Category Archives: Reviews

On reading Updike’s stories in Japan

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Writer Daniel Clausen posted a review of Updike’s 40 Stories on Goodreads that was more a personal story of reading and engaging with a text than it was a standard review . . . and, like Updike’s stories, the introspective meandering made it more interesting. Clausen confesses to having a hard time concentrating back in 2021 when he read the stories. “I remembered the story ‘The A&P’ from long ago and thought I might try 39 more stories by John Updike. I would read them in various locales of Nagasaki. The book itself was in my university library. Its pages were brown and yellowing. I was busy that semester, which is why I had trouble concentrating.

“I’m sorry. I’m lying. Let me start over. I had started a new job at the university, and I was gripped with anxiety. Would I be good at my new job? Would the coronavirus ever end? What would I do now that I was almost forty? Would I be able to finish my novel?”

Clausen is the author of a collection of short stories and essays, Something to Stem the Diminishing (2015).

Updike mentioned in review of Diana Evans essay collection

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British writer Diana Evans has written four acclaimed novels and, more recently, a collection of essays titled I Want to Talk to You and Other Conversations. In Alex Clark’s review of the book, John Updike surfaces as an influence:

“Thinking about Rhys and her peripatetic, rackety life leads Evans to interrogate the ways in which writers of fiction might reach their own particular method of ‘psychological enunciation.’ It’s a delicious counterpoint to Evans’s fondness for John Updike; crediting his novel Couples with influencing Ordinary People, she describes what might legitimately be called a guilty pleasure, weighing the erasing masculinity of his work against the sentences ‘like hot-air balloons drifting through a dazzling harlequin sky.’ It was also being alive to the domestic ease of the married protagonists of Couples that sparked Evans to ask: ‘How often do middle-class black people in books get to just live in their damn houses and open and close their wardrobes and be aware of each other’s fingertips?'”

UK Times writer: Rabbit still stunningly good

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In an opinion piece for The Times (UK), Benjamin Markovits writes that he doesn’t remember reading John Updike’s Rabbit, Run when it first came out in 1960, partly because he was “suspicious” of the book’s popularity and was hesitant about such things as the “breathless present tense” of the narrative or the opening scene that has Rabbit knocking down a jump shot without even taking off his double-breasted jacket. “But then, just recently, I reread it and was stunned again by how good it is. The basic story hasn’t grown old either.”

“After a certain number of pages, you stop being aware of the medium of the prose and it starts to seem like the world. And the density allows Updike to do one of the hardest things for a writer to get away with, which is to make you (or at least, me) interested in the ordinary passage of his characters’ time. The hour spent, for example, hanging out with a couple Rabbit doesn’t particularly like at a bar, even if the stakes are low and nothing particularly dramatic happens. You start to feel like Rabbit, stuck in that time and place, and desperate to get out of it.”

Read the whole review article.

Colin’s Review tackles Rabbit, Run

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First U.K. Edition

The “about” tab says it all: “The concept of Colin’s Review is pretty self-explanatory. My name is Colin, and I review things. So, why should you care? Professional criticism is a dying industry. Ask any journalist or newspaper staff-writer and they’ll unfortunately tell you the same thing. However, there still exists a large contingency of readers who long for the golden era when criticism itself was just as artful as the topics the authors were reviewing. That’s what I strive to provide on this blog.”

So far he’s only reviewed four books (and Updike might be cringing somewhere to discover that Philip Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater merited an A while Rabbit, Run was awarded an A-), but Colin seems insightful, somewhat bold, and quite readable. In his review, after summarizing Updike’s first Rabbit novel in two sentences, Colin writes,

“It makes for a very funny premise, and when told through Updike’s extremely poetic and occasionally profound style, it makes for a very compelling read. After all, the masculine urge for escape is relatable to everyone. Or, rather, Updike’s such a talented writer that Rabbit’s masculine impulses are easy to empathize with. The further he self-destructs, the more human he becomes.

“Then again, Rabbit isn’t exactly the most likable protagonist . . . . Watching him constantly take advantage of those around him would be quite exhausting if it wasn’t for Updike’s wit and clarity. Not to mention the book’s present tense P.O.V., which keeps Rabbit’s cycle of assholery refreshing despite its repetition—an uncomfortable and entertaining read.

“Back in 1960, Rabbit, Run provided a fresh perspective: a window into the soul of American men disillusioned with the middle-class WASP lifestyle, searching for spirituality but lacking religion, obsessed with sex yet scared of commitment, desperate for meaning in a seemingly meaningless world. Admirable cowards, self-righteous fools.”

Colin notes that Updike had such an “immense” influence that “thousands of similar characters” have “taken up Rabbit’s running-away-from-family mantle. From American Pastoral to Cosmopolis to Five Easy Pieces, there’s no shortage of problematic white male protagonists. Then again, I can’t blame Updike for a half-century of imitators.”

The brisk review is made even brisker with sections on “Further Reading,” “Stray Observations (including Spoilers),” and “Quotes from Rabbit, Run.”

Read the full review

YouTube podcaster offers a costumed Gertrude and Claudius review

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Well here’s a different kind of take on John Updike’s 2000 novel that’s unlike any other:  Jordan Falotico’s YouTube Channel review of Gertrude and Claudius—Updike’s creative prequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Falotico was almost as creative with their review, dressing up as both Gertrude and Claudius to deliver an acted-out on-camera assessment in character(s).

“In this little novel here, it all makes perfect sense,” Jordan-as-Gertrude said.

“Well, that concludes this episode of The Royal Tea,” Jordan-as-Claudius said. “We all hope you have a better understanding of how Gertie and I fell in love with each other and how we came to be. We hope that we were able to clear the air, put to rest some of the gossip, and answer some of your dying, fire-inside, whatever, questions.”

“Ultimately,” Jordan-as-Gertrude added, “Claudius and I think this is a great book. It clears up a lot for us. We think that Mr. Updike did a great job of really explaining the history of our love and how it came to be.”

 

Updike’s take on Jong’s Fear of Flying

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As part of their feminist classics series which looks at influential books, The Conversation featured an article on “Sex, zips and feminism: Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying has a joyful abandon rarely found in today’s sad girl novels” in which John Updike was quoted.

“Interestingly though, another male writer, John Updike, helped Jong’s rise up the bestseller list. Even so, his compliments can read as backhanded as Goodlove’s:

It has class and sass, brightness and bite. Containing all the cracked eggs of the feminist litany, her soufflé rises with a poet’s afflatus. She sprinkles on the four-letter words as if women had invented them; her cheerful sexual frankness brings a new flavor to female prose.

“Updike favourably links Jong with great male writers J.D. Salinger and Philip Roth, while carefully distinguishing her from the more disagreeable women’s liberationists:

Fear of Flying not only stands as a notably luxuriant and glowing bloom in the sometimes thistly garden of ‘raised’ feminine consciousness but belongs to, and hilariously extends, the tradition of Catcher in the Rye and Portnoy’s Complaint.

“Pull quotes from Updike’s review featured on the novel’s second edition (the one I have been reading), along with a new cover: a luscious 70s serif typeface in black and orange on a yellow background that blatantly copies the 1969 cover of Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint.”

Eat My News: Rabbit Recapped

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The global media platform Eat My News published a primer on “Exploring John Updike’s Iconic ‘Rabbit’ Series” on October 26, 2023. For what is apparently the first installment of a series, contributor Anushka Dabhade began,

“In the realm of American literature, few authors have left as indelible a mark as John Updike. His ‘Rabbit’ series, comprising four novels that span several decades, offers readers a profound exploration of the human condition and the evolution of a character named Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom. As we embark on this literary journey, we’ll unravel the complexities of these novels, their impact on readers, and the enduring legacy of John Updike.”

Dabhade ended this segment with this summary: “John Updike’s ‘Rabbit’ series is a literary journey that transcends time and place. Through the eyes of Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, readers are invited to ponder the complexities of human existence and the ever-changing landscape of American life. As you embark on this literary voyage, you’ll discover why Updike’s ‘Rabbit’ series continues to be a source of fascination and contemplation for generations of readers.”

Read what’s in-between, and apparently stay tuned.

 

Washington Post reviewer considers Richard Ford’s Frank Bascombe alongside Updike’s Harry Angstrom

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The Washington Post has a paywall, but if you’re a subscriber you might want to read John Williams’ thoughtful extended review of Richard Ford’s newest book, Be Mine: “A Eulogy for everymen: Updike’s Rabbit and Ford’s Frank Bascombe.”

Calling the two fictional characters “quintessentially 20th-century protagonists,” Williams began by establishing a relationship between the two:

“Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom and Frank Bascombe have been mentioned together quite often for two men who don’t have all that much in common. John Updike introduced Angstrom in 1960 in Rabbit, Run, the first book in his vaunted series about a suburban salesman. Richard Ford, who was only 16 in 1960, has just published Be Mine, the fifth book featuring his garrulous, uncannily even-tempered narrator Bascombe, who first appeared in The Sportswriter.

“In 2014, Ford told the New Yorker that the relationship between his books and Updike’s was “complicated,” elaborating: “I have to say, with no reluctance, that if John hadn’t written the Rabbit books I might not have thought (as his contemporary) that three, then four, books about a real-estate salesman in New Jersey could be plausible.” He went on to highly praise Updike but also noted that he had read only one of the four Rabbit novels all the way through.

“Aside from the obvious fact that they are protagonists of multivolume series by popular and acclaimed writers, Rabbit and Frank have been linked throughout the years by what they’ve been taken to represent: Each has been called an ‘everyman’ too many times to count. It’s a word — and a projection — redolent of the 20th century. We’re too culturally atomized now to expect even broadly drawn individuals to reflect our collective life in any meaningful way, and of course those labeled ‘everyman’ have nearly always been White suburban males, whose relevance as cultural avatars (much less weathervanes) has been in steep decline. This all leaves aside the fact that Ford and Updike have both written eloquently to say that these characters are not meant to represent anything but themselves.”

Read the whole article.

Time magazine retro reviews: Telephone Poles and Of the Farm

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It’s always interesting to look back at early reviews of an author’s work.

Time magazine’s Nov. 1, 1963 review of John Updike’s volume of poetry, Telephone Poles, noted that “Updike has neither [Ogden] Nash’s bewildered air of good sense wrapped in metrical nonsense nor [Morris] Bishop’s malicious delight in destroying his targets in a single, whiplashing line. His tone is more urbane and more lyrical, a bit reminiscent of Britain’s John Betjeman.”

Two years later, in their Nov. 12,1965 issue, Time reviewed Updike’s Of the Farm and warned readers that Updike’s fourth novel “will disappoint those admirers who have been waiting hopefully for a major talent to produce a major work. Instead of expanding, the Updike compass seems to be narrowing, as if its wielder were desirous of proving that he can, if need be, engrave his graceful arabesques on the head of a pin. Of the Farm barely qualifies as a novel; it is too brief, inactive, and unambitious. But as a delicate cameo that freezes three people in postures that none of them finds comfortable, it is almost faultless. Its achievement is that with incredibly economical means, it suggests that each of these people will change, develop, shift in their relations to each other and makes the reader wonder what their future will be. Its failure is that Updike never explores that future.”

Times writer reconsiders Updike’s Couples

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UK First Edition/First Printing

In “Rereading: Couples by John Updike review—a melancholy anatomy of adultery,” David Mills began, “John Updike’s 1968 novel Couples has a notorious reputation: it is regarded as a sex book, an explicit manual of swinging high jinks in the ‘post-pill paradise’ of the early 1960s.” He conceded, “There certainly are passages that come across as route-one porn” and provided examples, but took exception with David Foster Wallace’s well-known description of Updike as “just a penis with a thesaurus.”

Within Couples‘ “five-section structure, one unconventionally focuses entirely away from the main character of Dutch builder Piet Hanema, and the prose itself can be tricky, with Piet given stream-of-consciousness interior monologues of almost Joycean complexity.

“Above all, this is a novel about sexual dynamics that in its choreography of shifting relationships becomes a melancholy anatomy of adultery,” Mills wrote, with this qualification: “Of course, it is a white, phallocentric novel with moments of racial stereotyping and casual male violence that make us blench now, but if its social attitudes and assumptions haven’t aged well, then neither have Jane Austen’s.”

Read the full review published in The Sunday Times [UK].