{"id":3745,"date":"2017-03-18T20:31:53","date_gmt":"2017-03-19T01:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=3745"},"modified":"2017-03-18T20:34:02","modified_gmt":"2017-03-19T01:34:02","slug":"rabbit-at-rest-updike-remembered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2017\/03\/18\/rabbit-at-rest-updike-remembered\/","title":{"rendered":"Rabbit at Rest, Updike remembered"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2016\/06\/Updike.Grandpa.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3413\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2016\/06\/Updike.Grandpa.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"183\" \/><\/a>Today John Updike (1932-2009) would have celebrated his 85th birthday, and\u00a0notable among\u00a0the remembrances published in commemoration\u00a0is one by Steve King, written, fittingly, for a books site: \u00a0Barnes &amp; Noble.<\/p>\n<p>In<a href=\"http:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/review\/something-intricate-and-fierce\"> &#8220;Something Intricate and Fierce,&#8221;<\/a> King begins with a quote from Updike and follows with this quote from reviewer Jonathan Raban: \u00a0&#8220;<em>Rabbit at Rest<\/em> is one of the very few modern novels in English . . . that one can set beside the work of Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Joyce and not feel the draft.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Birthday tributes are a testament to Updike&#8217;s cultural importance, but King&#8217;s\u00a0post illustrates something that would make Updike smile if he were still around to blow out the candles: \u00a0that he has <em>political relevance<\/em>, something that in his lifetime, ironically, critics never appreciated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Whatever Updike&#8217;s own politics\u2014biographer Begley notes that Updike on his deathbed rejoiced at President Obama&#8217;s inauguration\u2014some commentators say that Updike lives on as spokesman for embattled Middle Americans, whose current angst and anger he saw coming.&#8221; And King\u00a0concludes with a quote from Charles McElwee, written for <em>The American Conservative\u00a0<\/em>magazine:\u00a0\u00a0&#8220;&#8216;Revisiting Updike&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Rabbit\u00a0<\/em>novels is a rendezvous with prescience, for no collection of postwar fiction could help us better understand how working-class populism\u2014in the form of Donald Trump\u2014prevailed on Election Day 2016.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Updike\u2014and irony\u2014are still very much alive.<\/p>\n<p>Happy 85th, Mr. Updike!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today John Updike (1932-2009) would have celebrated his 85th birthday, and\u00a0notable among\u00a0the remembrances published in commemoration\u00a0is one by Steve King, written, fittingly, for a books site: \u00a0Barnes &amp; Noble. In &#8220;Something Intricate and Fierce,&#8221; King begins with a quote from &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2017\/03\/18\/rabbit-at-rest-updike-remembered\/\">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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person-singular"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745","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=3745"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3747,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745\/revisions\/3747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}