the upbraiding of Updike
Scottie Bowman (bowman@mail.indigo.ie)
Sun, 15 Feb 1998 18:12:11 +0000
Updike has been castigated for dismissing Franny as a co-ed
with a pregnancy problem. But maybe it's his dismissiveness
that irritates people more than his explanation of her anguish.
We all *know* it's much more portentous than a missed period.
It's all about the Jesus Prayer & Goodness Immanent & Transcendent
& how certain frightfully sensitive young people are aware of all
this whilst others, the Lane Coutells of this world wrapped in their
wool lined Burberrys & their bourgeois concerns, will never
recognise it - no, not in a million years.
That was certainly how I first read it. It gave such a warm feeling
of superiority. I knew how just Franny felt. And I was sure I'd
have approached her situation in just the way good old Zooey did.
God, there were very few of us left. The salt of the earth.
But maybe Franny is no more than an updated version of the Victorian
heroine who's *expected* to flop about the place with attacks of the
vapours. Adolescent girls have been going in for this sort of thing
since time immemorial. Young women of the obsessional persuasion
seem to have an especial predilection for starvation linked to the
idea of Higher Things. I'm surprised in a way no one has suggested
Fran might be an anorexic somewhat before it became the
fashion. (Although, of course, I'm not at all suprised.)
Scottie B.