Category Archives: First Person Singular

An Easter apparition? Young artist creates an Updike sculpture

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Updike sculptureMichael Updike writes that “to my delight and mild horror my son, Sawyer (17), came home with this sculpture that he commissioned from his friend, Ben Wickey. Ben is an aspiring claymation artist and just a high school sophomore. The sculpture is five inches tall and features miniature copies of Rabbit Is Rich and Picked-Up Pieces. Sawyer explained in youthful honesty, ‘I knew Ben was good at sculpting old people with all their wrinkles and white hair, so I thought he should do Grandpa, then I suggested we make him a rabbit.’

“I do think ‘Grandpa’ would be very amused,” Michael adds.

You would think so, given Updike’s own love of cartooning, his remarks on comics (“John Updike on Comics: a dream anthology”), and his approval of the late caricaturist David Levine, who drew him many times—at least once, with rabbit ears. When Levine died, the Boston Globe related Updike’s praise: “In a shoddy time, he does good work.”

Seeing the detail (and the humor) in this sculpture, one supposes he would say the same of Ben Wickey. Perhaps in the future this young artist might give the world its first claymation short film featuring Mr. Updike—with, or without the rabbit ears.    Continue reading →

Blogger writes about “The Happiest I’ve Been”

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765224431_bb66698b67_mChicago-based blogger Levi Stahl recently posted an entry on Updike’s 1959 short story “The Happiest I’ve Been.”

He writes that “the first thing I did after reading it was make two copies to send to friends. It’s that good, full of sharp observations expressed in sentences whose every word seems diligently labored over, glowing with a sense that it was chosen through deliberation aiming at perfection rather than the logorrhea of chance.”

Read the full post at Ivebeenreadinglately.

Bellow letter reveals the novelist was no fan of Updike’s

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Screen Shot 2013-03-18 at 6.50.31 PMIn his review of the newly published correspondence of Saul Bellow’s—Saul Bellow: Letters, ed. Benjamin Taylor—Leo Robson of the New Statesman writes,

There is also a generous helping of contempt, the sine qua non of literary letters. To Cynthia Ozick, one of the few younger writers he admired, he wrote: “It gives me something less than pleasure to be listed with the Styrons, Vonneguts, Mailers.” He acquiesces in a friend’s description of John Updike as “an anti-Semitic pornographer” and doesn’t much like Updike’s chief outlet, the New Yorker. Or, for that matter, the journal he calls the New York Review of Each Other’s Books. Or the Jewish magazine Commentary: “the language of the contributors is something like the kapok that life jackets used to be stuffed with.”

Here is the complete review.

Ipswich humor book includes a tribute to Updike

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image003Doug Brendel, who writes “The Outsidah,” a humor column about Ipswich for the local Ipswich Chronicle, has compiled another collection of his cartoon-illustrated columns in “an annual book of absolutely no interest to anyone outside of Ipswich.”

But the foreword to Only in Ipswich 2013 is a tribute to John Updike, and he thought that might interest Society members.

Here it is, compliments of the author:

foreword 2013 w-cartoon[1]

For those who would like to buy a copy of the book, here’s the Amazon link.

And for the curious, here is a link to Brendel’s website.

In a post-election essay, Tanenhaus praises Rabbit Redux

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Sam Tanenhaus, who interviewed John Updike on many occasions, wrote in a post-election essay that Rabbit Redux “remains the most illuminating and prophetic of modern political novels, though on the surface it seems not about politics at all.”

Here’s the link to “John Updike’s ‘Rabbit Redux’ and White Working-Class Angst,” with thanks to Maria Mogford for drawing our attention to it. The photo is courtesy of The New York Times.

Podcaster spotlights The Witches of Eastwick

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The Witches of Eastwick was the latest “forgotten fiction” to be featured on Why I Really Like This Book, podcasts by Dr. Kate Macdonald, a lecturer in English Studies at Ghent University, Belgium.

She sends the link, hoping it “might be interesting, and hopefully entertaining, to Updike scholars. I’m not one myself,” she says, “but I gave an honest opinion.”

Thanks to Dr. Macdonald, with a reminder:  You don’t have to be an Updike scholar to join the Society!

O’Brien for President blog dredges up an old Updike story

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Conan O’Brien insists he’s running for president in 2012, and recently his blog revived a May 26, 2011 post we all missed about an O’Brien-Updike connection.

Interestingly, both O’Brien and Updike served as president of the Lampoon while at Harvard. But that’s not the connection. Here’s the link. Thanks to member Larry C. Randen for calling it to our attention. And Conan, if you’re reading this, how about commenting here about what Updike told you?

Drinking Girl on display again in Reading

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Michael Updike writes,

“While in Berks county, Liz, I and kids got to the Reading Museum and we were happy to see that the Drinking Girl fountain is back in her place on the third floor landing. They have our father’s description from The Centaur on display.

However, there is a slight twist to this situation in that from the water of the fountain emerges several Dale Chihuly red, green and yellow glass “reeds.” The girl is surrounded by them. It was a site-specific work that the museum commissioned, but I’m not convinced it is a successful marriage of contemporary glass and nineteenth century figurative work . . . although from the back the reeds rhythmically mimic her S-shaped posture.”

According to the Reading Public Museum, which hasn’t displayed Drinking Girl (by sculptor Edward McCartan) for three years prior to its current exhibition in conjunction with “Tiffany Lamps: Articles of Utility, Objects of Art,” the fountain that made a lasting impression on a young John Updike will remain on display for at least another six months. Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays. They are closed on Mondays. Admission is $8.00.

Updike children honor their father at Plowville cemetery

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Bruce Posten wrote a story for the Reading Eagle. This report was written by Society board member Jack De Bellis:

In Plowville Cemetery, where generations of John Updike’s relatives rest, John Updike’s children, Liz, David, Michael and Miranda gathered to show publicly their love for their father. The ceremony took the form of the placing of a headstone carved by Michael with affection and wit on Pennsylvania slate. The stone featured John Updike’s signature in its many representations, including “Johnny” as he was known by his parents. Linda and Wesley Updike rested only inches from the headstone. Atop the monument Michael had carved an angel in the New England style, a face with wings. He cleverly carved his father’s smiling face showing that though he feared death all his life, he had a faith which would enable him to ascend, happily, to heaven. On the reverse of the stone Michael had cut both stanzas from Updike’s poem “Telephone Poles”. There was little doubt he still communicated with those assembled.

The gathering included the spouses of Miranda and David, many of their children, and one, Trevor, who bears his grandfather’s features to a remarkable degree. John Updike’s blood flowed in many veins. Also honoring John were his former classmates and lifelong friends Jackie Hirneisen Kendall and Joan Venne Youngerman; David Silcox, who had kept Updike abreast of Shillington news; Jack De Bellis, Alvernia University’s John Updike Scholar in Residence; and Patricia De Bellis. Continue reading →