Thought Experiments : The Blog

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

John Updike

About twenty-five years ago, I think, I wrote John Updike's obituary for The Times. Nothing of it remains. I never met him, I always assumed I would. Now it's too late and Updike has become his work. He was once a pupil of Vladimir Nabokov. He later said of Nabokov, approximately, 'He writes prose the only way it should be written, ecstatically.' This is true of Nabokov, true of Updike and true of writing prose. Prose should be ecstasy because existence is. Surprisingly often.

# posted by Bryan Appleyard : 6:20 AM  

12 Comments:

  • At January 28, 2009 9:13 AM, Blogger Brit said…

    The first of his I read was A Month of Sundays, about the randy Reverend. I was about fifteen so it made quite an impression, obviously.

    Another era draws to a close.

    I'm intrigued by the idea that a novelist like Updike can be a 'pupil' of Nabakov, or indeed, anyone. How does it work? Martin Amis always claims Saul Bellow as a mentor figure but I've never quite got that one either.

     

  • At January 28, 2009 9:17 AM, Blogger Bryan Appleyard said…

    He literally was, Brit, at college.

     

  • At January 28, 2009 9:40 AM, Blogger Brit said…

    Is that so? Interesting, but a bit of a let-down. After all, anyone could have been a literal pupil of Nabakov, at college.

     

  • At January 28, 2009 2:04 PM, Anonymous Susan B. said…

    It is a loss. I interviewed Updike years ago and managed to irritate him by first saying I thought he was a direct descendant of America's Puritan writers (I meant Nathaniel Hawthorne, et al, but he thought I was saying he was a prude), and then I made my gaffe worse by saying I didn't like the Rabbit novels as I found them misogynistic in a middle-class-white-suburban male way. It wasn't a great interview, but I did always love his prose. His short stories were masterful and his essays and reviews very important to American literary life.

    I'm glad, at least, that I could redress some of my insults in my review of his last novel, "The Widows of Eastwick," which I found a wonderful evocation of aging and womanhood. Updike was a great American writer.

     

  • At January 28, 2009 2:41 PM, Blogger jonathan law said…

    Thought for the day:

    There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness.

    Updike, Villages, 2005

     

  • At January 28, 2009 4:11 PM, Anonymous richard said…

    I came over assuming I'd receive concise insight on one of so many I've never read. Exactly so. Thanks.

    How does Updike compare to Bellow? Where is Amis in the pecking order? (I read Amis once, on Stalin. Assume nothing else.)

     

  • At January 28, 2009 10:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "I read Amis once, on Stalin."

    His fiction is much better.

     

  • At January 28, 2009 10:41 PM, Blogger mutleythedog said…

    I am a relative of Updike and shall be writing his definitive obituary this week. I know it is keenly awaited...

     

  • At January 29, 2009 10:27 AM, Blogger BP said…

    Bellow called Nabokov a 'wicked wizard'. I prefer this.

     

  • At January 29, 2009 10:29 AM, Blogger BP said…

    Ps. I think Amis' *non*fiction is better. Suum cuique.

    But have you tried The Information!

     

  • At January 29, 2009 11:17 AM, Blogger Brit said…

    I love/hate Amis's fiction, even while I'm reading it. It astounds, irritates and exhausts in equal measure.

    But I thought his strange autobiography Experience was the best thing he's written by a factor of a lot.

     

  • At January 30, 2009 6:08 PM, Blogger NigelBeale said…

    Here's Amis on Updike the literary journalist: [his] inestimable virtue: having read him once, you admit to yourself, almost with a sigh, that you will have to read everything he writes.

     

Post a Comment

Links to this post:

Create a Link