A revised version of Adam Sexton’s presentation at the 3rd Biennial John Updike Society Conference was recently published in Issue #27 of Post Road Magazine:
In it, he talks about teaching The Centaur to the painting, fashion, photography, and architecture majors who were required to take his course at the Parsons School of Design.
“Together my Parsons students and I moved slowly through the novel’s protean first chapter and another psychotic-seeming one in which Peter, chained to a rock, is visited in turn by schoolmates as well as the spirit of the town in which they live. We skimmed the chapter that was undiluted mythology and focused on the rest. The students engaged in passionate debates regarding the identity of The Centaur’s protagonist—was it George Caldwell or his son?”
To make a long story short, Adam says, “They had fallen in love with The Centaur.”