On May 3, 2024, the “Novelist Spotlight: Interviews and insights with published fiction writers” blog looked in the rear-view mirror to discuss a writer who, according to host and novelist Mike Consol, wrote more beautifully in English than anyone else.
“Novelist Spotlight #153: The great John Updike, revisited by James Schiff” covers a lot of ground. Schiff, a professor of English at the University of Cincinnati and the editor of The John Updike Review, responds to such questions as his personal attraction to Updike, the early charge that Updike was big on style and small on content, backstories to Rabbit, Run, Updike’s attraction to art, Updike’s juggling of work and family, the thousands of letters Updike wrote, his time at Harvard, his sexually frank and graphic language, the Couples years, his alleged feud with Tom Wolfe, and, of course, Updike’s choice of subject matter.
From the BBC Radio 4 link:
“Serialised reading of John Updike’s 1971 novel about quintessential American white middle class male Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom. Read by Toby Jones. Abridged by Eileen Horn.” Ten episodes are available.
Pictured is the cover of the UK first edition.
In a March 2023 interview with V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell, Ann Beattie talked about her new collection of essays, More to Say: Essays and Appreciations, which contains an essat on “John Updike’s Sense of Wonder.” Beattie was the keynote speaker at the 1st Biennial John Updike Society Conference in Reading, Pa., back in 2010, and a version of her talk—and this chapter—was published by The John Updike Review in 2011.
The Lit Hub-hosted interview series noted that in the interview Beattie discussed “her recent LitHub essay about Donald Barthelme’s short story ‘The Balloon’ and the Chinese spy balloon. She also talks about her recently published first collection of essays, More to Say: Essays and Appreciations, in which she writes about the work of authors, photographers, and artists she admires, including Elmore Leonard, Sally Mann, John Loengard, and her own husband, visual artist Lincoln Perry.
“Beattie explains why as a nonfiction writer, she prefers close looking and reading; considers defamiliarization in the hands of Barthelme and Alice Munro; analyzes former visual artist John Updike’s depiction of the natural world; and reflects on developing increased comfort with writing about visual art. She also reads excerpts from both her Lit Hub piece and the essay collection.”
Here’s the link to the Lit Hub interview.
Shortly after John Updike died, Radio National of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation asked Updike scholars Avis Hewitt, James Plath, and James Schiff to talk about Updike’s “unparalleled legacy of writing that combined an abiding interest in sex with a profound belief in God.”
That broadcast, which aired on Sunday, March 1, 2009, is now available online. Here is the link.
The Christian Humanist Podcast recently turned to John Updike’s poem “Americana” for Episode 332, with MIchial Farmer and David Grubbs talking about the poem, airports, and hotel rooms.
The Christian Humanist Podcast is the work of “Three Christians, teachers, and intellectuals [who] gather digitally to hold forth on literature, theology, philosophy, and other things human beings do well. Taking the question at hand utterly seriously and ourselves not at all, the Christian Humanists attempt to record weekly during the school year and take on some interesting questions.” Nathan Gilmour, who is not a part of this episode, is the third Christian Humanist.
John Updike was born 90 years ago on this date. To celebrate, John Updike Childhood Home Director of Education Maria Lester organized and hosted a reading featuring prominent Berks County residents. Watch the Facebook Live recording of the 90th Birthday Celebration at The John Updike Childhood Home, 117 Philadelphia Ave., Shillington, Pa., featuring readings from Updike’s works, interviews, letters, and even personal love poems written as a 10 year old in Shillington.
:01—Introduction and reading by Maria Lester, Director of Education at The John Updike Childhood Home (pictured)
4:54—Samantha J. Wesner, Senior Vice President Student & Campus Life, Albright College
17:18—Conrad Vanino, Shillington Councilperson and Fire Police Lt.
22:13—Charles J. Adams III, Editor, The Historical Review of Berks County
35:48—Bill McKay, Superintendent, Governor Mifflin School District
44:55—Melissa Adams, Executive Director, The Reading Public Library
49:10—Jackie Hirneisen Kendall, Updike’s classmate and first “crush”
53:55—Dave Silcox, Updike’s Berks County contact for 10 years
57:40—David W. Ruoff, former student and friend of Wesley Updike
1:01:00—Jack De Bellis, author of Updike’s Early Years, The John Updike Encyclopedia, and John Updike Remembered
Bob Batchelor, a longtime member of The John Updike Society and the author of John Updike: A Critical Biography, started an Updike podcast that’s slowly building.
Batchelor has produced four episodes thus far for his podcast, John Updike: American Writer, American Life: “America,” “Falling in Love with John…,” “Who Was John Updike? and “John Updike’s Poetry.” Check them out!
Batchelor said he’s always looking for people knowledgeable about Updike to appear on a future podcast with him “to share their John Updike knowledge and love.” You can contact him through his website, BobBatchelor.com.
Yesterday The New Yorker podcasts began the month with playwright David Rabe reading John Updike’s short story, “The Other Side of the Street,” which was published in a 1991 issue of the magazine. He was joined by Deborah Treisman for the reading and discussion.
Here’s the link.
For the book lovers out there, “The Other Side of the Street” was collected in The Afterlife, a group of short stories published by Knopf in 1994.
The bulk of a recent interview Colin Drury conducted with famed British producer-director Andrew Davies was devoted to talk about his recent “nobody sings” adaptation of Les Misérables. But for Updike lovers, tantalizing news comes in the very last paragraph of The Guardian article:
“Another is a series based on John Updike’s Rabbit novels. which may be Davies first work made for a streaming service. ‘It’s early days but that might be on the cards,’ he says, mentioning both Netflix and Amazon as potential platforms. ‘It would be a thrill.’ And neither, I suggest, is averse to turning up the phwoar factor. ‘I know,’ he says and gives that mischievous laugh one last time.”
Given all the Updike books available through Amazon, it would seem a natural for them to stream the “Rabbit” series and essentially promote their entire Updike catalog.
Dr. Carla Alexandra Ferreira, a Brazilian scholar whose YouTube channel is “Carla Ferreira: Literary Dialogues,” has featured brief discussions of two John Updike novels: