/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1684082]

John Updike. Thoughts?

I'm almost done with The Centaur and it's sort of awesome. I'd been raised to think that his overwritten, narcissistic, misogynistic, WASP-y universe would be totally passe and boring, but I dunno, after hating it at first, I really am seeing why Updike was such a Big Deal.

Are the Rabbit books worthwhile?

[mcgregor No.1684086]

There's an anon who's an Updike apologist, and he'll tell you that the Rabbit books are good. I say they're not and you should read Richard Yates instead. Or Cheever's short stories (not his novels). Or Richard Ford.

[Anonymous No.1684090]

>Freshman in college
>Reads A&P
>NIGGA DIS SHIT SO LAME

[Anonymous No.1684098]

>>1684086

I've given Cheever a whirl before - I didn't like him - but, I was young back then, so who knows what I'd think of him now. Cheever is certainly yet another white male narcissist, so he's within the theme. :) But seriously, I'll give Cheever a whirl, thanks. I have his short stories on my eReader.

Funny about Richard Yates: at first I thought you were referencing the Tao Lin novel, but then I regained sanity.

I could definitely see Updike's style getting old. The Centaur is impressing me with its prose and focus, and also in how it depicts the Chiron character as being flawed and admirable. I feel like Rabbit, Run would just make me go, "yep, you sure are being a dick, running off like that. Yup, there you go, being a dick, running away from everything. Well, that was fun." It'll probably have A+++ prose, but sigh-inducing content.

Then again, that's what I thought of The Centaur for the first 40 pages or so, but then I got into it.

[Anonymous No.1684100]

>>1684086
bro fist, man, bro fist

[Anonymous No.1684101]

>>1684090

OP here, I read A&P in high school, I had no patience for it. The Centaur is better.

[Anonymous No.1684108]

Best Updike

[Anonymous No.1684122]

>>1684086

oh hi there

op rabbit run is damn good but the tetralogy unforunately follows the law of diminishing returns; redux is preoccupied with the concerns of the 60s and skeeter and the girl can kind of seem like hippie strawmen for updike to knock around at points, rabbit is rich is harry angstrom being bourgeois as hell and buttsexing his friend's wife, and then rabbit at rest is by far the weakest of them all

definitely read rabbit run at least if you like the centaur, but my money for best updike is on his early short story collections, pigeon feathers and the same door. of the farm is like the most self-consciously oedipal thing ever but it's also a good read

mcgregor i found a richard ford book at the used bookstore saturday but it was like the last of a series of his so i'ma keep looking

[Anonymous No.1684130]

>>1684086
>>1684098
My mom made the most unforgettable "oh, gross" face when I came home from the used bookstore with pic related in college, it was an expression I think I've only otherwise seen made by Tim and Eric characters. I think women of a certain age hate the mid-century white dude narcissists more than any bored undergrad could ever hope to

[Anonymous No.1684146]

updike writes the best, most realistic sex in the rabbit novels.

[Anonymous No.1684157]

>>1684122

Thanks bro, I'll go for the short stories next. I'll go for Rabbit Run in a bit - I'm cycling through different novelists at the moment, so I'll be happy to hand over my next novel to another author.

[Anonymous No.1684175]

>>1684146

the toe licking in rabbit redux is hot

[mcgregor No.1684650]

>>1684122

Yeah definitely start with The Sportswriter. The third one is the weakest of the three - it's still good, but it's weak compared to the first two

[3rd No.1684659]

I started reading him after he died, I saw the media blitz and was like "wait he's important? I thought he wrote genre stuff." Like many writers Updike has a peak. Unfortunately I've only read work where he's either in it or past it; and those works do not put me in the best place to speak with authority on him. The Centaur is going to be one of the next things I read by him.

I enjoy him when he's good (Couples), forgive him when he's smug and zany (The Witches of Eastwick), and disown him when he's blindly flailing around being a jack-a-ninny (Toward the End of Time, Terrorist). I find he does his best when he stays in the constraints of a relative reality, and the more excitable and speculative he gets tends to make his writing, well, bad.

>>1684108
>Of plants tomatoes seemed the most human, eager and fragile and prone to rot. Picking the watery orange-red orbs, Alexandra felt she was cupping a giant lover's testicles in her hand.

>>1684130
I've read about half of his short stories. I'm not done with Cheever until I try either The Wapshot Chronicle or The Falconer (leaning towards Falconer); but I get the impression he's kind of a flare in the pan and not really as entertaining or productive a read in the 21st century. One of those writers who instantly dates, doesn't transcend their era. Reminds me of Jacqueline Susann or Leon Uris or Kurt Vonnegut.

If there's a possibility that anyone has read Updike's In the Beauty of the Lilies I'd like to hear opinion. I'm drawn to the sheer melodrama of the premise; the way I was drawn to Russo's Empire Falls. On that note; if anyone likes WASPs you might be interested in Russo. He's definitely writing from white upper-middle class. I'm not sure if he's more Updike or Cheever, but he pushes the comedy angle a lot harder than both.

I've heard Ann Beattie compared to Updike and Cheever FWIW. Franzen has given her props before; I've yet to look into her work.

[mcgregor No.1684667]

>>1684659
Cheever's short stories are where it's at. The Wapshot books are pretty much short stories linked together by a shared cast.

Ann Beattie is fucking awesome. Definitely a master of economy

[Anonymous No.1684676]

I do not like the Rabbit books, but I do like some of his novels. I thought The Coup was excellent.

[3rd No.1684677]

>>1684667
As long as you're here mcgregor I picked this up used a few weeks ago, a friend being a Sportswriter advocate and mentioning him. If you've read it do you have thoughts on it?

[Anonymous No.1684684]

What's a WASP?

[Anonymous No.1684687]

>>1684684
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

[Anonymous No.1684909]

>>1684659

lol terrorist was so bad

i find late period updike interesting mainly for how the concerns of his work get narrowed down to a handful of themes that recurred throughout his career -- adultery, mixed feelings following adultery, contention over family farms, difficult parent-child relationships -- in a way that i think could be read as a refinement, or updike painting himself into a corner (probably the latter though). like, in licks of love there are like three stories that are all basically rewrites of of the farm. relative quality of the prose aside, shit's fascinating i think

[mcgregor No.1685111]

>>1684677
Women with Men was good. It wasn't great. If I remember correctly, the story set in Paris is the best one. Ford is hit or miss with shorter works. Some of his stories are fucking killer and some are snore-worthy

[Anonymous No.1685123]

>>1684082
Wildly over-rated. To think that this one-note bore and enabler of American decline enjoyed literary celebrity while Jack Vance toiled in obscurity makes my blood boil.

[Anonymous No.1685128]

>>1685123

>enabler of American decline

elaborate pls?

[Anonymous No.1685148]

>>1685128
He wrote a lot of criticism and encouraged boring stuff and helped define literary mainstream; his sort of normal, realistic fiction defined the sort of things they taught in literary programs -- one of which i once attended, which was hell on earth. Roth and Bellow are also part of this, but Bellow I admit is a decent writer. This New York school compared to crime writing of the era, postmodern writing, beat writing, science fiction, etc. were uninteresting and reactionary.

[Sunhawk !nZQ2xl.g.6 No.1685202]

John Updike is mediocre, although not terrible. If you want middle-class awesomeness, read either Richard Yates or Jonathan Franzen. I've only read Rabbit, Run, but thought it was meh.

[Anonymous No.1685218]

>>1685202
Jonathan Franzen is not only not as good as Updike, he thinks far too highly of himself. Avoid.

[Anonymous No.1685221]

>>1685148

ah, see, the majority of beat lit is take it or leave it for me, and i tend to like roth a lot too (except for awful shit like the humbling and the fact that his recent stuff is like $27 for what's basically a novella)

[Sunhawk !nZQ2xl.g.6 No.1685222]

>>1685218

Yeah, but who cares what an author thinks of him or herself? It won't take away from the book, and if it bothers you that much, don't read about the author. I do enjoy prefaces though, especially W Somerset Maugham's. Those are badass.

[Anonymous No.1685248]

>>1685222
It matters when it comes out in the work, which it does with Franzen.

[Anonymous No.1685251]

>>1685248

the first chapter of the corrections about the old people is really really well executed though

[Anonymous No.1685281]

>>1685221
beat lit? you mean kerouac and burroughs? Updike, Bellow and Roth are more Modernist, although I suppose Roth errs on the edge of post-modernism.

As for Updike, I think 'Rabbit, Run' should get a bit more credit. The sort of suburbia a guy like Yates or Franzen portrays, with those trite intellectuals or artistic-types struggling for purpose, etc. is all to easy to write. With Rabbit we have an everyman and an acutely characterized one. It doesn't condemn his actions either, despite Updike's strong Christian faith. Don't forget Updike is one of the prose masters of the twentieth century up there with Conrad, Nabokov, Fitzgerald. Stuff like Couples and the Witches of Eastwick is incredibly trashy stuff, and Terrorist sounds much, much worse but I can certainly speak for the prose of the first.

[Anonymous No.1685327]

roth kind of makes me barf but at least he's funny

[Anonymous No.1685353]

amateur scofflaw. eueueuee ieieoh.

BRAZIL is grand. he is great. short stories are a kick. rabbit, and der pernt ufitall, is his oeuvre is SPAN patrickewingspan.

[3rd No.1686906]

Bump because it's on page 15 and I need to read it to see if I still need to post in it.

[3rd No.1686917]

>>1684909
That's an interesting viewpoint. I'll take that into consideration as I go further into the mans career.

>>1685222
>>1685218
>who cares what an author thinks of himself.

Here's a problem we don't address often enough. We have a double standard where we expect hot shit but get our feathers ruffled when it doesn't come with the proper amount of humility. Do you think Hemmingway kept quiet about his authorial intent and abilities?

>>1685202
I'm as big an advocate of Franzen as you're going to see on here, but to consider him a better chronicler of the middle-class than Updike might be jumping the gun. We have a whole lifetime of Updike to base his oeuvre on. Franzen, in his desire to be taken "seriouser" still, might psyche himself back into the postmodern approach (he did write The Twenty-Seventh City after all). Franzen spent a gravy decade of his career sitting on top of a whole lot of nothing, eking out the kind of drek that even a fan such as myself wouldn't be interested in reading.

I think Franzen's voice is good, and some of the opinions he puts out in his work (overpopulation) are worth being reminded of. There are some peculiarities about the "observed" author in him I find he shares in his midwestern precursor Gass. I don't have enough field material (books, different authors) read to be able to say for sure- I've talked with Behemoth about this before- but I think midwestern upbringing has an effect on how those writer's characters pronounce judgement on each other. At least in relative to writers from other parts of the states.