OnJan. 3, 2026, Patrick Kurp posted comments on his favorite Updike story on Anecdotal Evidence: A blog about the intersection of books and life: “The Happiest I’ve Been.”<\/p>\n
“Of all Updike\u2019s stories, this is my favorite, the most emotionally powerful, mingling memory, comedy, sadness and his peerless eye for American detail. It\u2019s the best rendering I know of the retrospective character of happiness, our dawning awareness of it after it passes. For most of us, happiness is a momentary state, not perpetual.”<\/p>\n
Kurp added, “Of \u201cThe Happiest I\u2019ve Been,\u201d Nabokov writes:<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018The important thing, rather than the subject, was the conversation itself, the quick agreements, the slow nods, the weave of different memories; it was like one of these Panama baskets shaped underwater around a worthless stone.\u2019 I like so many of Updike\u2019s stories that it was difficult to choose one for demonstration and even more difficult to settle upon its most inspired bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
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