{"id":6741,"date":"2025-09-05T19:02:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T00:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=6741"},"modified":"2025-09-05T19:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T00:02:07","slug":"writer-david-klion-recommends-updikes-bech-chronicles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2025\/09\/05\/writer-david-klion-recommends-updikes-bech-chronicles\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer David Klion recommends Updike’s Bech chronicles"},"content":{"rendered":"

“‘[Henry Bech’s] marriage was like the Zionist state they were in: a mistake long deferred, a miscarriage of pass\u00e9 fervor and antiquated tribal righteousness, an attempt to be safe on an earth where there was no safety,’ Updike writes, sizing up Israel better than Bellow ever did through the eyes of a Jew who is accustomed to living in a permanent state of alienation. Reviewing the first Bech volume in\u00a0Commentary\u00a0<\/em>in 1970, Cynthia Ozick accused Updike of dreaming up a false and essentially parodic Jew\u2014but this Jew, for one, found Bech welcome and familiar company.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So wrote David Klion, who is working on a book about the legacy of neoconservatism and is a columnist for The Nation<\/em>, a\u00a0contributing editor at\u00a0Jewish Currents<\/em>, and a “writer for many lefty mags.” His review\/reading recommendation on The Complete Henry Bech\u00a0<\/em>appeared in the Sept. 5, 2025 issue of\u00a0Jewish Currents\u00a0<\/em>under the heading, “Shabbat Reading List.” For those planning on attending the Roth-Updike Conference in New York City October 19-22\u2014a joint conference of the Philip Roth and John Updike Societies\u2014the timing couldn’t be more perfect.<\/p>\n

“If the Bech stories were merely affectionate sendups of Roth or experiments in whether a goy can channel a Jew persuasively in fiction,” Klion wrote, “they might just be amusing\u2014and for my purposes, dayeinu. But I became fully invested in Bech as a cranky, horny, self-absorbed, self-effacing, skeptical, and occasionally wise antihero, rendered through Updike’s always lyrical prose. Taken together, the stories constitute an extended comic meditation on bookish fame (or semi-fame), inspiration (or lack thereof), and frustration, complete with a fake bibliography and fake reviews from the likes of Alfred Kazin and Ellen Willis.”<\/p>\n

Read the whole review.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“‘[Henry Bech’s] marriage was like the Zionist state they were in: a mistake long deferred, a miscarriage of pass\u00e9 fervor and antiquated tribal righteousness, an attempt to be safe on an earth where there was no safety,’ Updike writes, sizing … 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":[6,32,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person-singular","category-lists","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6741","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=6741"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6744,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6741\/revisions\/6744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}