Subject: John Updike
From: Jon Tveite (jontv@ksu.edu)
Date: Sat May 31 1997 - 16:34:04 GMT
"Emily Moore" <evmoore@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I've only read the short story "The A and P" by Updike so can't pass an
> opinion, but liked it very much. Where should I start reading with him?
Updike is certainly an important writer, though his point of view is
pretty narrowly limited to that of the middle-class white male in post-WW2
America. Updike was, like Salinger, one of the writers who made me want
to write, so I read a lot more of his stuff than you would need to
understand what he's up to.
I would recommend any of his short story collections from the 60s or 70s
-- like PIGEON FEATHERS, for instance, or MUSEUMS AND WOMEN, which annoys
me now with its casual sexism, but has some of his most interesting stuff
despite that. As for the novels, my favorites are the Rabbit series and
BECH: A BOOK (but stay the hell away from the second Bech book, BECH IS
BACK, which I thought was pretty awful).
I don't think anyone could deny the importance of either Faulkner or
Vonnegut, either, although some write off Vonnegut as being too goofy or
too interested in science fiction. But I don't think he could get so
close to his chosen topics without using humor as a protective shield.
And even though he uses alien spacecrafts and time warps as major plot
devices, his stories aren't *about* those things: they're about people.
What I love about Vonnegut is the feeling that *anything* can happen.
He's in complete control, regardless of how crazy the narrative seems.
Jon (Tveite) <jontv@ksu.edu>
____________________________________________________
"Any peasant with a dumb cow can make whipped cream,
but it takes a chemical factory to make Cool Whip."
-- William Irwin Thompson
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