{"id":3769,"date":"2017-03-30T11:54:19","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T16:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=3769"},"modified":"2017-03-30T11:54:19","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T16:54:19","slug":"prospects-edward-pearce-on-john-updike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2017\/03\/30\/prospects-edward-pearce-on-john-updike\/","title":{"rendered":"Prospect&#8217;s Edward Pearce on John Updike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Prospect: The leading magazine of ideas<\/em>, published an essay in their March 2000 issue (posted online 20 March 2000) by Edward Pearce titled, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prospectmagazine.co.uk\/magazine\/yourenotsovain\">&#8220;You&#8217;re not so vain: In praise of John Updike.&#8221;<\/a> In it, Pearce considers\u00a0Updike-as-reviewer.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Notoriously, the author of the Rabbit tetralogy, the delectable Bech stories and a compendium of superlative writing, is a kind reviewer. He shares the view of Anthony Burgess (also a victim of loftiness from below) that writing a book is a great toil underground and that to be smashed on the head afterwards\u2014even with a cardboard shovel\u2014is a rotten experience. Decent fellow writers should withhold such smashing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Later, Pearce writes, &#8220;Updike as a critic has the gift of interest. His scope is continental . . . . Updike is intelligently nostalgic. He is sufficiently independent of the arts community&#8217;s requirements to be able to field the latest buzz topic\u2014then turn back to a film star of his childhood, or indeed a mediocre novel of 30 years ago, and write about it with affection.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is also,&#8221; Pearce maintains, citing a review of Camille Paglia, &#8220;a delightful cross-over from Updike the moviegoer and 1950s nostalgist&#8221; in Updike the reviewer.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prospectmagazine.co.uk\/magazine\/yourenotsovain\">Read the full essay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prospect: The leading magazine of ideas, published an essay in their March 2000 issue (posted online 20 March 2000) by Edward Pearce titled, &#8220;You&#8217;re not so vain: In praise of John Updike.&#8221; In it, Pearce considers\u00a0Updike-as-reviewer. &#8220;Notoriously, the author of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2017\/03\/30\/prospects-edward-pearce-on-john-updike\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":818,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-scholarship-analysis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3769","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\/818"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3770,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3769\/revisions\/3770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}