Ipswich Historical Commission approves Updike plaque

Posted on by
Reply

Stewart Lytle, reporting for The Town Common, writes that the Ipswich Historical Commission “is preparing to erect a plaque to honor the prolific author on the door of the Caldwell Building, which houses the Choate Bridge Pub. The owner, the John T. & Priscilla Coughlin Trust, has agreed to installing the plaque.” Pictured are Updike Society members visiting the location during the 2nd Biennial John Updike Society Conference in Boston.

While living in Ipswich, Updike was a member of the Ipswich Historical Commission and even helped write a book on Ipswich for the commission, Something to Preserve: A Report on Historic Preservation in America’s best-preserved Puritan town, Ipswich, Massachusetts.

Couples landed Updike on the cover of Time magazine

“The exact position of the plaque—above or beside the door—has not been decided. Nor has the inscription been written by commission vice chair Rachel Meyer.

“The building is already on the National Registry, but most passersby know nothing of Updike renting an office” on the building’s second floor, where he wrote Couples, Rabbit Redux, and other novels and short stories.

Here’s a PDF of the entire Town Common story.

Call for Papers: 7th Biennial John Updike Society Conference

Posted on by
Reply

Tucson, AZ – September 20-24, 2023
Papers (15-20 min.) and panels (submit names of participants) on ANY aspect of John Updike’s work or life will be considered, but topics that are especially appropriate for this conference include:

—John Updike’s poetry. His Collected Poems celebrates a 30th anniversary in 2023. Updike was serious about poetry and published ten volumes throughout this lifetime. Significantly, his first published book in 1958 was a volume of poetry (The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures), and one of his last published books in 2009 was a volume of poetry (Endpoint and Other Poems).
—The Centaur, whichcelebrates a 60th anniversary in 2023. The Southwest is known for inspiring artists, and narrator Peter Caldwell is an artist.
—“A Desert Encounter,” in which Updike describes losing a favorite hat in the casita parking lot as he was trimming bushes. Also appropriate are Updike’s writings about travel, nature, and/or connections to history.
—Comparative papers on David Foster Wallace and Updike. “Penis with a thesaurus” remarks aside, Updike was an influence on Wallace, and their publications and career trajectories pose some interesting possibilities for discussion. Tucson is Wallace country; he attended the Univ. of Arizona.
—Brazil, whichcelebrates a 30th anniversary in 2023 and represents one of Updike’s attempts to understand a culture other than his own.

SUBMIT PROPOSALS along with a brief bio paragraph by March 20, 2023 to Robert Luscher (luscherr@unk.edu). The number of presenters may be capped, so if your participation is dependent upon having a paper accepted you should submit your proposal sooner rather than later. Presenters must be members of The John Updike Society or join after their papers have been accepted. Annual dues are $30/year for regular membership and $25/year for students and retirees (https://blogs.iwu.edu/johnupdikesociety/join/). Decision notices will be sent within three weeks of your submission, along with registration and lodging information, if your proposal is successful. Moderators are also needed, and volunteers should send an email to Robert Luscher indicating a desire or willingness to do so. Thanks to the generosity of the Robert and Adele Schiff Family Foundation, the society is once again able to award a small number of travel grants to enable young scholars to participate.

Full Registration Information will be posted and emailed to members soon.

The John Updike Society is a welcoming organization of 260+ members from 18 countries and 37 states that also owns and operates The John Updike Childhood Home in Shillington, Pa.

Updike scholar George Hunt on the meaning of Christmas

Posted on by
Reply

Updike fans know the name George Hunt from his early monograph, John Updike and the Three Great Secret Things: Sex, Religion and Art, but Hunt was also an ordained Jesuit priest who served as literary editor and then editor-in-chief of America magazine for 14 years. The current editor, James T. Keane, remembers Hunt and his associations with people like Updike and former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent in an article that draws heavily from Jesuit Father Hunt’s own words.

You’ll want to read the entire article, which also has a link to the essay “John Updike” Suspicious of Santa but fond of Christ.” We’ll end this post with pullout quotes from the article:

“George Hunt: If it is true, as Aquinas said, that God created the world at play, then a fortiori God was definitely at play—partying—when he re-created that world in the image of his Son.”

“George Hunt: What kind of an earth shall we pass on to our children? Shall it be one in which the Word would wish to be enfleshed?”

“George Hunt: As Karl Rahner reminds us, the Word in the announcement means: I love you. Our answer must be an echo of that word: Yes, I heard, I will be there at your party.”

Last-minute Updike gifts for the golfer in your family

Posted on by
Reply

Remember those brick-and-mortar bookstores, with their cafés and comfy chairs? If you’re in one and have a golfer to buy for over the next few days, several Updike books have made a number of “nice” lists this season.

Writing for Shepherd: Discover the best books, James Y. Bartlett, author of a series of Hacker Golf Mysteries—Death is a Two-Stroke Penalty, Death from the Ladies Tee, and Member-Guest—recommends “The best books of golf fiction.” For literary golf enthusiast John Updike, Bartlett singles out A Month of Sundays.

“John Updike, writing about golf? Well, why not? This novel, from one of America’s greatest writers, is something of a riff on Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, in a story about a disgraced minister sent off on a sabbatical. He keeps a daily journal, which is what makes up the novel.

“Naturally, this being Updike, there are stories about his affairs, his drinking, his family relationships, and more. But there are also wonderful passages about his golf game. Like much of Updike’s work, this book is thought-provoking and an interesting window into the American mind of the 20th century.”

If your golf devotee is into non-fiction, Updike’s Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf is highly recommended by Golf Digest. It’s one of “The 50 Golf Books Every Golfer Should Read,” according to the editors.

“In his essays, the celebrated writer talks about the experience of playing the game and how we are attached to its subtleties.”

10 Books of Christmas list features the usual suspects . . . and Updike

Posted on by
Reply

Shepherd, a blog for book lovers, recently posted an article by Jóhannes úr Kötlum on “10 books like Christmas is Coming” that starts with Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but instantly moves on to other ghost stories or creepy tales, like The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas by Al Ridenour, The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Walter Scott, and Updike’s The Twelve Terrors of Christmas, illustrated by Edward Gorey.

“No list of the delightfully dark would be complete without an appearance by the preeminent gothic illustrator, Edward Gorey. Gorey’s wry, one-of-a-kind style brings to life (and death) John Updike’s dark deconstruction of 12 Christmas traditions. Though it’s now out of print, this title is a must-have for any Edward Gorey enthusiast, and for any fan of the unlimited imaginative potential when artists look beyond the lights of the holiday season to focus on the shadows instead,” Kötlum writes.

Rounding out the list are The Elves And The Shoemaker by the Brothers Grimm and Jim LaMarche, Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James, A Yuletide Kiss by Glynnis Campbell, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum, Six Geese a Laying by Emily E.K. Murdoch, and a holiday book not yet ready to give up the ghost: Dark Halloween by Eleanor Merry, Cassandra Angler, and Brian Scutt.

Blogger turns to Updike for Thanksgiving thankfulness

Posted on by
Reply

Patrick Kurp, who writes Anecdotal Evidence: A blog about the intersection of books and life, yesterday turned to Updike for his Thanksgiving post, “Give Thanks for Gradual Ceaseless Rot.”

“Everything I have is more and better than I deserve,” Kurp wrote. “I like expressions of gratitude for things that have never occurred to me. Take John Updike’s thankfulness for decomposition in ‘Ode to Rot’:

“All process is reprocessing;
give thanks for gradual ceaseless rot
gnawing gross Creation fine while we sleep,
the lightning-forged organic conspiracy’s
merciful counterplot.”

Read the full blog post.

Updike and terrorism paper presented at India teacher’s conference

Posted on by
Reply

John Updike Society member Pradipta Sengupta reports that his paper that he presented on “Terrorism and John Updike” at the 65th All India English Teacher’s Conference was well received.

The three-day conference was organized by the Department of English, Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, Nalanda, Bihar and held in Rajgir, Bihar. The theme of the Nov. 24-25 conference was “Emergence, Essence, and Presence.”

Witches of Eastwick remake is reportedly in development

Posted on by
1

The Internet Movie Database only notes that a new Witches of Eastwick movie is “in development,” but Distractify published a piece yesterday on “Here’s Everything We Know About the ‘The Witches of Eastwick’ Remake So Far.”

Quoting Warner Bros. Screen Daily, Katherine Stinson reported that the project is moving forward with Swedish filmmaker Ninja Thyberg “attached to the project to direct” and producers currently working on the project “include husband-and-wife producing team Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher.” Stinson wrote that Wick’s previous producing credits included Gladiator, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Great Gatsby, and two Divergent films, while Fisher, in addition to those films, was involved with the 2005 Bewitched movie adaptation.

The original 1987 film starred Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer, with Updike later identifying Pfeiffer as his favorite.

Updike film adaptation makes a must-see Halloween list

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s one poll that might have amused John Updike: the Jacksonville (Ill.) Journal-Courier asked readers to vote on their must-see films for Halloween, and, wouldn’t you know it, the cinematic adaptation of Updike’s novel The Witches of Eastwick made the list. That’s no doubt because of Jack Nicholson’s over-the-top performance as Darryl Van Horne and director George Miller’s decision to go Beetlejuice wild with Updike’s story of three divorcees in a small New England town where sexual politics and witchy mischief take center stage.

The 1987 Warner Bros. film starred Cher as Alexandra, Susan Sarandon as Jane, and Michelle Pfeiffer as Sukie, with Veronica Cartwright playing Felicia and Richard Jenkins playing Clyde.

Editor David C.L. Bauer said that readers could choose from a list of “100 movies of all genres or add their own.” The Witches of Eastwick was the second film cited in the article, right after It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and ahead of The Ring, Coraline, Fright Night, Goosebumps, Evil Dead, Young Frankenstein, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Hocus Pocus.

Rotten Tomatoes critics weren’t quite as enthusiastic. Sixty-six percent of the critics who saw the film thought it was “fresh” and merited a 6 out of 10 or better.

Read the whole article.

Oxford writer names Updike’s Rabbit series a shaping influence

Posted on by
Reply

Writing for a new Oxford University newspaper, The Oxford Blue, Nicholas Champness identified “Books That Made Me: Rabbit.” He of course was referring to Updike’s Rabbit,Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich, and Rabbit at Rest, collected together in the Everyman’s Library as Rabbit Angstrom.

First UK Edition

“The novels deal with a period of great change in American society. We see American change from the Eisenhower era, through the ‘Summer of Love,’ then Watergate, the Vietnam War, Reaganomics, and the Cold War. However, the focus of the novels is not on the great sweeping canvas of history and certainly not an influential figure. Rather, Updike presents us with history and politics as they affect a real person, someone totally ordinary with little claim to fame other than the provincial sporting prowess of his youth. The canvas of current affairs becomes the conversations had in the car en route to the ball game, opinions discussed curtly over the dinner table. Simply put, Updike shows how the ‘ordinary Joe’ reacts to these events,” Champness wrote.

“He draws his characters, rather than simply describing them. He makes them authentic and believable, imbued with nuance. Well-drawn female characters in the series can prove to be somewhat sparse, for which Updike has faced criticism. Yet, I wonder whether this is an issue,” Champness wrote.

“Rabbit’s mundanity and Updike’s decision that such mundanity is a worthy subject of literature invites the reader to reconsider. What is the point of literature and what is a worthy subject of it? What makes something beautiful or otherwise? Perhaps, then, we can understand Updike’s role as one of a mediator. He invites his reader to see the beauty in the ordinary,” Champness wrote.

“Updike’s treatment of life is one of the main reasons why I chose this series. Updike shows us that life and humans are much the same; they are both flawed and mundane, yet this is where we find beauty in them. I often find myself coming back to the ideas expressed here,” Champness wrote.