Remembering John Updike, a master of American literature
Nathan Humphreys
ohn Updike, prolific novelist, essayist, and short story writer, passed away on Jan. 27.As a boy Updike’s goal was to draw cartoons for the New Yorker, the magazine his mother always got her work rejected from, though he went on to publish more than 680 poems, articles, short stories and the occasional cartoon for the New Yorker.
Updike’s genius lay in his intimate narration of the everyday lives of everyday people and his acute portrayal of the ups and downs of relationships, as most prominently displayed in his “Rabbit” series, which started with “Rabbit, Run.”
His characters were relate-able because he showed everything to the reader and wrote about the thoughts, feelings and emotions that we rarely admit to having ourselves.
Even when he delved into fantasy with “The Centaur” and “The Witches of Eastwick,” science-fiction with “Toward the End of Time,” and suspense with “Terrorist,” the most memorable things were not the fantastic plots or settings, but the characters themselves.
Though Updike published more than 25 novels and hundreds upon hundreds of short stories and poems, he never recycled himself – though he often tackled the same themes, such as religion, family, adultery and sex, each of his works is singular in its voice and creation.
His fictional work was not his only contribution to American literature.
Were it not for his novels and short stories, it has been said that Updike would probably be remembered as the greatest critic of our time.
His essays on books and art sought not just to judge the piece itself, but to uncover and convey to the reader the artist’s intent and purpose.
Updike viewed the role of the critic as someone who helped the reader to understand the work by explaining the piece and the author plainly, rather than to pledge allegiance to any one genre or school of literature, and always thought it was , as he put it, “Better to praise and share than blame and ban.”
What better way to remember a man who contributed so much to modern American literature than to share some time with his carefully crafted works, and perhaps his works with one another.
