John Updike

I don't think that's right. Can't find an online summary to confirm though.

Couples and The Centaur are two of my favourite pieces of contemporary American lit. I don't know why he isn't held in the same esteem as Faulkner, Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

>The Witches of Eastwick
Dont it'll scare you off him for life .

Read Of the Farm, there is much of it i still cant read without tears.

>Episcopalian
>Priest
No such thing.

>the rabbit trilogy
Isn't it a four novel plus a novella series?

>significance of his high school sports team
just a cultural touchstone/them writing from experience. american writers were gigachads back then

I tried to get into Rabbit Run but was turned off by his mannered prose style. Am I the only one that doesn't like his prose?

I found it very easy and accessible...sucked me right in.

Is there a title you could give me of a collection of his travel writings?

It's not impenetrable or anything, but it draws too much attention to itself. That's fine when you're trying to emphasize a point of climax but in his case its constant. He's showing off and not in a good way, like Shakespeare or Melville.

Hmm...I kinda get where you're coming from. Roth is a lot worse for that, though. American Pastoral was a slog for that very reason.

You’re right, my copy must be pre-1990.

Are there any modern literary authors that aren't like that? But that also don't fall under the trap of excessive dryness. DFW would be a good example--I like his short stories more than his novels.

>Are there any modern literary authors that aren't like that?
I find some of the British ones are very understated- eg McEwan and Ishiguro. But then you get Rushdie and Amis, who are the opposite

Personally I like a fancy prose style tho

Are you a murderer?

Also Ishiguro is exactly what I meant by going to far the other way. Haven't read McEwan, I tried to read Machines Like Me was immediately put off by the opening.

Updike is great but shallow. Beautiful stylist, though. And he can really make you feel certain highlights of the hidden pathos and beauty of suburban life and Americana quite deeply. But overall he’s a period piece, I think (although a beautiful one).

I hated his prose when I attempted it many years ago, but I think I may enjoy it now, assuming I remember it correctly.

I'm really curious about the idea of "deep vs. shallow" literature. What do you think constitutes that difference? Versatility of symbolism? Nuance of character? Genuine insight into the theme? Is it really just a metric of how many times you can re-read it and still find something new? Is it just a gut feeling?

I mean there's obviously gradations. A good YA fantasy novel or mystery thriller doesn't have the depth of a good literary novel. The differences there are maybe obvious. But what's the difference between Updike and someone you would consider a deeper writer (and who would that be, btw?)

Yeah, that's kinda the point of Updike. He writes books full of elaborate show-offy prose. If that stylistic thing bothers you or falls out of your definition of good literature, then Updike's just not your guy

Muh big ideas

I actually don't think they've ever all been collected together (I could be wrong though).

You know what he meant, don't be pedantic.

>Updike is at his best in his long collections of literary criticism.
I agree. His nonfiction literary criticism is better than his fiction substance wise.

>Am I the only one that doesn't like his prose?
Updike is easily one of the best prose stylists of the 20th century. The issue is the content, even in the Rabbit books, is overdramatic and cringe.

True. His fiction is period piece tier.

Probably the most underrated writer of the 20th century though, mostly because he was more conservative than his colleagues.

It’s impossible to really put it into any substantial metric. Miller, for instance, is criticized for some of the same flaws as Updike is (overly large focus on male characters who are suspiciously similar to the author getting a lot of sex or thinking about it a lot, long digressions of pretty prose without much apparent substance), but I’d choose Miller over Updike any day. Updike reads like a beautifully written soap opera. Rabbit did this, then thought about that, then looked at that girl’s ass, then went to work, then thought about hitting his wife, then hit his wife because she’s cheating on him, oh shit their son Nelson got addicted to drugs ... it’s entertaining and even moving at times, but I just can’t put it up there with something like Tropic of Cancer. It doesn’t really offer a unique angle on what it is to be a human being, what it is to be alive, not even feebly.

I think it’s in Rabbit Redux (or it may be Rabbit is Rich) where close to the beginning, Rabbit is taking a jog in the Poconos while they’re on vacation, thinking about people he knew who are dead or dying. He thinks about how they’re buried in the ground and one day we all will be, too, and, of course, it’s in Updike’s typical magnificent prose, but ... it just doesn’t move you much. Then it just moves on to “Rabbit ate some bologna in the kitchen”, and a few pseudo-Joycean attempts every few dozen pages to insert another reference to people rotting in the ground in Rabbit’s stream-of-consciousness.

Basically how I feel, though less ecstatic about his prose. For me it's that Rabbit is a superficial person, in a superficial world, experiencing the mundane. It also depressed me in the same way Carver does but without Carver's truly great prose and narrative execution, and of course Carver never hangs around too long. I had absolutely no interest in reading any more Rabbit novels, or any more Updike novels, afterward.

So take my opinion for what it is. I'm just really not a fan of my father's generation of writers and their psycho-sexual cum psycho-religious hangups. Reading Rabbit, Run did make me understand his high esteem among normies though, I imagine Franzen as being the spiritual descendant of this though I have never (and probably will never) read him.

>Haven't read McEwan
Don't. He's a prize-baiter, nothing more.

>I imagine Franzen as being the spiritual descendant of this though I have never (and probably will never) read him.
Ha! Never thought about that. I can see it. Franzen's early stuff is good though. Some hate deserved but it's overdone.

I agree in general with what you say about Carver, Updike, and Franzen all being of a type. That said, Updike's prose runs circles around Carver and Franzen. The section of Rabbit, Run where Rabbit commits to going back to his wife and living a good moral life, and just ever so gradually works his mind back to the same shithole that it was in before is just astonishingly well written. I don't think there's anything even close to comparable in Carver or Franzen. I guess maybe Carver's Cathedral might kind of come close, but it's nowhere near as subtle, and it's working in the opposite direction of course.

>triggers the es jay double Us
How?

how do you greet a lesbian
you say "what's Updike"

I do not have anything to add to my assessment, being admittedly lukewarm on all works discussed. I will defer to your appraisal of both Carver and Updike as stylists as it has been at least 5 years since I've read either one. I will say that I've had Higher Gossip on my shelf for years and do recall enjoying picking at it, so perhaps I'll look at some this weekend.

I only post now before the thread dies because it occurred to me who else sticks in my mind as having a similar style as Carver and Updike here - the playwright William Inge. The Hollywood production of Picnic with William Holden is certainly worth watching but it's a melodrama and very Hollywood. However Burt Lancaster and the stage female lead's production of Come Back Little Sheba really hits home on the style we're discussing and it's one I really enjoyed. Look into it if you're a fan of these authors and have not seen it.