{"id":2478,"date":"2014-09-13T09:19:05","date_gmt":"2014-09-13T14:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=2478"},"modified":"2014-09-13T09:19:05","modified_gmt":"2014-09-13T14:19:05","slug":"more-debate-on-updikes-stature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2014\/09\/13\/more-debate-on-updikes-stature\/","title":{"rendered":"More debate on Updike’s stature"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s funny how one appraisal leads to another, or a conversation . . . or a debate.<\/p>\n

William Deresiewicz’s essay-review<\/a> of Updike<\/em> for The New Republic<\/em>\u00a0has already inspired a favorable response<\/a> from National Review<\/em>,\u00a0that\u00a0other side of the aisle publication. That’s encouraging, because these days Updike appears to be one of the few\u00a0subjects that a liberal or conservative can agree upon.<\/p>\n

Now Peter J. Leithart (First Things<\/em>) weighs in with “Painter of Surfaces,”<\/strong> posted online on September 10, 2014, which oddly enough has nothing much to do with Updike’s painterly style.<\/p>\n

“No one has to defend Updike’s skill as a writer,” Leithart writes, “and he was surely a success, as Deresiewicz’s rapid-fire summary indicates. . . . Updike’s reputation suffers more because he was, in Deresiewicz’s words, ‘an unembarrassed, unreconstructed middle-American. . . . Updike’s life and work are testaments to the idea that mid-American values, beliefs, and sensibilities are adequate to address and interpret modern experience.’ That cannot be forgiven.<\/p>\n

“Nor can Updike’s theological conviction. . . . But he, like the non-judgmental God of his novels, stays on the surface. Updike will be remembered as a chronicler of his times, but Deresiewicz doesn’t convince me that his novels have the depth to be of enduring importance.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s funny how one appraisal leads to another, or a conversation . . . or a debate. William Deresiewicz’s essay-review of Updike for The New Republic\u00a0has already inspired a favorable response from National Review,\u00a0that\u00a0other side of the aisle publication. That’s … Continue reading →<\/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":[6,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person-singular","category-scholarship-analysis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478","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=2478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2480,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478\/revisions\/2480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}