{"id":2433,"date":"2014-08-31T11:39:54","date_gmt":"2014-08-31T16:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=2433"},"modified":"2014-08-31T11:39:54","modified_gmt":"2014-08-31T16:39:54","slug":"mcewan-says-he-and-updike-talked-about-mortality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2014\/08\/31\/mcewan-says-he-and-updike-talked-about-mortality\/","title":{"rendered":"McEwan says he and Updike talked about mortality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Novelist <strong>Ian McEwan<\/strong> was recently interviewed for the Books\/Culture section of The Observer in a piece published on Saturday, August 30, 2014: \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2014\/aug\/31\/ian-mcewan-children-act-interview-only-66-notebook-still-full-of-ideas-robert-mccrum\">&#8220;Ian McEwan: &#8216;I&#8217;m only 66\u2014my notebook is still full of ideas.'&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Although interviewer Robert McCrum mostly asks about McEwan&#8217;s latest book, The Children Act, he also describes a moment in the interview in which McEwan evoked John Updike:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Out of the blue he remembers interviewing the late John Updike in his final years. &#8216;We talked about all this,&#8217; he recalls. &#8216;He told me: The older you get the less frightening death becomes.&#8217; He frowns in puzzlement. &#8216;I&#8217;m not sure whether to believe him.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So does he believe him?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;&#8216;No.&#8217; A beat. &#8216;Do you believe those obituaries that say, &#8216;Died peacefully in his sleep?&#8217; (McEwan was at Christopher Hitchens&#8217;s bedside shortly before he died.) &#8216;Still, wouldn&#8217;t be a bad way to go.'&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Novelist Ian McEwan was recently interviewed for the Books\/Culture section of The Observer in a piece published on Saturday, August 30, 2014: \u00a0&#8220;Ian McEwan: &#8216;I&#8217;m only 66\u2014my notebook is still full of ideas.&#8217;&#8221; Although interviewer Robert McCrum mostly asks about &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2014\/08\/31\/mcewan-says-he-and-updike-talked-about-mortality\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person-singular","category-interviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2434,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433\/revisions\/2434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}