the man who filled pages

I never read anything by John Updike and I don’t think I’ve ever known anybody who has. Nonetheless he not only had the talent to cause people who wrote about authors to write about him but also the capacity to be written about in a neutral-to-pleasant way, a way that didn’t make you wonder at the time why you weren’t reading about somebody else or books by somebody you might actually want to read. The things that were written about him never made me want to read him because they said things like this:

…his literary home was the American suburb, the great new territory of mid-century fiction.

Anyway, that was from his obituary, which I just read. via.

Comments

[Phil]

I never read anything by John Updike and I don’t think I’ve ever known anybody who has.

Me neither. Maybe I should blog this and see how far we can extend the chain. I doubt you'd be more than six degrees from a John Updike fan, though.

[Chris]

I read "Rabbit, Run" a while back and thought it was very good. I tried to read "The Coup," found it incredibly, wildly, obnoxiously bad, and gave up. So my experience with him was sort of hit and miss.

Some of his poems are funny.

[Barry Freed]

Wow jamie, my sentiments exactly.

[Alex]

Count me in. We could start an Updike Not Reading Group, where we all meet up in a pub and discuss something more interesting than the Updike novel we didn't read that week.

ISTR Paul Theroux reviewed one of the Rabbits as "immoral and asinine".

[dsquared]

Which one is him, and which one is John Irving?

[des von bladet]

John Irving? I thought he was Philip(?) Roth.

[Chris]

Updike's merits aside, I would like to point out that Paul Theroux himself is pretty "immoral and asinine." And creepy.

[Alex]

Isn't he the guy in the white suit? Or is that one Norman Mailer?

[ajay]

I'd agree that a bad review from Theroux probably counts in his favour rather than anything else...

John Updike, Philip Roth and John Irving are, as far as I know, the same person; if you see anyone younger or more alive than that, it's probably Jonathan Franzen (aka Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer).
Similarly, all poststructuralist Italians are simply Umberto Eco in a different false beard.

[Tom]

I read his Henry Bech stories a few years back and thought they were very good. Does this mean I have to sit outside in the street?

[Chris Williams]

We'll bring you out some crisps. I've read two Irving novels, so it'll probably be my penance.

[Ellis Sharp]

Mixed feelings:

http://ellissharp.blogspot.com/2006/12/updike-glitter.html

I would recommend Marry Me.

[ejh]

But I already Engaged