{"id":6824,"date":"2026-01-17T11:33:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=6824"},"modified":"2026-01-17T11:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:33:13","slug":"is-reading-updike-even-golf-dreams-an-act-of-rebellion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2026\/01\/17\/is-reading-updike-even-golf-dreams-an-act-of-rebellion\/","title":{"rendered":"Is reading Updike, even &#8216;Golf Dreams,&#8217; an &#8216;act of rebellion&#8217;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From <em>The Falling Knife<\/em> by Harvey Sawikin (Substack):<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2023\/04\/30\/fairway-philosophy-blogger-focuses-on-updike-the-golfer\/updikegolfswing\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6051\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-6051\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2023\/04\/Updikegolfswing-300x232.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"232\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2023\/04\/Updikegolfswing-300x232.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2023\/04\/Updikegolfswing.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>&#8220;The critic <span data-state=\"closed\"><a class=\"mention-pnpTE1\" href=\"https:\/\/open.substack.com\/users\/4937458-ted-gioia?utm_source=mentions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Ted Gioia&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:4937458,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;user&quot;,&quot;url&quot;:null,&quot;photo_url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F67f10f9b-75d1-4b43-ba5e-96eb435dd4f5_400x400.jpeg&quot;,&quot;uuid&quot;:&quot;0b4bc818-87b3-4c1a-8bce-4db74f6bd7c7&quot;}\" data-component-name=\"MentionUser\">Ted Gioia<\/a><\/span>\u00a0recently posted a Substack called\u00a0<em>Is Mid-20th Century American Culture Getting Erased?\u00a0<\/em>He noted that among those being forgotten are literary giants like John Cheever and Saul Bellow; musicians like Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker; and movies like\u00a0<em>Citizen Kane<\/em>. John Updike not long ago was one of America\u2019s most prominent living writers, yet reading him today would be, in Gioia\u2019s words, &#8216;an act of rebellion.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Call me a wild-eyed revolutionary, because I\u2019ve just finished a book of Updike\u2019s essays, <em>Golf Dreams.<\/em>\u00a0I\u2019ve been reading his novels since I was a teenager, starting with\u00a0<em>The Centaur,\u00a0<\/em>moving on to\u00a0<em>Rabbit, Run\u00a0<\/em>(which I was too young to understand), and over the decades getting to most of the others (<em>Rabbit Is Rich\u00a0<\/em>is my favorite). Updike could write anything \u2014 novels, stories, poetry, essays \u2014 and bring to it his gift for the exquisite image and the revealing metaphor, as well as his insight into human psychology.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/harveysawikin.substack.com\/p\/golf-illuminated-by-a-20th-century\">Read the entire article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From The Falling Knife by Harvey Sawikin (Substack): &#8220;The critic Ted Gioia\u00a0recently posted a Substack called\u00a0Is Mid-20th Century American Culture Getting Erased?\u00a0He noted that among those being forgotten are literary giants like John Cheever and Saul Bellow; musicians like Duke &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2026\/01\/17\/is-reading-updike-even-golf-dreams-an-act-of-rebellion\/\">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":[6,53,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person-singular","category-updike-in-context","category-updike-in-pop-culture"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6824","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=6824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6826,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6824\/revisions\/6826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}