Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, based at the University of Arizona and published online by Johns Hopkins University Press, included an important essay on Updike in the Volume 77: 4 (Winter 2021) issue: “John Updike: ‘Museums and Women,’ Women as Museums,” by Robert Milder, a member of The John Updike Society. The storied journal, which has been published since 1945, is edited by Lynda Zwinger and is based in Tucson, Arizona, where the society will meet for its 7th Biennial Conference in October, 2023.
Abstract: Written in 1962 and published in five years later, “Museums and Women” is a series of vignettes featuring each of the most important women in his Updike’s life through that time: his strong-willed, mercurial mother; the schoolgirl its hero decides he loves; the Radcliffe student (a version of Updike’s Mary Pennington) he would marry; and the lover for whom he, like Updike, would nearly leave his wife. Beyond its status as an autonomous work of fiction, “Museums and Women” is a matrix for Updike’s semi-autobiographical treatments of love, sex, marriage, and infidelity. Focusing on “Museum and Women,” the essay moves outward to consider Updike’s life and work in thematically related writings across his career: stories of the 1960s and beyond, Marry Me: A Romance, Of the Farm, Couples, Self-Consciousness: Memoirs, and Villages, a late novel comprising a reassessment of his life as it was shaped by his relationships to women.
Milder, who holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, is Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. His research interests are 19th and 20th century American authors.
At the annual membership meeting, this year held at the American Literature Association Conference in Chicago on Friday, May 28, society president Jim Plath announced that the board has decided to postpone The John Updike Society’s scheduled 2023 conference in the Republic of Georgia, due to uncertainty in that part of the world as a result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Many of our members expressed deep disappointment that we won’t be going to Georgia in 2023, but with Putin being such an aggressor and such an unstable man, we thought the responsible thing to do was to postpone that conference at Akaki Tsereteli State University until 2025, when it will be the society’s 8th biennial conference,” Plath said. Which is to say, the society’s Georgia adventure will still happen, but at a time when people can feel comfortable again about flying to a country that borders Russia.
The Updikes’ condo
TUCSON, ARIZONA was announced as the site of the 7th Biennial John Updike Society Conference, where members will have “A Desert Encounter.” Updike wrote that New Yorker story about losing his prized hat (which is now on display at The John Updike Childhood Home museum) in the parking lot of his desert condo.
Members who attend the conference will not only get to see the parking lot and condo where John and Martha Updike lived for several months each year the last six or so years of his life; they’ll get to see the inside and experience the views that Updike did when he wrote on his patio every morning. And attendees will be able to enjoy a reception at the Skyline Country Club some 150 yards away, where Updike golfed (yes, another Rabbit Open best ball tournament is a possibility) and where John and Martha frequently ate.
Saguaro National Park
There are other Updike sites in the area (like a historic inn where the Updikes always went for his birthday dinner), but an added bonus for scholars and teachers of contemporary American literature is that Tucson is also a big David Foster Wallace site (Wallace graduated from the University of Arizona MFA program in 1987), and we might visit some of those. Among other topics, a Call for Papers will invite comparative essays on Updike and Wallace.
The board thought that the first week in October would be the best time to visit the American Southwest, so “save the date.” More details will be forthcoming. At every conference, the society organizes day trips so attendees can experience the local culture and history, and of course those trips will continue.
Five properties in Tombstone are listed on the National Register of Historic Places
One possible day trip would be to experience Tombstone, which, with Dodge City, are the most iconic towns of the Old American West. It’s an hour-and-a-half drive that would give attendees a chance to see more of Arizona. There’s also the nearby San Xavier Indian Reservation of the ToHono O’odham Nation, which has a casino we might wish to visit in addition to the more cultural aspects to be experienced.
Other possible attractions: Saguaro National Park (home to the nation’s largest cacti); The University of Arizona(located in Tucson), which TripAdvisor lists as a local site worth visiting; the Mount Lemmon Skycenter observatory (Elevation 9,157 feet; Arizona is famous for its “stellar” stargazing), which features two of the largest telescopes available for public viewing in the Southwest, plus a possible SkyRide up the mountain which offers stunning views of the mountains surrounding Tucson; and the Titan Missile Museum (aka Air Force Facility Missile Site 8, a former ICBM site—now a National Historic Site) located 25 miles south of Tucson. It’s a National Historic Landmark and the only Titan II complex to survive from the late Cold War period.
San Xavier del Bac Mission
Then there’s the San Xavier del Bac Mission, the oldest intact European structure in Arizona and another National Historic Landmark, built from 1783-1797; St. Augustine Cathedral; the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum(highly recommended by English faculty at UA), which offers an impressive array of flora and fauna; the Tucson Botanical Gardens, with its flowers and butterflies; and a Sonoita Valley Wine Tour, since wine-tasting is popular in the area. On the low-key side there are historic districts to walk through in Tucson, and a Sunday morning Rillito Park Farmer’s Market.
But there are a lot of additional sites that have historical significance. The board looks forward to having another adventure with our members!
Recently published, The John Updike Review 9:1 (Winter 2022) features four new essays, three writers on Toward the End of Time, and one review:
“John Updike, Robert Frost, and the Momentary Stay against Confusion” by Donald J. Greiner
“Persisting through Changing Ideologies: Translations and Receptions of John Updike in Russia” by Olga Karasik-Updike
“Digging Deep and the Value of the Superficial: Antinomies of My Father’s Tears” by Peter J. Bailey
“The Placidity of Aging in Updike’s ‘The Road Home’ and ‘The Full Glass'” by Pradipta Sengupta
“Updike’s Toward the End of Time: A Meditation on Aging, Imagining Other Worlds, and the Landscape of Haven Hill” by James Schiff
“Branching Fictions in Updike’s Toward the End of Time” by Marshall Boswell
“A Year of Perfect Eyesight Revisited: Rereading Toward the End of Time” by Biljana Dojčinović
“Body, Mind, and Soul in the Student-Teacher Dyad (Rev. of Pedagogic Encounters: Master and Disciple in the American Novel after the 1980s, Aristi Trendel) by Sue Norton
The journal, edited by James Schiff and Nicola Mason, is published twice annually by the University of Cincinnati and the John Updike Society and is based at the University of Cincinnati, Department of English and Comparative Literature. Copies of the issue are included with membership in the society, with members living the U.S. receiving physical copies and those abroad receiving digital copies. Institutional subscriptions are also available. Contact James Schiff (james.schiff@uc.edu) for further information.
A second collaborative collection of essays by Laurence W. Mazzeno and Sue Norton was recently published by Palgrave Macmillan in Switzerland. Contemporary American Fiction in the European Classroom: Teaching and Textscontains an essay on “John Updike in Serbia” by Biljana Dojčinović and Nemanja Glintić. Other writers covered in the book include Octavia Butler, Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, Donald Barthelme, Gloria Anzaldúa, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Philip Roth, Colson Whitehead, Danzy Senna, Marilynne Robinson, Jesmyn Ward, William T. Vollmann, Toni Morrison, and Charles Yu. Also included is an additional resource provided by Norton: “Incorporating One’s Own Literary Criticism into the Curriculum: The Teachable Essay via John Updike’s Short Stories.” The book is also available as a Kindle edition.
From the publisher: This book offers insight into the ways students enrolled in European classrooms in higher education come to understand American experience through its literary fiction, which for decades has been a key component of English department offerings and American Studies curricula across the continent and in Great Britain and Ireland. The essays provide an understanding of how post-World War II American writers, some already elevated to ‘canonical status’ and some not, are represented in European university classrooms and why they have been chosen for inclusion in coursework. The book will be of interest to scholars and teachers of American literature and American studies, and to students in American literature and American studies courses.
Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia University in Reading, Pa. He is the author or editor of 20 scholarly books, including Teaching Victorian Literature in the Twenty-First Century (2017) and Victorian Environmental Nightmares (2019). Sue Norton is Lecturer of English at Technological University Dublin, Ireland. She has published numerous articles and essays on topics in American literature as well as on classroom practice. Together they edited European Perspectives on John Updike (Camden House, 2018).
Who’s reading (or at least pretending to read) John Updike?
That would be Emma Roberts, Julia Robert’s niece. A sharp-eyed Updike fan spotted her holding a copy of Rabbit, Run in a scene from In a Relationship, a 2018 indie film written, directed, and produced by Sam Boyd. The film tracks two couples in their relationships over the course of one summer and stars Roberts, Michael Angarano, Dree Hemingway, and Patrick Gibson.
The cover of this paperback is unfamiliar. Since book titles aren’t copyrighted but book cover designs do fall under the protection of intellectual property laws, chances are that this cover was a “dummy” created to be used as a prop. And Sam, if we guessed right, maybe you’d like to donate it to The John Updike Childhood Home?
One of the stars is the great granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, so who knows? Maybe a Hemingway fan will spot one of Papa’s novels in another scene. As of this moment, Amazon has the DVD of In a Relationship on sale for $6.74.
On Monday, May 2, about 120 students from Governor Mifflin Middle School toured The John Updike Childhood Home with their teachers, Ms. Werle and Miss McKay. Organizing the event and leading the tour was Director of Education Maria Lester, who also conducted a creative writing workshop.
After the tour and hearing/seeing what Shillington and Berks County meant to Updike, students went outside to write original “sense of place” poems based on their own childhood memories growing up in and around Shillington. Shown here are students at work and some posing together under Updike’s dogwood tree.
“Finally, students graduating from GM will know who John Updike was and how he put Shillington on the map,” said Dave Silcox, Updike’s longtime local contact who has been heavily involved in acquiring exhibit materials for the house museum. Thanks to the teachers and to Maria Lester for making it happen!
John Updike Society member Haruki Takebe wrote that his essay, “The Apocrypha of The Maples Stories: John Updike’s Fe/Male Points of View Reconsidered,” was published in the most recent issue of Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction.
The journal has allowed the author 50 free downloads, so if you’re among the first to click on this link you can read the article compliments of the author and Critique.
ABSTRACT
John Updike’s notorious penchant for using the male point of view should not be attributed to the author’s alleged misogyny; on the contrary, his careful handling of male and female perspectives deserves close re-evaluation. After tracing how the young Updike struggled to incorporate a female point of view in his early fiction and, for a time, settled on employing a male perspective in his mid-career stories of Richard and Joan Maple, this essay revolves around a female-voiced story “Killing” (drafted in 1975 and published in 1982), scrutinizing its publication history and the archival materials associated with it. As a result, we see that the story demonstrates Updike’s successful attempt to explore a woman’s interiority as well as shows an example of his subtle craftsmanship, involving his use of the pronoun us at the sto-ry’s dénouement. Moreover, “Killing” foreshadows Updike’s female narratives in his late phase, especially Seek My Face (2002), where the similar technique is extensively utilized to portray two women’s incompatibility and their following reconciliation.
The John Updike Society was launched at the American Literature Association conference in Boston in May 2009 and has participated in ALA conferences ever since. The ALA is a coalition of societies devoted to the study of American authors. Many of those societies are single-author, and registrants/attendees are able to attend any sessions sponsored by the many societies.
Updike Society panels are set for the 33rd Annual Conference on American Literature at the historic Palmer House Hilton (celebrating its 150th anniversary this year) in downtown Chicago, Ill., May 26-29 2022:
Thursday, May 26, 2022 Session 1-I, 9-10:20 a.m. “Women and Sex in the Works of John Updike and Other Male Authors” Moderator: James Plath (Illinois Wesleyan Univ.) Panelists: Susan Norton (Technological Univ. Dublin), Marshall Boswell (Rhodes College), Biljana Dojčinović (Univ. of Belgrade), Olga Karasik-Updike (Independent Scholar), and Matthew Koch (Tarrant County College).
Friday, May 27, 2022 Session 8-I, 10-11:20 a.m. “Autobiography and Updike’s Self-Consciousness“ Moderator: Matthew Koch (Tarrant County College) Panelists: Peter Bailey (St. Lawrence Univ.), Sylvie Mathé (Aix-Marseille Univ.), Quentin Miller (Suffolk Univ.), Robert Morace (Daemen College), and James Schiff (Univ. of Cincinnati).
Friday, May 27, 2022 Session 9-L, 11:30 a.m.-12:50 p.m. John Updike Society Business Meeting (all welcome to attend)
Those who are on the program are required to pre-register by April 15. The conference fee is $175, with a reduced rate of $125 for graduate students, independent scholars, and retired faculty. Information on the hotel conference rate, links, and other details can be found on the ALA website.
Fans of John Updike know that his books, especially signed ones and first editions, continue to be highly collectible and available from numerous dealers. But in Cape Town, South Africa?
Yep.
Rare Collections of Cape Town is currently selling 72 Updike volumes, many of which somehow came from the collection of Philadelphia lawyer and Updike fan Albert J. Raman. “John Updike and Albert obviously got to know each other very well over the years,” Rare Collections’ Christo Snyman said. “Many of the signed books have notes referencing their ‘friendship,’ ranging from John saying thank you for the golf balls Albert sent him to a thank you on behalf of his wife for some compliment given.”
If society members type “UPDIKE” in the Promo Code window, they will get a 30 percent discount. Be aware that shipping is $45, whether one volume or 10. Shipping will be via tracked courier and takes around 4-10 days. Here’s the link. Members are welcome to email Christo (christo@rarecollections.co.za) with any questions.
To readers of John Updike, Judith Jones is well known as the author’s longtime editor at Alfred A. Knopf. But before she worked for Knopf, Jones was known as the one who pulled The Diary of Anne Frank out of the rejection pile at Doubleday. And at Knopf, while she was establishing a relationship with Updike, she was also championing Julia Childs’ Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Jones (played by Fiona Glascott) features prominently as a character on the new HBOMax series Julia, a fictionalized account of how Child got her start at WGBH-TV, Boston’s PBS station. The first three episodes dropped on March 31, 2022. According to the cast list at the Internet Movie Database, Updike doesn’t make an appearance. But in the first three episodes Jones’ other “project” is frequently mentioned: as the author of Rabbit, Run, as a new bright star in the Knopf universe, as a writer having a “crisis” Jones suspects is merely a ploy for a free lunch, and as the originator of a manuscript she’s editing on the WGBH set while she multitasks.
Sarah Lancashire stars in the title role, with Frazier alums David Hyde Pierce and Bebe Neuwirth appearing as Child’s husband and best friend, respectively. Dale Place plays Alfred Knopf. So far the series has an 8.1 rating out of 10 from IMDB.com viewers and critics.
UPDATE: In Episode 4, a bespectacled Updike finally makes an appearance, played by Bryce Pinkham. Pinkham was an original cast member of the Broadway shows A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Ghost: The Musical, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. He also appeared in the PBS series Mercy Street.
Glascott as Judith Jones, with Pierce playing Paul Child
Bryce Pinkham as John Updike on a WGBH interview program in the HBOMax series Julia
