Member John McTavish is eliciting responses from John Updike readers regarding such questions as how they discovered JU, their favorite JU book (and why), which book (and why) they would recommend to new readers, and a memorable line (or lines, or paragraph) from JU.<\/p>\n
“I hope to collate the results of the survey and publish them,” McTavish says, “but publish or not, I will email a copy of the accumulated results to all the participants.”<\/p>\n
McTavish says he’s already received some “sparkling replies” from a number of people, including Don Greiner, Jack De Bellis, and Biljana Dojcinovic. Send your responses to him at: jmctav@vianet.ca<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Below is a sample response, from Bruce McLeod, a minister and former Moderator of the United Church of Canada:<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In\u00a0\u00a0the shrinkage of bookshelves\u00a0\u00a0occasioned by our move to a condo\u00a0years ago, I lost some old friends, but hung on to some special ones\u00a0like Pigeon Feathers<\/em> and Roger’s Version<\/em>. Picking up the latter today,\u00a0I notice many margin marks and underlinings, especially in the early\u00a0part of the book (for some reason they seemed less frequent further on).<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I think I was attracted by the interrupting student way back in 1986: only later did I begin to appreciate\u00a0the deeper insights of Pascal and others, that the world provides\u00a0“enough light for those who desire to see and enough darkness for\u00a0those of a contrary disposition.” And, of course Updike’s passing comments\u2014like “The pious often, I have noticed, have a definiteness\u00a0that in others they would judge rude”\u2014were always worth a margin stroke.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Along the way, I loved his playing with words and images like Glenn\u00a0Gould plays with notes and keys. I loved his “noticing,” or “paying\u00a0attention” where we look away quickly. I long ago marked a favorite\u00a0paragraph in Rogers’s Version\u2014<\/em>his memorable description of the\u00a0pipe-smoker (having once been one myself!):<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0“The pleasures of a pipe. The tapping, the poking, the twisting, the\u00a0cleaning, the stuffing, the lighting; those first cheek-hollowing\u00a0puffs, and the dramatic way the match flame is sucked deep into the\u00a0tobacco, leaps high in release, and is sucked deep again.\u00a0\u00a0And then\u00a0the mouth-filling perfume, the commanding clouds of smoke.\u00a0\u00a0Oddly I\u00a0find the facial expressions and mannerisms of other men who smoke\u00a0pipes stagy, prissy, preening, and offensive. But ever since I, as an\u00a0unheeded admonition to Esther some years ago gave up cigarettes, the\u00a0pipe has been my comfort, my steeplejack’s grab, my handhold on the\u00a0precipitous cliff of life.”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Who else would notice that,\u00a0\u00a0describe it so exactly, or deepen it to a\u00a0comment on despair!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The short stories, I think, caught my attention first. You mention a\u00a0young woman being skewered by reading Couples<\/em>. I too have bumped into\u00a0Updike scenes when, as you say, “the truth hurts.” Like when the man\u00a0about to separate from his wife, goes in to explain to his children\u00a0but, in their presence, can’t remember the reasons!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The poems always grab, and sometimes stick like burrs. They’re not\u00a0sweet; always (or often) a dark edge.\u00a0I love “Baseball”\u2014”..invented in America, where beneath\/ the good\u00a0cheer and sly jazz the chance\/ of failure is everybody’s right,\/\u00a0beginning with baseball.” Also “The Rockettes” for sheer precision of\u00a0word choice.\u00a0And, of course, “Religious Consolation”….Strange, the extravagance\u00a0of it\u2014who needs\/ those eighteen-armed black Kalis, those musty saints\/\u00a0whose bones and bleeding wounds appall good taste,\/ those\u00a0joss sticks, houris, gilded Buddhas, books\/ Moroni etched in tedious\u00a0detail?\/ We do; we need more worlds. This one will fail.”<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Member John McTavish is eliciting responses from John Updike readers regarding such questions as how they discovered JU, their favorite JU book (and why), which book (and why) they would recommend to new readers, and a memorable line (or lines, … Continue reading