John Updike

In general = in Updike, in literature, or in general general (i.e. a joke -- I have not spent much time with children while not a child myself so maybe I expect consistency where there shouldn't be) ?

although I'll have to consult my notes

A joke, then? Or you're a better reader than I.

But at the same time, Bech is not much of a character--more a conduit for Updike to express certain things about the writing life that would have been problematic for him to say with his own mouth.

By which I don't mean that Bech = Updike; rather that Updike used Bech both as a surrogate and as a point of contrast. He's Updike's mouthpiece when he needs him to be, but different enough (Jewish, hornier, less modest) to allow Updike a sort of playground.

From a French 12 years girl just arrived in a US school >>.
thanks

argh.

Kids these days.

Margaux darling!? Come back! All will be revealed in a small iridescent sphere!

The Widows of Eastwick (a sequel to Witches of..) - october 2008.

The end of 2008: new updike, new Roth, new president.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081126.wbadsex1126/BNStory/Entertainment/home

The 76-year-old American novelist was a finalist for this year's Bad Sex prize for his description of an explosive oral encounter in his latest book, The Widows of Eastwick, but lost out to British writer Rachel Johnso

i find almost all updike sex = bad sex

i've never been able to read updike. don't know why. i usually love that kind of stuff. maybe when i'm older or something. everytime i've tried a novel i've ended up getting really bored.

(this is me and richard ford too.)

I know why you can't read Updike - it's because reading him is like the process of extruding a turd but backwards.

He also wrote an introduction to a book by Bruno Schulz called Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, which he seemed to like (although I admit I read it through tightly slitted eyes). It was a very bad book and it made me say very bad words and do violence at it.

last time i tried to read some richard ford short stories i saw my life flash before my eyes. sooooooo endless and tedious.

i think i just read louis auchincloss instead of updike. probably nowhere near as "brilliant", but way more entertaining.

i wanna read more cheever. i've got a really nice big fat hardcover collection of his stories that i need to get to.

Wow, Scott, you like Auchincloss? Glad to see a fellow fan.

He reminds me a bit of William Dean Howells: not a single sentence surprises, and he's so obsessed with a certain kind of professionalism that some of his scenarios aren't as conceived as fully as I'd like; but, wow, a certain kidn of professoinalism goes a long way: he publishes a book (two sometimes) a year.

and he's so obsessed with a certain kind of professionalism that some of his scenarios aren't as conceived as fully as I'd like

example of these "scenarios"? this doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. I think his sentences, on a prose level, can be quite surprising: rich and lyrical. but his novels all read the same. maybe this is what you mean? i think his rabbit books are his best work and his stories are pretty boring.

The Rabbits diminish in quality over time IMO. There is some pretty fresh writing in the first 1.5, but by the end it gets dreary. And some VERY problematic race/sex shit appears.

Bech is a time capsule. If you're interested in literary life of that time period, the Bech stuff is illuminating. There are flashes of what JHU himself might have been feeling and experiencing, like signing flyleaf pages that will later be tipped in.* Bech's Jewishness is a red herring to throw you off the scent. Updike knew a lot about some things; I don't think Jewishness was one of those things.

Snag them if you want, but they are probably in a public library somewhere. I have read all of those books exactly once. Yes I probably own the hardcovers (currently in storage), but these days I mostly only buy books that I want to refer to or re-read.

* yes, I own a "signed first edition" Updike. Witches of Eastwick.

But it's not organic or rare or valuable - it was explicitly created as a "signed first edition," and marketed as such.

Sorry to be so ornery, because I do admire him as a stylist. On the short story collections: some of them are extremely good! Highly recommended: Museums and Women, Problems, and whichever one has "The Brown Chest" in it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1992/05/the-brown-chest/667775/

Yeah they had the hardcover of museums…tempting. A time capsule for sure

I was curious a few weeks back whether Updike (passing in 2009) had done any podcast interviews, and then enjoyed this two-part one from 2006 on Michael Silverblatt’s Bookworm.

Okay despite all the usual critiques of Updike, Museums and Women is fucking amazing. There's a hilarious and expertly crafted story about amoebae going to a cocktail party. One about Japanese Jesus. One about prehistoric animals. One about advances in farming technology.

In all his vast catalog there are only a few books that manage to escape his main subject matter (drab New England WASP adultery and its dreary complications). Museums and Women is by far the best of them. Grab it.

None of those premises sound appealing to me lol

You’re saying the book is not about museums and women?

It's about women as museums.

If you think a middle-aged suburban white guy wondering whether or not to cheat on his wife is an interesting premise, but a euglena going a cocktail party isn't, I just don't know what to tell you.

ftr I admire Updike's criticism: thanks to him, I discovered Henry Green and Muriel spark, among others. And he was generous toward Cheever. But I could never finish his fiction, not once. The facility, the complacency of the descriptions -- it had a lulling effect. He and Cheever get bound together, but Cheever was fuckin' weird.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 3, 2019

"The Brown Chest" (lovely; thanks for the rec!) isn't The Afterlife.

Lord Alfred: The last paragraph of "The Brown Chest" kills me every time. For all my crankitude about JHU, that "Family, family without end" passage is crystalline and pretty much perfect.

Bastard.

Is IN The Afterlife, a later story collection.

I liked that conclusion too.

Yes! I am casting my memory back to The Afterlife, and another interesting story in that collection is "Aperto, Chiuso." It's a pretty thorny bit of misogyny that is paradoxically revealing.

The woman is being portrayed as irrational and hysterical. The guy is presenting himself as decent and well-intentioned and perplexed by her irrationality. But then on second thought, he's the viewpoint character so he's obviously sculpting the narrative; if you read it through 21st-century eyes you can see that he's actually being kind of a dick. Not sure if that's how Updike saw it but that's my current reading.

That's good that the story lets you do that: a strong. always pertinent POV, suitable for different interpretations.
xp first gondolier first gondola, I meant! Proustian Slip, but also I was trying to suppress reference to Updike as my thoughtful gondolier on this maiden voyage through his review, because too corny even for me.

But even or especially with Pinter's crisp, startling reduction, there's a sense of gliding conveyed by Updike's impressions of his reading and thinking experience.

Carefully guided, responsive gliding.

Glide, Rabbit, Glide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxkjvKBPQjo

I read RABBIT, RUN, and greatly admired its style, and was surprised and maybe even disturbed by its drama.

I have a Henry Green book signed by John Updike. The man must have put his signature in everything.

Reminds me of the time David Markson's library ended up at The Strand.

A friend of mine brought a copy of Nicholson Baker’s U and I to a reading for Updike to sign.

I saw a film trailer today for something called Living which I was sure was a Henry Green adaptation. I want to believe.

Apparently it's an Englishing of a Kurosawa movie.

Oh right.

Good long James Wolcott essay in LRB on Updike's letters, the publication of which I imagine would have been a major event a decade or two ago. Good overview of the letters, the man, and his writing; and does wrestle (especially in the gut-punching final paragraphs) with his shortcomings.

I was about to post! A lovely piece that didn't inspire me to reread Updike.