Product Description
John Updike’s twentieth novel, like his first, The Poorhouse Fair (1959), takes place in one day, a day that contains much conversation and some rain. The seventy-eight-year-old painter Hope Chafetz, who in the course of her eventful life has been Hope Ouderkirk, Hope McCoy, and Hope Holloway, answers questions put to her by a New York interviewer named Kathryn, and recapitulates, through the story of her own career, the triumphant, poignant saga of postwar American art. In the evolving relation between the two women, the interviewer and interviewee move in and out of the roles of daughter and mother, therapist and patient, predator and prey, supplicant and idol. The scene is central Vermont; the time is the early spring of 2001.


From the Hardcover edition.Amazon.com Review
A meditation on art, aging, and memory, John Updike's Seek My Face is the fictional equivalent of a PBS documentary on postwar American art. Seventy-nine-year-old Hope Chafetz, a painter of merit but, mostimportantly, wife to two major American artists, allows a young journalistnamed Kathryn to interview her for an online magazine. Having expectedperhaps a two-hour talk over coffee, Hope is dismayed to find that her guesthas brought sheaves of questions, a tape recorder, and the kind ofscrupulous attention to detail--even sexual detail--that Hope would ratheravoid. She gives an entire day to Kathryn, who, like memory itself, seemsoblivious to Hope's need to eat, rest, or breathe fresh air.

Seek My Face draws on the story of Lee Miller and Jackson Pollock, the model for Hope's first husband. These are the best parts of a slow, sumptuous, andintricately detailed novel that lacks any significant action except inretrospect. Hope's second husband is depicted as an amalgam of Andy Warhol,Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and Wayne Thiebaud--a useful survey of theperiod, but not compelling characterization. One can sense the authorfolding in important art-historical points and details toward the end, likelast-minute ingredients in a cake that may be too heavy to rise. Readerswho stay with Hope and Kathryn through the day, however, will be rewardedwith a gorgeous, resonant, and almost antimodern ending. --ReginaMarler ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

people, its Jackson Pollock, OK?
Good novel based on Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock.
Please people, that's Pollock, OK? not Pollack.

Long conversation about 20th C. artists
First I must disclose that I did not read this book; I listened to the unabridged version of an audio book.I drive long miles in the country and this helped to pass some time.I think that if I had attempted the actual book I would have put it down.

I love the period of art that is the backdrop for the tale so I thought this would keep my interest high.What bothered me was that Updike used the names of some actual artists of the period but fudged on the main characters who were involved in the life of Hope, the protagonist.Hope is an aging artist who married "Zack" a thinly disguised Jackson Pollack.Much of the juice of the narrative comes from her reminiscences of their marrige.

After Zack killed himself and a young passenger by driving drunk, (as Pollack did) Hope marries another prominent artist of the time.This guy is very confusing, though, as he seems to be modeled largely after Andy Warhol, who was openly gay, not someone likely to marry Hope and give her three children.The character was said to have a downtown hangout, the Hospice, like Warhol's Factory, where he harbored wannabe artists, actors, and hangers-on who explored the far reaches of drugs and sexual perversions, often on camera.In Updike's version, this fellow, whose fictional name I've forgotten, comes home every evening and has milk and a bowl of soup with Hope while the kids are sleeping peacefully in bed. Very unlikely.

Husband number three, was her best, this one, Jerry, a wealthy art collector who provided the comfort and nurturing she didn't get from the first two. I don't know who this was supposed to be, as my knowledge of the artists of the period didn't extend to the dealers.

There is no action in the novel.Hope is being interviewed by a young New Yorky woman for an online publication Hope had never heard of. There is some slight interaction between them-- Hope takes an instant dislike to her, assumes she is Jewish, and mentally critiques her every move.Gradually she learns she is Italian (!) and she warms up to her, eventually becoming almost inappropriately motherly to her. None of it rings true to me.

I admit that the actress who read the audio version may have had a negative effect on me.Her voice was appropriate for the arch, young journalist, but much too edgy for the 77 year old Quaker raised woman who has spent most of her adult life living in the country.She seems angry for most of the novel and one wonders why she isn't a little more mellow at this time in her life, when she has had such a rich life, including children and grandchildren.

She is just a construct for Updike to ramble on about this period of art and how it developed and how it contrasts with later style.
This is really a terrifically juicy time and I would love to have read a book that openly discussed the actual artists, using their real names.This is as pale and wan as Hope's ramblings and the gray stripes she now paints on canvas.After many pages of hearing her version of her life and the lives of the artists she knew, married, and slept with, I expected to at least like her, but her tired, whiney tone didn't draw me in.

True Updike lovers may like this much more than I did.I can't even recommend it to art lovers--I think they'd feel cheated on that scene, as I did.(I do recommend the Ed Harris film on Pollack which is wonderfullyexciting and colorful---something this book isn't.)

One of Updike's most extraordinary novels
SEEK MY FACE, an extraordinary novel that takes place on one long rainy afternoon in New England, ranks (for me, at least) with the greatest novels taking place on a single day: Virginia Woolf's MRS. DALLOWAY, Nadine Gordimer's THE LATE BOURGEOIS WORLD, Saul Bellow's SEIZE THE DAY, and Philip Roth's brilliant evocation of a snowy afternoon, evening, night and its following bright winter morning--including breakfast--in THE GHOST WRITER.

After breakfast in THE GHOST WRITER, Hope Lonoff, the revered writer's wife, runs away from the revered writer on "her doomed search," in Roth's memorable words, "for a less noble calling..."

Another Hope is the quietly intelligent and secretly introspective woman painter at the center of SEEK MY FACE.

Prodigious, subtle, tender, alive, and emotionally precise, SEEK MY FACE is a marvel. I learned so much about painting,painters, women artists, and the perils and consolations of having a good memory while I was reading it and I feel so grateful to Updike for writing it.

WTF?
This is the first book in my 50+ years of life that I have not been able to finish.It just rambles on. Maybe if I knew more about Jakson Pollack it would have been more interesting, but I doubt it.

The Master Describer at Work Again!
Updike is master writer of vast intelligence and fantastic insight into human relationships.

Here are some of my favorite quotes I pulled out of "Seek My Face,"

"She and Zack came to the sunstruck, wind-raked flats and filled the forsaken old farmhouse with the sound of their voices, augmenting the warmth of their bodies with that the woodstove, whose heat parched their skins and hair in its close vicinity but died halfway upstairs to the cold bedroom."


"As the sun warms the mountains these wasps of vapor are stirred into visibility above the valleys.Violet tinged panes had seemed thinned, like the skin of an old person; at a blast of wind from a certain angle a window vibrates like a harp being stroked."

"His airs, his vanity got worse after the `Life' article, and the world showed signs of coming around to his naïve overestimation of himself. Collapses would occur sometimes at one of the dinner parties she so carefully constructed, sometimes on a trip to New York, where the sense of spotlight on him, of bright lights and fortunes to be made as post-war prosperity seeped into the art market."

"Kathryn lifts her chin, her opaque protuberant eyes flash like those of the predator on the scent.She wants Hope's analytic mood to keep expanding, but already the effort has embarrassed the older woman with its immodesty."

"Outside the thin-paned windows, birds cannot be seen, a hush has thickened the air.The small shreds of cloud have grown flat lead-blue bottoms and white tops shaped like cauliflowers."

"She sees, walking past windows, that the sky, this morning so blank and pure a blue, is closing down, the scattered white clouds expanding to crowd out the spaces between them, packing themselves tightly as gray flag stones, with something vaporous arising even in the chinks, so that the sunlight leaking through is tremulous, like the shuddering reflections from the windows of a passing train."



... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Murky Modernism without much Substance
I am a reader who has read a lot of books and liked a lot of them and disliked not a few.Frankly, this novel of Updike's didn't have much to like or dislike for me. Despite the rave reviews it got in e.g. The New York Times this book strikes me as light and fluffy, derivative, and superficial.

Of course, Updike is a master of English prose and writes beautifully, but that is poetry.Three stars for that.As a sort of extended poem perhaps The Poorhouse Fair merits good reviews, but not as a novel.Updike's approach is half-hearted modernism with broken and confused dialogue coming in patches and parts often with no identifiable speaker, non-events told with grandeur, many points of view constantly switching.I.e. derivative from Faulkner, Woolf, Joyce, that sort of thing.Sometimes, as in Faulkner's masterpiece The Sound and the Fury, this "modernist" style works wonders, not so in The Poorhouse Fair.I just found it to be murky.

Furthermore, I did not find Updike's ruminations and cogitations about Christianity and religion and death, put into the mouths and thoughts of his characters, to be very enlightening or interesting.This all would be pretty standard stuff for any sophomore who's taken a course in philosophy of religion.There is nothing original or startling in The Poorhouse Fair as far as religious thought is concerned nor anything else that I could discern.

I treasure Updike's short stories and his Rabbit novels, but not this one.

Beautifully Written, But Dull
John Updike's first novel takes place at a home for the elderly (the poorhouse).Published in 1958, the novel takes place in the near-future and chronicles the struggle between the elderly "inmates" of the poorhouse and the new director, Connors.Connor is a relatively young man, and he's hated by the poorhouse residents, especially when compared to the previous director, the loveable Mendellsohn.This hatred seems to stem from mutual distrust and miscommunication.

The action takes place on the day of the annual fair, when the residents sell crafts and other goods to the local townspeople.The fair has always been the residents favorite day, although a burden they simultaneously resent.When the fair goes less then well, the residents revolt, albeit in rather passive ways, against their new leader, further delineating the lines between them.

Updike's greatest asset as a writer has always been his love of language and that gift is present even here, his first novel.Unfortunately, the novel lacks the stronger narrative drive he subsequently developed in novels such as the Rabbit series.At times, the novel is confusing and almost free-form in nature.This situation is particularly pronounced in the final third, when the townspeople converge on the poorhouse, introducing a multitude of new characters and stories.

Although brilliantly written, the novel is sluggish at times.At less than 200 pages, it nevertheless took me a relatively long time to struggle through.In the end, I appreciated many qualities of the book, but frankly I didn't really enjoy it.Recommended primarily for Updike completists.

One heck of a debut
I read this book about 15 years ago and just finished rereading it tonight. Have to say it has as much mystery and meaning as Melville, although the dialogue at the end got to be confusing and exasperating. Did I miss something big here? Regardless of some of my frustration with the confusing dialogue and shifting scenes, this book shows an author who is so good he understands the dynamics of growing old - before he even approaches old age. A real power struggle also is at play here between young and old and is one that doesn't seem to get resolved at the end. The author certainly shows his genious not just through description and dialogue - traits that bloom with his later works - but also with his discussion of past presidents as well as God - a theme that pleasantly revererates through his work. Found Hook's and Conner's dialogue about God and faith as a sort of preview for the debate of this subject in a later work - Roger's Version. Not one of his easiest books, by any means, but probably a good intro to his overall work.

A slim wonder from a 26 year old -- I hate him!
No, just kidding. I don't hate him; I'm thankful that he's still with us and sharing his words.

In his first novel, we see John Updike about to bloom unto a wonderful writer and most of his themes are here in this slim book: growing old, facing death, thinking about Man and God. I should be able to delve deeper into the themes but I don't read for grand themes, frankly. I read Saul Bellow for the comedy of intellectuals struggling with daily life; I read Iris Murdoch to be among smart folks who seem so damned dumb; and I read Philip Roth for the jolt of the smut from people who should be nicer and holier. That said, I read Updike for the gorgeous language and his mission to catalog the world he sees, like some monk on a mission. Nature is gift to show us how small we are and Updike is here to record everything that catches his gleeming eye.

'The Poorhouse Fair' at first feels like a trifle but it expands after you put the book down. Not to be a jerk, but after reading this book I felt I was watching a commercial for a paper towel expanding, gaining heft and becoming richer after being dipped in a glass of water. Silly, but that's how I feel. Read The Poorhouse Fair, put it down and then read 'Of the Farm' and then get cracking on the Rabbit novels. When you're done with those, we'll talk about 'Couples', and 'Towards the End of Time', and ...

old men and beautiful prose
Who but Updike could write a novel about a bunch of grumbling, poor old men and make it a thing of beauty.This is one of Updike's most poetic works, a world completely saturated in self-absorbed imagery, causing thebook to writhe with life even though all the characters are either very oldor pathetic.Surprisingly there is no adultery in this novel(!), but it isstill easily recognizable as Updike by the nature of the gloom and doomobservations.Althought the plot itself was a little weak, it seemedreally to make no difference; the plot is merely the background which isthere simply to showcase the richness and boldness of Updike's prose. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

great story
Excellent use of Sartre's existential ethic. Showed main character making a tough choice & choosing the one best suited to his own truths.

excellent
good story but i dont know the exact point og the gender relations updike is trying to present. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Vintage Updike
It's a shame that these earlieressays by Updike have gone out of print.While the style is slightly more "academic" than what would see in his next collection, Hugging the Shore, which won the Pulitzer Prize, thereadings are no less startlingin their breathtaking insights and sympathetic readings of a wide range of authors and their works. Updike is so at ease with all aspects of the language and the culture that reading him is like a guided tour into the greatest pleasure and deepest instincts of the the literary terrain of the time. Highly recommended, and a vote to reprint these essays for our own time. ... Read more

Product Description
By the time he was 28, John Updike had published a collection of poetry, a collection of short stories, and a novel. Over the next four decades he continued in these forms, along with criticism and reviews of literature and painting; in memoirs; and in commentary on his own writing. This absorbing book takes Updike's life, as well as his voluminous oeuvre, as its subject. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An intelligent, highly personal, and persuasive study of John Updike's oeuvre
In May, 1998 a comprehensive review of Updike's oeuvre appeared in the form of Jamea A. Schiff's "John Updike Revisited". I did a brief review of this book in August, 1999 at Amazon.com and wondered rhetorically at the time how anyone could have possibly covered (to any degree) the giant and varied oeuvre of Updike in just 228 pages? This book was the first comprehensive review of Updike's work that appeared in over a decade not withstanding dozens, it seems , of earlier seminal critical reviews by Detweiler, Markel, Greiner, Bloom, the Hamiltons, and others.
Since then the flood gates have opened anda plethora of critical reviews followed, but one comprehensive review titled UPDIKE: AMERICA'S MAN OF LETTERS by William Pritchard stands out. Published in September, 2000 by Steerforth Press, it is an intelligent, highly personal, and persuasive study of John Updike's oeuvre in several genres. I would recommend it to be on everyone's reading list of all serious Updike enthusiasts. This book is 351 pages with a chronology of Mr. Updike's life, an introduction, chapter notes, and index. With both an Edmund Wilson and John Updike format, Pritchard uses a fair amount of succinct and descriptive quotes directly from Updike's works to show exactly what the author is expressing.
Mr. Pritchard's life has an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Updike's. Mr. Pritchard was born in 1932, eight months after Updike and grew up some 150 miles north of Updike's Shillington, Pennsylvania in Johnson City, New York. Both had a parent who was a teacher, both were educated in the public school system and were high school valedictorians.Both were turned down by Princeton but Updike went to Harvard and Pritchard to Amherst. Both were married in their early twenties to Radcliff girls who gave them children young--four in Updike's case and three in the author's case. Both were churchgoers--Updike Lutheran and Pritchard low-church Episcopalian. Pritchard states that this close resemblance to Updike's life is not a hindrance to him in any way to be none other than objective in discussing Updike's works.
The book is laid out in a chronological and thematic format as follows:
FIRST FRUITS Chapter 1"The Carpentered Hen", The Poorhouse Fair, and "The Same Door"
THE NOVELIST TAKES OFF Chapter 2"Rabbit, Run"
THE PENNSYLVANIA THING Chapter 3 "Pigeon Feathers", "The Centaur", "Of the Farm" and the short story "Leaving Church Early"
ADULTERY AND IT'S CONSEQUENCES Chapter 4"The Music School","Marry Me" and "Couples"
IMPERSONATIONS OF MEN IN TROUBLE (I) Chapter 5"Midpoint", "Bech:A Book",and "Rabbit Redux"
IMPERSONATIONS OF MEN IN TROUBLE (II) Chapter 6"A Month of Sundays" and short fiction from 1967-79
EXTRAVAGANT FICTIONS Chapter 7"The Coup", "The Witches of Eastwick", "Roger's Version", and "S"
THE CRITIC AND REVIEWERChapter 8 "Picked-Up-Pieces", "Hugging the Shore", and "Odd Jobs"
POET MEMORIST Chapter 9 Late Poems-1988-1993 and "Self Consiousness"
RABBIT RETIRED Chapter 10 "Rabbit is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest"
POST RABBIT EFFECTS Chapter 11 "Memories of the Ford Administration", "In the Beauty of the Lilies", "Toward the End of Time" and his late stories "The Afterlife"
This book, even though it discusses only about 31 of over 50 of Updike's works directly, other Updike works are alluded to in the respective units as well as other Updike contemporaries like Philip Roth, Gore Vidal, Willaim Maxwell, Joyce Carol Oates, and others.
The back of the dust jacket, in a dark purple with white letters, contains three testimonials to Pritchard's book. The one quoted by Jay Parini is short and sweet: "a witty, stylish, and remorsefully knowing critic, William Pritchard belongs in the heady company of Mencken, Edmund Wilson, and Randall Jarrell."I give this book a four and one half stars.
Phil Burger, Austin, Texas October 26, 2006 ... Read more

Product Description
Scholar Lawrence R. Broer brings together twelve essays that show John Updike's Rabbit novels--RABBIT, RUN (1960), RABBIT REDUX (1971), RABBIT IS RICH (1981), and RABBIT AT REST (1990)--to be a carefully crafted fabric of changing hues and textures, of social realism and something of grandeur, worthy of Dickens, Thackeray, and Joyce. Should be of interest to anyone interested in Updike, modern literature, and the changing cultural more of our times. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Updike Experiments
It is, of course, a crime that any book by John Updike should be out of print. Nevertheless, this selection (first published in 1972) is not the vintage Updike of, say, The Music School or Trust Me. The famous Maples arehere, in all their angst-ridden glory (these stories, it should be said,have since been reprinted in a volume of their own), and there is thefamiliar range of vignettes and meditations in classic Updike mode; butthere is more experimental material too - and few readers will find ituniformly successful. A Jurassic age dinner party given by dinosaurs?Actually, I thought this one a gem. But others - such as 'Jesus on Honshu'- I thought fell somewhat flat: big ideas, perhaps, done inadequate justiceby the short (in some cases, very short) story form. Nevertheless, forthose interested in Updike's development as the maestro of the Americanshort story, I would have thought Museums and Women an ultimatelyindispensable book. Flawed but fascinating. ... Read more

Product Description

Twayne's United States Authors Series presents concise critical introductions to great writers and their works.

Devoted to critical interpretation and discussion of an author's work, each study takes account of major literary trends and important scholarly contributions and provides new critical insights with an original point of view. An Authors Series volume addresses readers ranging from advanced high school students to university professors. The book suggests to the informed reader new ways of considering a writer's work. A reader new to the work under examination will, after reading the Authors Series, be compelled to turn to the originals, bringing to the reading a basic knowledge and fresh critical perspectives.

Each volume features:

• A critical, interpretive study and explication of the author's works
• A brief biography of the author
• An accessible chronology outlining the life, work, and relevant historical background of the author
• Aids for further study -- complete notes and references, a selected annotated bibliography and an index
• A readable style presented in a manageable length

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent Book on Updike
James Schiff's book on John Updike is the best I've read.Schiff seems to know everything about Updike, and his ability to discuss such a range of novels in so few pages is impressive.His chapter on Updike as a man ofletters is a brilliant, well-researched, and eloquent argument for Updike'splace as one of America's finest critics.In addition, he offers thefinest criticism I've seen on The Poorhouse Fair, the Scarlet Letternovels, The Witches of Eastwick, Buchanan Dying, Memories of the FordAdministration, Brazil, and In the Beauty of the Lilies.His chapter onthe Rabbit novels is also intelligent and articulate, one of the bettersummaries of that great multivolume achievement.All in all, Schiff's bookis a must read for anyone interested in Updike.

A Well-Informed but Pedestrian Overview of Updike's Work
This is a well-informed volume with a few strong chapters but also significant weaknesses.James Schiff is devoted to Updike's work and in particular offers vigorous appreciations of recent works of Updike -particularly notable is his strong defense of *Brazil*, which has beencritically lambasted.Also noteworthy is a lengthy discussion (12 pages)of *In the Beauty of the Lilies*, which is one of the best things in thebook, and a final chapter that evaluates Updike's accomplishment as acritic.Unfortunately, the interest of the volume is limited by Schiff'srather pedestrian belaboring of the obvious and a non-Updikean conceptionof artistic work that naively and unreliably judges works to be either"successes" or "failures."If the author were lesspreoccupied with arguing whether a work succeeds or fails and studied indetail some of the qualities of diction, syntax, and metaphor that makealmost every page of Updike's prose (and poetry - unfortunately not treatedhere, despite the recent publication of Updike's *Collected Poems,1953-1993*) a marvel, the volume would be of greater value to readers. Other flaws: the author underestimates Updike's cosmopolitanism, seems tolack the necessary subtletyto appreciate Updike's philosophical andreligious themes, and fails to appreciate the degree to which Updike'sembrace of an ethic of *craftsmanship* binds together the disparate aspectsof Updike's oeuvre.Chapter 5 shows signs of having been hastily reworkedfrom an earlier volume of Schiff's on the '*Scarlet Letter* trilogy.'Thisreader finds the view that *The Witches of Eastwick*"may be Updike'sfinest novel" unconvincing - only a reader who finds the character ofFreddy Thorne in *Couples* appealing could think so.The volume includes auseful selected bibliography of other volumes of criticism.Worth reading,but should not be considered to be among the best works on John Updike.

The most current and complete review of Updike's oeuvre
How can anyone in 228 pages possibly get a genuine feel for Updike's huge oeuvre?Mr. James A. Schiff can and does by giving the Updike fan and student a nice rehashing of most all of his works to date.The authorsurpasses the seminal critical works by the Hamilton's, Elizabeth Tallent.Rachel Burchard, Robert Detweiler, and others I've read by including somecritical reviews never before in print.

He begins by discussing andmemorilizing family and community in THE POORHOUSE FAIR and THE CENTAUR. This gentleman critic from the University of Cincinnati looks at RabbitAngstrom as an American icon and then thoroughly discusses the Rabbitteralogy.The marriage novels, COUPLES and THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK aretaken together.In chapter five he discusses the much rehearsed Hawthornetrilogy of S., ROGER'S VERSION, and A MONTH OF SUNDAYS.A section onrecreating American history is discussed in the rather obscure BUCHANANDYING, MEMORIES OF THE FORD ADMINISTRATION, and Schiff recreates a renewed(or perhaps original) interest in IN THE BEAUTY OF THE LILIES in anunbiased review of perhaps Updike's "greatest work" according toSchiff.

A chapter on his short stories which a lot of people considerUpdike's forte (a master of the small canvass) and even the Pulitzer Prizewinning novelist's expertise as "the contemporary independentcritic" are explored in his three and soon to be published fourth bookon criticism not to mention his frequent stints as editor, Intro, andPreface writer.JOHN UPDIKE REVISITED is a thoughtful, knowledgeable, andhighly readable book that must receive a five star--but of course I'm anUpdike fan. ... Read more

Product Description
John Updike is one of the most seminal American writers of the 20th century and one of the most prolific as well. In addition to his best-selling novels, he has written numerous poems, short stories, reviews, and essays. His writing consistently reveals stylistic brilliance, and through his engagement with America's moral and spiritual problems, his works chronicle America's hopes and dreams, failures and disappointments. Though he is an enormously popular writer, the complexity and elegance of his works have elicited growing scholarly attention. Through several hundred alphabetically arranged entries, this book provides both casual and serious readers an exceptional guide to his life and writings. Whether the reader is seeking a novel summary, an authoritative analysis of subjects, elucidation of an allusion, or a point about Updike's life or manner of composition, the encyclopedia is indispensable. A chronology summarizes the major events in Updike's career, while an introductory essay examines his progress as a writer, from his crafted light verse and informed reviews to his innovative novels and stories. The entries that follow summarize Updike's books, describe all major characters, explain allusions, identify major images and symbols, analyze principal subjects, discuss his life and career, and draw on the most significant scholarship. Entries include bibliographies, and the volume closes with a list of works for further reading. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

GOLDEN NUGGETS OF UPDIKE
Kudos are in order! The long-awaited John Updike Encyclopedia by Jack De Bellis is now available--a treasure trove of information on all aspects of John Updike's work and life, with a complete chronology, analytical index, and other useful features for general readers, students, and researchers.

All Updike fans will praise Jack De Bellis for bringing forth this hefty companion, chock full of golden nuggets about Updike the artist and his literary creations. That JU undoubtedly will consult this fine and elaborate synthesis of himself and his literary output countless times is perhaps the highest praise for this unique work of reference and literary history.

The encyclopedic format, with alphabetical entries, is user friendly and lets the reader choose a random perusal or a more purposeful reading throughout its 550 pages. And a very complete analytical index will point to any specific topic the reader may choose. Many of the entries are substantial enough to be essays--like the first I read, ``The Creative Process,'' that was over 3 pages long. Then I went on to read others at random, focusing on fascinating tidbits that just kept jumping off the page, many of which were little known biographical facts about Updike. Indeed, the idea that a concise biography is available in these pages came to me after spending about an hour with the book.

This book will become a lifetime companion to many of us who greatly admire the artistry of John Updike. And even though Greenwood Press's reference book price is high for this first hardcover edition, the John Updike Encyclopedia will have a long and useful life, which makes it a bargain for all of us who understand how important Mr. Updike and his work are to American literature. My congratulations, praise, and sincere thanks to Jack De Bellis for this wonderful work.

Neil McAleer ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Best (though dated) Book on Updike
The Elements of John Updike is the best study of John Updike's fiction that I have yet read.It is profound and very different from other studies in the depth and attention it pays the author and his writing.I have yetto read another book that so perfectly integrates all the diverse elementsof his nature, the poetry, the fiction, the nonfiction, the studious natureand development of his fierce intelligence.

It is a shame that the bookis now out-of-print. I hope that it will one day be updated and expanded,or at least reprinted, as it is still very much relevant, despite the factthat it covers only his origin through Couples.Still irreplaceable in itscomprehension of the man who is quite possibly America's greatest livingauthor.

By the way, this book is written by Alice and Kenneth Hamilton(Amazon seems to have forgotten one of them). ... Read more

Product Description
John Updike continues to be one of America's most important contemporary writers. This bibliography provides a comprehensive record of works by and about Updike published from 1967 through mid-1993, and it includes a few earlier works omitted by earlier bibliographers as well. The bibliography begins with a section of works by Updike. This section includes the customary books, plays, short fiction, and poetry that one would expect in a bibliography, as well as more unusual items, such as letters, interviews, unsigned items from The New Yorker, and illustrations. The second part of the book lists works about Updike, including criticism of particular works, dissertations, parodies and caricatures, and works in non-print media. In each of these broad sections, works are first grouped by genre and then listed chronologically. The bibliography indicates special editions and other information in the entries. Appendices list translations of Updike's works and periodicals in which he has published. ... Read more

Product Description
Since 1960 the novelist and poet has been reviewing books for the "New Yorker", and the reviews of the last eight years make up the bulk of this volume. Authors include Edmund Wilson, Vladimir Nabokov, Franz Kafka, Muriel Spark, Anne Tyler, Italo Calvino, Henry Green, Robert Pinget, L.E. Sissman, R.K. Narayan and Roland Barthes. He also writes of actresses Louise Brooks and Doris Day and golfers Sam Snead and Arnold Palmer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Hugging the Shore
In John Updike's collection of essays and criticism, Hugging the Shore, it takes the author until page six to delve into the varied wonders of the female sex organ.I am unsure whether this is a record for Updike, but knowing his work as I do, I suggest not.Still, sex, wit, clarity, insight, cleverness and a tendency towards dazzling prose tell us all - Here is John Updike.

The collection begins, to my mind, very weakly indeed.The first seventy pages are scattered pieces of writing that are neither essay nor story, review nor criticism.One twenty page section is simply interviews, with such non-entities as the Golf Course Owner and the Undertaker.A brief piece on book envelopes taking over the world is bizarre, and one wonders whether the rest of the collection will come across as the droppings of a writer accustomed to seeing his work in print.

Happily, this is not the case.Updike's reviews, while predominantly of Americans and absolutely focused on an American, Protestant outlook, are conversational and enjoyable, while also possessing great intelligence and creativity.He is unafraid to sprinkle his writing with metaphors and smilies and other tricks of the author's trade, allowing his reviews the sprightliness of prose and side-stepping the possibility of churning out tired, staid non-fiction.On Charles Citrine, the hero of Saul Bellow's novel Humboldt's Gift, '...the sleep of his soul, as he thinks of it, is disturbed but not shattered.He rolls over, amid the rumpled sheets and untied threads of the plot.'This is wonderful writing, imagery which could easily find itself nestled within the cosy bosom of an Updike short story.

Because the fiction ranges from roughly the early to late 1970s, and because John Updike has reviewed a great many books by the same authors, collected together by theme (if there are multiple authors considered) or the writer's name (if only one), we are able to watch the rise, or fall, or Updike's opinion of their writing.Of Anne Tyler's writing he is very impressed, until perhaps about 1980 when he begins to realise that the quality of her work has plateaued, and does not seem likely to increase.Iris Murdoch is at first warily appreciated, then wearily disliked, while the French nouveau roman authors are, for the most part, technically applauded while simultaneously derided for their lack of humanity or relevance.

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the collection for me was the hundred and fifty or so pages in the first half which focused on the letters and journals of some of the greatest writers of the twentieth century - Nabokov, Edmun Wilson, Hemingway, Joyce, Kafka.Perhaps because of his own knowledge of writing and the writer's life, Updike brings to his analysis of these works a tender, indulgent understanding of the difficulties and the pleasures of being a writer.Updike is of course was nothing like Hemingway, who boasted of killing men and lions, and who drank and drank and drank; nor was he like Kafka, who couldn't escape the shadow of his father.But he shares with them the passion of the word, which allows an illumination of artistry that perhaps a lay reader would not discover.

Often when reading a collection of reviews it becomes clear to the reader that perhaps only the works they are familiar with should be read.This is not the case with Updike's writing.He does not admonish the unaware reader, and nor does he lord his great knowledge.The plot of fiction is explained gently, calmly, with few interludes, and then he comments on the work.With non-fiction Updike simply comments, and there is a very real sense that he appreciates, admires and respects non-fiction, but that it is not really for him.Reviewing fiction causes his own prose to shine, for example when he calls Calvino's Invisible Cities 'a consummate book, both crystalline and limpid, adamant and airy, playful yet "worked" with a monkish care.'Of the magic realists he is most impressed with Calvino, though he is, as a whole, duly envious of the masters in a genre he cannot himself master.

Which leads Updike, finally, into a kind of removed contemplation of his own oevre, which did not yet include Rabbit at Rest, but was studded with the worthy minor gems of The Centaur, Couples, and, of course, the preceeding three Rabbit novels.In an interview with his own fictional creation Henry Bech, Updike says of literature: 'let [it] concern itself, as the Gospels do, with the inner lives of hidden men.'He 'distrusts books involving spectacular people, or spectacular events'.Other pieces collected under the heading 'On One's Own Oeuvre' include forewords to other books, snippets of poetry, essayistic asides and notes.

Updike's reviews are neither cutting when he is disappointed, or gushing when he is impressed with an author's talents.He remains curiously calm, overall a genial, jolly writer who enjoys reading books and likes to talk about them, but who is perhaps not attuned to the endless passionate craving of a bibliophile.But could this be true?Of a man who has written over twenty books, many short stories and poems, as well as the very book of reviews that is being reviewed?Strangely, it seems to be the case.He is pleasant, not pressing; urging, not urgent.This is both his strength and weakness as a reviewer.We catch the spark but not the flame.

The true American man- of - letters
Updike 's great fictional output is accompanied by hundreds of occasional pieces he has written through the years. He defines the difference between the two kinds this way. "Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.''
So for him the non- fictional pieces are the less -adventurous ones, the ones in which one must stay closer to the world of fact and observation.
Nonetheless in these pieces he almost invariably brings his great intelligence and aesthetic sense into play in addressing a tremendously wide variety of subjects.

What Updike Does Best
I've always felt that Updike is better as a critic and essayist than as a fiction writer; not that he isn't superb at both, but the fiction is (sometimes) too smooth, paradoxically too well-written.Updike's strikinginsights (Doris Day as an American Pelagian) and widely ranging topics makethis collection worth reading again and again.

You'll read parts of it again and again.Superb!
From a brilliant essay on Melville to great book reviews to presenting the works of other writers (such as Yevtushenko), this volume is entertaining, enlightening, and wonderful. ... Read more