{"id":4422,"date":"2018-05-01T07:28:14","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T12:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=4422"},"modified":"2018-05-01T07:28:14","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T12:28:14","slug":"updike-the-benchmark-for-magical-prose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2018\/05\/01\/updike-the-benchmark-for-magical-prose\/","title":{"rendered":"Updike the benchmark for magical prose?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A story from The Guardian<\/em>, “Book clinic: which current authors produce the most magical prose,”<\/a> uses Updike as the lead-in and apparent benchmark for prose that sparkles. As the subtitle suggests, “The supernatural, witchcraft or sex can be spellbinding, while others conjure gold from the everyday human struggle.”<\/p>\n

Writer Amanda Craig<\/strong> begins with a question from a Beijing reader: “John Updike described himself as the sorcerer’s apprentice. Who today delivers the most magic in their prose?”<\/p>\n

She responds, “Magic may be evoked in many ways and Updike did it both in the sense of mixing the mundane with the supernatural (The Witches of Eastwick<\/em>) and in conjuring contemporary fiction whose realism is threaded through with hypnotic lyricism (the Rabbit novels, Couples<\/em>,\u00a0etc).”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>She recommends Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials<\/em>, AS Byatt’s Possession<\/em> and short stories, and then, comparatively, two others:<\/p>\n

“If it is Updike\u2019s realist magic you are after, then Meg Wolitzer<\/a> is, like him, a lyrical chronicler of love and marriage \u2013 but unlike Updike, brilliant at female characters as well as male ones. Her descriptions in The Interestings<\/em><\/a> and The Female Persuasion<\/em><\/a> of loneliness, love, growing maturity and reading itself evoke quotidian joys and sorrows with humour, generosity and hope.<\/p>\n

“Diana Evans is another superb domestic realist. Her new novel, Ordinary People<\/em><\/a>, contains some of the best descriptions of happy and unhappy sex I\u2019ve read since Ian McEwan\u2019s Atonement<\/em>. She writes about black south Londoners struggling with young families, ambition, adultery and disappointment with the wry insights Updike gave to his white east coasters.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A story from The Guardian, “Book clinic: which current authors produce the most magical prose,” uses Updike as the lead-in and apparent benchmark for prose that sparkles. As the subtitle suggests, “The supernatural, witchcraft or sex can be spellbinding, while … Continue reading →<\/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":[32,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lists","category-updike-in-context"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422","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=4422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4424,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422\/revisions\/4424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}