Last Thursday was a good day: I was out of bed by 7:00, ate some breakfast tacos, and met John Updike. Once the evening was opened to audience questions, Updike commented on the legacy of American fiction over the past fifty years: big, introspective novels wrestling with emotion, identity, and relationships. He discussed contemporaries and offered Saul Bellow and Philip Roth as the pillars of post-WWII American literature. Asked what it was in Ted Williams that he so strongly admired, Updike stated that it was Williams’ approach to baseball—a focused and singular purpose towards excellence—that caught his eye. For this reader (and thousands of others), excellence and John Updike deservedly go hand in hand.
Reading fiction provides an opportunity to stretch our human dignity beyond our skin, to recognize (and empathize with) others’ struggles, to see that while each life is uniquely individual we still collectively feel, think, and live. John Updike’s writings harvest this simultaneously inward and outward experience.
I had but a brief moment to chat with Updike. I thanked him for coming to
FICTION
ESSAYS
Posts
3 comments:
I started reading the "Rabbit" books in high school and thought I was pretty sophisticated for it.
Interesting post. I have always foregone the tomes of Updike, judging their weight to be just that, "heavy." If his writings "harvest experience," perhaps I should give him a go. What kind of breakfast tacos?
Updike is worth reading. He blends humor and heartache better than almost all. As for the breakfast tacos, they were most likely bacon and egg, which seems to have become my winter breakfast staple.
Post a Comment