You never know what line from an Updike book is going to be quoted and used in an article. In an ed-op piece titled “Has the urinal had its day?” (posted January 11, 2014), HeraldScotland.com senior features writer Barry Didcock begins,

“I don’t have the paperback to hand so I’m relying on my fading memory of the novel, but there’s a line in John Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick in which one of the female protagonists talks about men ‘lording it’ over the toilet bowl.

“She’s referring to their—our—ability to pee standing up.”

Didcock uses that quote as a springboard to a speculative discussion of how the urinal may be nearing the end of its life. But he doesn’t consider sporting events or concerts. Without urinals, the lines at those events would be as interminably long as they are for women.

On January 9, 2014, Adam Gopnik posted a think piece on The New Yorker website titled “Writers and Rum,” in which he writes,

“At the other, soberer end, John Updike once said to an admirer that the reason for the astonishing longevity he shared with Philip Roth—not just achieving the second acts that Fitzgerald said were impossible in American lives but third acts and fourth acts and then both men appearing, so to speak, out in the lobby to shake hands and do card tricks after the show—was, simply, that neither drank. He brought it up because he knew it was unusual.  Growing up, he had absorbed the notion that a good writer wasn’t just possibly a drunk; a good writer had to be a drunk to be any good at all. . . .”

Today, Vermont Public Radio’s Bill Mares posted “Mares: Just Looking,” in which he tells about reading Updike’s book, Just Looking, over the holidays and responds in his own thoughtful way—more reaction than review, really, but interesting nonetheless.

There’s also a “listen” button to click on if your eyes are tired of reading things on the computer, and you’ll hear Mares read the on-air version.

“My favorite essay in the book is called ‘Writers and Artists,'” he says, offering Updike’s own description as proof: “He describes his own excitement, at the ‘glistening quick precision, the possibility of smudging, the tremor and swoop that impart life to the lines'” of the drawings he attempted as a child.

“My only quibble is that Updike doesn’t include any reference to Chinese calligraphy, arguably one of the greatest intellectual endeavors which combines artistic expression and verbal meaning,” Mares says.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blogger Jim Higgins writes, “I’m reading and commenting on a story from the Library of America’s recently published John Updike: The Collected Stories each Wednesday until I finish the collection or give up.”

On January 1, 2014, he posted “Reading the John Updike stories: ‘Intercession,'” but if you scroll down you’ll find links to other Updike story commentaries. On January 8 he promises “a discussion of Updike’s story ‘The Alligators” and gives two stars to a story that “would go in my hypothetical Best of John Updike collection.” So far “His Finest Hour” and “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and So Forth” have made the grade, but not the frequently anthologized “Snowing in Greenwich Village” or “Friends from Philadelphia.”

‘Twas six nights before Christmas and all through the Postmodern Deconstruction Madhouse there were signs from Updike’s “Rabbit” novels.

Blogger Peter Quinones takes note of the “Signs and Signage in Updike’s ‘Rabbit’ Novels” and offers a count and speculation for their frequent inclusion . . . and variation. Some of his conclusions seem like leaps—”Similarly, how do we go from 8 signs in one novel to 19 in the next? I would suggest that Angstrom’s reticular activating system has begun to be lit up to pay attention to signs, signage, and printed messages because he now works as a typesetter—it’s unavoidable”—but it’s fascinating to see what catches people’s attention from the “Rabbit” series.

In a reflective critical essay titled “Updike Redux,” published in Vol. 8, No. 2 (Fall/Winter 2009/2010) of The Common Review, William Giraldi writes, “Of all the American literary titans who have died within the past several years—Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller, Norman Mailer, William Styron, Susan Sontag—John Updike was the most beloved.” Giraldi considers Updike’s popularity, oeuvre and literary legacy and draws a number of conclusions—among them, “We can classify the likes of Goethe and D. H. Lawrence as nothing other than men of letters, masters of many genres, and Updike was their descendant.”

The Common Review, The Magazine of the Great Books Foundation, was founded in 2001 but ceased as a print publication with the Fall/Winter 2011 issue. Thanks to Larry Randen, here’s a PDF of the full Giraldi essay.

Blogger Peter Quinones (Postmodern Deconstruction Madhouse, “a blog about cinema and literature with a concentration on Bellow, DeLillo, Updike and Cavell but frequently branching out into so much more”) just posted “Tracking John Updike’s Foot Fetish – Part 1,” which includes six quotes from six of Updike’s publications as evidence and an admission that “this is only scratching the surface.” Here’s the link.