Paul Moran is famous for digging around Updike’s trash, but he has also unearthed a cartoon that Updike did for a 1954 issue of the Harvard Lampoon and astutely observed that in it Updike “demonstrates an astonishing awareness of his literary mission and of the critics to come. John Updike was a prodigy and the following cartoon he drew foretells his own future impeccably.”
In the cartoon, a determined (tough?) looking kid in t-shirt and shorts has painted only a minimalist stick man on the huge canvas he had been given, and in the caption he tells his art teacher “I may have little to say, but I’m determined to say it well.”
The cartoon and the cover art that Updike drew for the April 1954 Lampoon, which was among the items recovered by Moran, can be seen here: “Crystal Balls”
Moran ends his post by taking a playful jab at biographer Adam Begley, who was quoted as saying that the items he rescued from the trash had no value whatsoever.
Paul, I too am grateful you preserved the materials in JU’s ” throw-away trash.” You have used it online responsibly, I think. My guess is that many other Updike “scholars” will be furious you regularly did that. I am not. I am grateful we have some of the materials which help us understand JU in more indirect ways. So take the scorn some will show and recognize the multiple motivations which are behind it.
Neither his wife nor likely some of JU’s children will currently be pleased, I feel sure. But on longer time reflection they may nonetheless all see the historical and critical value of these rescued unattended throw-aways. I know you will try to make them public responsibly and, while it is not something I would have recommended nor sanctioned ahead of time, life is such that unintended consequences often tell us helpfully more than we expected about life and people we love or hate, indeed more of what we really truthfully need to know about those other persons or life situations to write accurate history.
Now, at 81, I know I had my say about JU in The Centaurian and have left all of it behind–twelve years of really daily hard work publishing equally his critics and admirers. The many years of The Centaurian’s daily updated records were all instantly lost when one day in 2009 the professional internet site source I rented malfunctioned and instantaneously electronically collapsed. Totally. Poof! They folded their online business and simply disappeared. No other information was provided to me.
Nonetheless, over the twelve years of that site editing I hope I helped readers better comprehend JU and his critics, as well as his admirers. JU was not always pleased with what I published online and told me so, firmly but candidly.
Over the years we also frequently corresponded warmly by personal letters and postcards and those materials are now archived at Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran College in St. Peter, Minnesota. They help us understand the depth and quality of Updike as a writer of great literature. I believe the materials in your “JU trash archive,” responsibly presented, will do the same over time. I am grateful the material is in such responsible hands as yours.
Most cordially as always,
James Yerkes
Founder and Former Editor of The Centaurian, “A John Updike Website”
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