Writing to the Aspen Times about the “doldrums of mid-January,” Andy Stone of Missouri Heights shared an Updike poem that he thought appropriate for seasonal contemplation:
Slum Lords The superrich make lousy neighbors— they buy a house and tear it down and build another, twice as big, and leave. They’re never there; they own so many other houses, each demands a visit. Entire neighborhoods called fashionable, bustling with servants and masters, such as Louisburg Square in Boston or Bel Air in L.A., are districts now like Wall Street after dark or Tombstone once the silver boom went bust. The essence of superrich is absence. They like to demonstrate they can afford to be elsewhere. Don’t let them in. Their riches form a kind of poverty.
Library of America has just published the fifth and final volume in the John Updike: Novels series: John Updike Novels 1996-2000, containing In the Beauty of the Lilies, Gertrude and Claudius, and Rabbit Remembered. Not available in bookstores until March 13, the volume is now on sale through the LOA webstore for $32 plus free shipping—29 percent off the $45 retail price.
In addition, the complete LOA five-volume set, John Updike: Fifteen Novels (five individual volumes, not a boxed set) is on sale now at the webstore for $145 plus free shipping—34 percent off the $225 retail price.
Series editor Christopher Carduff said “there are indeed more LOA Updike volumes to come. None are as yet scheduled, but stay tuned.”
This sounds like a fun course: Witchcraft in Literature 101. You can take it, too, online, and for free from Arcadia, thanks to researcher-author Anna Artyushenko.
“Witchcraft takes on many forms and perspectives in various works of literature, Artyushenko wrote. “It finds its origins in folklore and myths, it carries the traits of gothic and horror, but it is also used in satire and comedy, and undoubtedly plays a major role in fantasy.”
Updike’s 1984 novel is the subject of the third post, “Social Commentary in The Witches of Eastwick“:
“All three witches possess some powers at the outset of the novel, but their abilities develop and turn darker with the arrival of Darryl Van Horne. It is never stated directly in the novel that the stranger who has arrived in Eastwick is the Devil. However, his nature is obvious, according to many remarks in the novel. Updike purposefully plays around the “stranger danger” trope, inviting the Devil to the small conservative town of New England. He ridicules the reception of the occult in the traditional Puritan society, though “God’s absence, presumably, opens the way for evil” in the novel (Verduin, 1985, p. 306). Van Horne is purposefully drawn to the witches and corrupts their powers. The women cannot escape the stereotypical pattern, as “in order to satisfy their extraordinary sexual appetite, the witches turn to a devil figure, Darryl Van Horne” (Loudermilk, 2013, p. 101).”
Wiccan magic circle
“Updike makes a reference to the Wiccan perception of magic, connecting it with nature, though his vision of witchcraft is “closely tied to both, carnality and mortality” (Antwood, 1984, para. 10). Updike sees nature not from a spiritual or ecological, but from a rational perspective: incapable of empathy towards humankind, and as inseparable from death and decay as it is from life and growth. In the novel Alexandra thinks that one of the major nature’s rules is “that there must always be a sacrifice” (Updike, 1996, p. 18). Jenny becomes this victim, sacrificed to the Devil. Updike makes a point that the male’s power is still greater, as later on the witches learn that they did not cast the curse out of their own free will and were controlled by Van Horne. The Devil in the novel acts as a trickster who manipulates the witches while they abandon their family duties in order to follow the path of the occult and magic, which leaves them with nothing but regret in the end.”
Surely there were more than 21 celebrities who had psoriasis, but a writer for news aggregate site Yahoo!’s “women’s health” section settled on that number . . . among them, John Updike (#20).
“The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and poet penned a 1985 essay for The New Yorker aptly titled ‘At War With My Skin,‘ where he addressed his struggles with the autoimmune disease. In his essay, Updike wrote, ‘Why did I marry so young? Because, having once found a comely female who forgave me my skin, I dared not risk losing her and trying to find another.'”
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, Timereviewed 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.”
American Purpose has a holiday tradition where editorial board members, contributing editors, and staff share their favorite reads from the past year. They call it “Turning the Page.”
Board member Adam Garfinkle, who is also founding editor of The American Interest and serves on the board of advisors at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, chose John Updike’s In the Beauty of the Lilies as his favorite read of 2022.
“John Updike’s 1996 bestseller In the Beauty of the Lilies has become part of the pantheon of fictive meditations on the thick sinews of Protestant Christianity that run deep and wide within the American body social and politic,” wrote Garfinkle, a former speech writer for secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice.
“It tells a multigenerational family tale starting in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1905 and ending four generations and eighty years later in a Waco-like conflagration near Bighorn, Colorado. When I read the book a quarter century ago I marveled at Updike’s storytelling skills despite being unable to bond emotionally with any of the characters—rather like how I have since felt about Marilynne Robinson’s multigenerational Christological stories spread out in multiple books.
“This year’s deliberately slower second reading collided with my more mature ruminations on the wider topic of Protestantism’s shaping of a nation rushing through time, and itself being reshaped in the process. The collision revealed more of Updike’s prophetic shrewdness amid his formidable literary skills than I discerned the first time around. Now that we live truly in an age of spectacle, something still inchoate in 1996, the dancing demons and angels of the Protestant bequest to America appear far more vivid to me. The book didn’t change as time passed, but the reader did.”
Updike came here for a handful of summers to practice his golf game before the New England weather turned hospitable. He wrote about a cherished hat he lost here in “A Desert Encounter.” And John Updike Society members will travel to Tucson, Arizona for the 7th Biennial John Updike Society Conference in September 20-24, 2023. Here is the Updike in Tucson Registration Packet:
Here’s an interesting list: All Sports Book Reviewsasked more than 150 sportswriters to name the books they really love–not what books they think are the best. Just their all-time favorites.
With a sample size that large, of course the list is long—some 300 titles—categorized according to sport. Updike’s celebrated Hub Fan Bids Kid Adieu didn’t make the list, but his essays on golf did. Golf Dreams was one of seven favorites that sportswriters cited for links reading.
Other literary writers who turned up on this list include George Plimpton (Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last String Quarterback; Shadow Box: An Amateur in the Ring; The Curious Case of Sidd Finch), Pat Conroy (My Losing Season), Norman Mailer (The Fight), Joyce Carol Oates (On Boxing), and, of course, Richard Ford (The Sportswriter).
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.
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.
