Updike’s short story “A Mild Complaint” appeared in Ian Frazier’s Humor Me: An Anthology of Funny Contemporary Writing (Plus Some Great Old Stuff, Too) (Ecco Press, 2010) with this footnote, which appears in the author’s introduction:
“Also, unconnected to anything, here’s a note, just FYI: The John Updike piece, “A Mild Complaint,” which concludes Part I, was famous at the New Yorker as the piece that the magazine held on to the longest before it was published. Updike wrote the piece, and the magazine bought it, in the mid-1950s, when he was a young man. For inscrutable reasons the New Yorker then kept the piece for twenty-some years and finally ran it in the 1970s [sic, actually April 19, 1982], when Updike was in his middle years. The piece is included here as a testament to the resilience of literature, and as a wave to Mr. Updike, wherever in the afterlife he may be” (xi-xii).
Frazier’s remarks can be found in context at this link. Thanks to member Larry Randen for passing it along.
The online magazine Obit—whose tagline in “Death is only half the story. Obit is about life . . .”—featured John Updike on January 28, 2009. In “Updike’s Dark Certainty,” Robert Roper visits “Updike country—the region where suburban platting meets knicker-dropping” and offers an lyrical-interpretive summary of Updike’s literary life, along with a bottom-story link to several obits and appraisals of Updike.
The item comes to us belatedly from Dave Lull, via Larry Randen.
The current issue (July 12-August 15) of The New York Review of Books is devoted to fiction, and one article prominently features Updike, member Brian Duffy writes:
For those who missed it, Philip Roth Studies Vol. 7, No. 2 features the transcript of an ALA session in which Updike Society board member and treasurer Marshall Boswell participated: “Contemporary American Fiction and the Confluence of Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, and John Updike: A Roundtable Discussion.”
Marshall says that a “grainy photo” of the participants accompanies the roundtable transcript, and that he was proud to carry the Updike banner.
Here’s the transcript of the roundtable discussion, shared by permission of editor and current Updike Society board member Derek Parker Royal, who adds that members can buy a hard copy through The Philip Roth Society Website. Derek’s email is on the Meet the Board page on the left menu, if you wish to order a copy directly through him.
Radical History Review Volume 2011, Number 111, Fall 2011 features essays on the theme of “Historicizing 9/11,” and member Bob Batchelor has an essay in it titled “Literary Lions Tackle 9/11: Updike and DeLillo Depicting History through the Novel.” You can access it and get a free full-text download here. In his essay, Batchelor considers how Updike’s “on-the-scene reporting gave his words added consequence,” with his “description of the horror and of his personal response” providing readers with “an additional tool to process the events.”
Takashi Nakatani, an associate professor at Yokohama City University who attended the First Biennial John Updike Society Conference, wrote an essay/report on “Updike Gakkai Soritsu-Taikai Shusseki-no Ki” (“Report on the Updike Society Inaugural Conference”) which was published in Web Eigo-Seinen (The Web Rising Generation) 156:9 (2010): 49-52. Web. 1 December 2010. Below is the first page. For the rest, see Web Eigo-Seinen.
For 14 years, James Yerkes has served as Webmaster for The Centaurian, the literary website devoted to John Updike. But the site took an unexpected arrow to the ankle and is now down. Our links to The Centaurian are broken, but we’ll work with Dr. Yerkes to try to transfer whatever files we can to The John Updike Society website. Here is a letter from Dr. Yerkes to all of his loyal readers:
“No doubt everyone who has tried to visit The Centaurian website this week was as surprised as I was. The site would not open and instead a connectivity error message appeared. I intended to update the site as usual on Monday, August 31. But my FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program would not load without a connection.
“The reason turned out to be simple and sad. The Prexar Company, with whom I had purchased email delivery along with website hosting, had some kind of server crash, I was told, and rather than fix it or replace it they simply and unilaterally decided to drop the service.
“Kerplunck. Without warning to its customers. In my case I had used the service for a decade, since moving to Maine in 1999. But in order to find out the problem and the decision I had to call the company. They explained they had considered shutting down the service soon and when their server failed they simply scrapped it.
“That I was never informed seemed beside the point to the one, and only one, person still managing their office. I was refused the information about who owned the company so I could contact them to ask for more details. The email service still is advertised online and in some formats still includes an offer of webhosting. But that now likely will soon change.
“I asked if they could put a message up on their online site to explain what happened and to allow me to post a short letter of farewell. I was told they could not do that. This meant that no one will know what happened to the site except if I find ways on my own to write to supporters of the website.
“I am writing this note for the new The John Updike Society website monitored by Dr. James Plath at Illinois Wesleyan University in the hope many to whom I referred that new service on The Centaurian site will find this explanation there. My sincere thanks to Professor James Plath, president of the Society, for allowing me to do this.
“After 14 years of working as the webmaster for The Centaurian site I am, of course, very troubled about this ruptured turn of events, but that does not in the least dim my grateful memory of the long and pleasant collaboration I had with David Lull and Larry Randen, my bibliographic and literary co-webmasters. They were so utterly faithful and supportive over the years with resources and advice that I do not know how adequately to say thank you. The site was uploaded online for the first time on 15 November 1996 when I was teaching at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA.
“And to thousands upon thousands of Updike fans from the US and from nearly every country in the world I owe an enormous debt of gratitude for their support and devoted readership. Thanks to all for all the joys you gave us in support of The Centaurian.
“If you care to contact me personally for any reason my email address remains j.yerkes@roadrunner.com, my telephone number is 207-664-0545, and my address is 636 Morgan Bay Road, Surry, Maine 04684-9714.
“The August 24 update of the site, David Lull informed me, may for a brief time be read from the Google “Cache” version, the link which follows the old Prexar address on Google with The Centaurian information located at the top of Google’s list. It may, however, be removed without notice when Google runs a new cache backup.
“I would be grateful if readers here would send an email copy of this letter to their Updike friends who may also wonder what happened so suddenly to the website.
“With many thanks to many thousands of Updike friends over the past 14 years,
James Yerkes, The Centaurian Webmaster”
Thank you James, David, and Larry, for all that you’ve done for Updike scholars and scholarship over the years.
