John Updike has been labeled a “protestant writer,” so it’s always interesting to hear what people of other faiths—especially articulate writers and inveterate readers—have to say about him as a religious writer. In “New Harmony: Another Brush with John Updike,” former Deseret News staffer and current Mormon Times and Faith page freelancer Jerry Earl Johnston shares his take on Roger’s Version . . . and a story involving the book he sent Updike for signing.

“After his death, one critic called him ‘The Mozart of American Letters.’ There was not only genius in his work, but also generosity and a buoyant spirit,” Johnston writes, adding, “I suspect those qualities came from his faith.”  Continue reading →

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, blogger William Thornton posted a reconsideration of Updike’s novel Terrorist: “will the events of last week and the coming weeks’ vindicate one of John Updike’s last, and least regarded, novels?”

“The Ghost of John Updike and the Boston Bombing” was posted on Brilliant Disguises: A Christian Look at Contemporary and Classic Literary Fiction and Culture on Sunday, April 21, 2013.

Among other things, Thornton concludes, “Updike’s depiction of the War on Terror has a disquieting moral equivalency between Islamic fundamentalist terrorism and America’s reaction about it, and that reads less charitably after an event like the Boston Marathon attack and the city’s response.”

Michael 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 →

Chicago-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.

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.

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!

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?