opposite directions the sunken, tarred-over railroad tracks. Was this exotic black man, demographic studies to the contrary, a compulsive nighttime reader?

The Bech books are fun

*Ugh*
(Xpost)

I liked the Rabbit sequels better than Rabbit Run.

interesting how little attention is given to the centaur in this thread or the other, when i was a kid that one had a rep iirc. rabbit run is the only rabbit i've read and is really only interesting as a window into mores of the time (blowjobs were a pretty big deal once apparently). would've (and maybe did) voted for s. but recall enjoying his short stories considerably more than the novels. it's interesting to me just how much and how quickly his rep seems to have faded, he was an important central figure of the american literary landscape for decades but i doubt i know anyone under thirty that's ever read him.

See also: Cheever, John O'Hara, Mailer...

Yeah I ws thinking abt that when I read Toward the End of Time (urgh) recently, these writers who wrote v marginal if often v good books who had huge cultural presences due to their sociopolitical status/media skills etc

*were