{"id":5741,"date":"2022-10-01T16:32:45","date_gmt":"2022-10-01T21:32:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=5741"},"modified":"2022-10-01T16:32:47","modified_gmt":"2022-10-01T21:32:47","slug":"vanity-fair-writer-lists-bech-a-book-among-eight-compelling-reads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2022\/10\/01\/vanity-fair-writer-lists-bech-a-book-among-eight-compelling-reads\/","title":{"rendered":"Vanity Fair writer lists Bech: A Book among eight compelling reads"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-01-at-3.30.23-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"194\" height=\"292\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2022\/10\/Screen-Shot-2022-10-01-at-3.30.23-PM.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5742\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Keziah Weir recently published a piece in <em>Vanity Fair<\/em> revealing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/style\/photos\/2022\/09\/8-books-we-couldnt-put-down-this-month\">&#8220;8 Books We Couldn&#8217;t Put Down This Month.&#8221;<\/a> And what better fall reading is there than that Updike fall guy, Henry Bech\u2014Updike&#8217;s Nobel Prizewinning Jewish alter ego, who tends to get in the same kind of awkward situations as Larry David? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The &#8220;we&#8221; includes Pulitzer Prizewinning novelist <strong>Andrew Sean Greer<\/strong>, who tells Weir that he &#8220;felt a certain kinship with other writers who returned to the same character and voice again and again: &#8216;Most obviously for me is John Updike, his Rabbit books and his Bech books. Much more the Bech books, because there, John Updike seems to be just having a really good time, and I think those are more successful, looking back, than the Rabbit books, which just seem too misogynous to read. The Bech books are still a hoot.'&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Greer, who wrote <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/s?k=less+book+andrew+sean+greer&amp;crid=G4L88BVMFYIB&amp;sprefix=less+book%2Caps%2C134&amp;ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_2_9\">Less<\/a><\/em> and the sequel <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Less-Lost-Andrew-Sean-Greer\/dp\/0316498904\/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=G4L88BVMFYIB&amp;keywords=less+book+andrew+sean+greer&amp;qid=1664656217&amp;qu=eyJxc2MiOiIxLjUwIiwicXNhIjoiMS40MCIsInFzcCI6IjEuNzYifQ%3D%3D&amp;sprefix=less+book%2Caps%2C134&amp;sr=8-2-spons&amp;psc=1\">Less is Lost<\/a><\/em>, also talks comparatively about Philip Roth and Updike before adding, &#8220;Finding a voice you want to always write in is just . . . You don&#8217;t want to let go of that for something else.&#8221; Maybe that explains why Updike chose to keep writing Rabbit novels and even a novella after his character&#8217;s death, and why Roth wrote about Nathan Zuckerman in &#8220;half his books.&#8221; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Keziah Weir recently published a piece in Vanity Fair revealing &#8220;8 Books We Couldn&#8217;t Put Down This Month.&#8221; And what better fall reading is there than that Updike fall guy, Henry Bech\u2014Updike&#8217;s Nobel Prizewinning Jewish alter ego, who tends to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2022\/10\/01\/vanity-fair-writer-lists-bech-a-book-among-eight-compelling-reads\/\">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":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5741","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=5741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5743,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5741\/revisions\/5743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}