# Is John Updike still "important"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 9, 2014, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192 "2014-11-09T23:45:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/1 "2014-11-09T23:45:33Z")
> **[John Updike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Updike)** > > John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, and Colson Whitehead), Updike published more than twenty novels, more than a dozen short-story collections, as well as poetry, art and literary criticism and children's books during his career. > Hundreds of his stories, reviews,... He gets mostly praise on Wikipedia: > **[John Updike | Critical reputation and style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Updike#Critical_reputation_and_style)** > > Updike is considered one of the greatest American fiction writers of his generation. He was widely praised as America's "last true man of letters", with an immense and far-reaching influence on many writers. The excellence of his prose style is acknowledged even by critics skeptical of other aspects of Updike's work. > Several scholars have called attention to the importance of place, and especially of southeast Pennsylvania, in Updike's life and work. Bob Batchelor has described "Updike's Pennsyl... My experience with Updike consists of reading one of the Rabbit novels and hearing one of his poems read on NPR. I thought the novel was absolutely banal and worthless, and I thought the poem was pretty good in terms of thought (it was basically about how sad it is that we store up all this knowledge and stuff in life, and that all has to go away) but not stunning in terms of verse. So I’m not widely read in Updike, but the impression made by one of his novels on me was quite negative. There are three layers to my question. The first is whether Updike is himself good. The establishment seems to say yes, though I wonder how much they _really_ care about his work in 2014. He seems like the kind of author who is loved and respected by the establishment in his own time but whose half-life is pretty short after his death. For example, James Russel Lowell was a big presence in the US literary world in his time, but no one gives a shit about him now. Not sure though about Updike. The second layer is whether that establishment really means anything now. Are a bunch of old white dudes the only ones who care about Updike now, and what does their opinion really matter? This is a bigger topic, but I think that it really doesn’t matter much. In general, I see a trend after WWII of academic opinion drifting away from popular taste and turning into a circle jerk, pardon the expression. For example, academics in the field of music cared a lot of about atonal composition in the 1960s; the average person was oblivious to that stuff. The third layer is the simple question of whether Updike is a “popular read” any more (i.e., he’s important because people still love his works). My _impression_ is that, again, the half-life has been very short. Yes, he was a very popular novelist in his time. But I think that, to the masses, he was basically a supermarket read, maybe with a little higher “brow” than the bodice rippers and whatnot. Dunno, did he seem “important” in 1975 or whenever? In any case, you don’t hear about Updike fans now. James A. Michener has been dead for awhile too, but I get the _impression_ that people might still pick up one of his books like _Texas_ or whatever and get into it. I don’t imagine people still tucking into the Rabbit novels. Or I could be way off! Tell me what you think! ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/2 "2014-11-09T23:52:08Z")
True story, I was kicked out of a book club years ago for picking Rabbit Run as the book to read. The person in charge felt it was too racy and that it was a perverse suggestion. I think he was a little shocking for the time perhaps, but I didn’t get anything much out of reading Rabbit Run really. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/3 "2014-11-10T00:01:08Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > True story, I was kicked out of a book club years ago for picking Rabbit Run as the book to read. The person in charge felt it was too racy and that it was a perverse suggestion. > > I think he was a little shocking for the time perhaps, but I didn’t get anything much out of reading Rabbit Run really. I think that was the one I read, but it may have been the second or third. It’s hard to remember inasmuch as the book made no impression on my mind in terms of characters and plot. That _is_ a funny story, by the way. I just saw a clip on YouTube yesterday of Merv Griffin interview Gene Wilder, and Gene is taking pains to explain why he felt he needed to live with someone before marrying her. In 1979, “living with someone” was still a semi-big deal. It’s kinda funny. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/4 "2014-11-10T00:12:41Z")
Well, I loved his work, and eagerly read all the prose of his that I could find, not only all the novels, but short stories, essays etc., from when I was about 18 to my mid to late 50s. Somehow I could not get through _Toward the End of Time_, and lost interest after that.\* I blame the internet. (I don’t read much fiction at all any more. I used to read loads.) Important, I don’t know. What makes a fiction writer “important”? But enjoyable, to some of us definitely yes, and definitely enormously gifted as a prose stylist. I think I have heard that a lot of feminists don’t approve of him,\*\* so, as they wield a lot of clout in literary and academic humanities circles these days, his reputation may be in a decline. Of course, if you don’t like literary fiction, you won’t like his. ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ \*Though I did read _Bech at Bay_, which I see from Wikipedia was published later, though perhaps I read it before. I remember being a bit disappointed with it though. \*\*Mind you, that probably means that there are other feminists who think he is great. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/5 "2014-11-10T01:02:49Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I think that was the one I read, but it may have been the second or third. It’s hard to remember inasmuch as the book made no impression on my mind in terms of characters and plot. > > That _is_ a funny story, by the way. I just saw a clip on YouTube yesterday of Merv Griffin interview Gene Wilder, and Gene is taking pains to explain why he felt he needed to live with someone before marrying her. In 1979, “living with someone” was still a semi-big deal. It’s kinda funny. The sad part about my story is it happened about 10 years ago - mid 2000’s. I think the leader of the book club was very religious; I’m not sure which denomination exactly, but it was under umbrella of Christianity. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/6 "2014-11-10T01:15:54Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > The sad part about my story is it happened about 10 years ago - mid 2000’s. I think the leader of the book club was very religious; I’m not sure which denomination exactly, but it was under umbrella of Christianity. Lol, oh noooooo! ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/7 "2014-11-10T01:25:17Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > The sad part about my story is it happened about 10 years ago - mid 2000’s. I think the leader of the book club was very religious; I’m not sure which denomination exactly, but it was under umbrella of Christianity. Maybe a touch ironic, since Updike was a Christian and explored religious themes in his work; although I can understand why he wouldn’t be embraced by the more straitlaced and conservative type of Christians. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/8 "2014-11-10T01:50:39Z")
Speaking as a librarian, Updike is seen as important in one very important way… his books are discard-proof. He’s seen as a big enough name that unless one of the copies is literally falling apart, they’ll all stay in the collection when it comes time to cull the shelves. That said, I don’t think he’s very popular anymore. In my neck of the library world, he seems to be more popular than Michener, but less popular than someone like John Irving. I get the feeling that Michael Chabon will have the same kind of library career as both of them. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/9 "2014-11-10T01:52:29Z")
I haven’t read Updike in a long time. For poetry, he was a master of light verse, which probably means he’ll end up like Ogden Nash. His books are good, but it’s been years since I’ve read them. Fun fact: Updike was well known to be dismissive of science fiction. Yet, in his book **Of the Farm** , he clearly and correctly describes the plot of Alfred Bester’s “Adam and No Eve,” using it for one of the philosophical points of the book. He undoubtedly read the story, and it stuck with him. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/10 "2014-11-10T02:00:38Z")
I love “The Centaur” although the allegorical aspects of it fly right over my head. Also love his short story “Alligators”. One of the most poignant endings ever. Was it one of the Rabbit books wherein a drunken mother drowns her baby in the sink? I distinctly remember seeing that coming, and abandoning the book at that point. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/11 "2014-11-10T02:28:15Z")
Updike is being widely attacked these days by younger woman writers, who find him and other male writers of his era like Philip Roth and Norman Mailer, odious: preoccupied with sex but failing to create female characters with the detail and imagination they granted to their male characters. I know it’s hard to read Hemingway these days because of that, and that may be a permanent scar on their careers. I was never a huge fan of Updike’s and I mostly stayed away from his relationship novels about suburbia, which pretty much knocks me out of any knowledgeable defense. Chuck, I’m surprised at your comment. Of course Updike wrote so much about everything - he’ll be remembered as the last person to write deeply about every author being published - that I’m sure you can find quotes to back up almost any point of view. My memories are very different. I know he’s written about reading and liking sf as a kid. I remember reading some reviews in which he discussed the field intelligently. And he wrote more books with non-mimetic themes that almost any of his contemporaries. _Centaur_, _The Witches of Eastwick_, _Toward the End of Time_. And to pull this thread together, [Evelyn C. Leeper](http://www.nesfa.org/reviews/Leeper/towardth.html) (a well-known fan) wrote a review of that last book that hits every post here. This was 1997. > [@](#): > > If the appeal of science fiction to you is to examine how societal changes will affect people, then this book is not for you. It is set in the year 2020, after the Sino-American War, after things fell apart–although not enough to cause any problems with food, water, electricity, gasoline, etc. The level of change seems to be, as the first person narrator says, “Once my species had been strong enough to put [a space station] up there, and now it is out of our reach.” > > But instead of any sort of examination of how this might affect society, we get, “One advantage of the collapse of civilization is that the quality of young women who are becoming whores has gone way up,” and we get pages and pages of descriptions of sexual activities in the sort of detail that used to be reserved for adult magazines. So one doesn’t get much of a coherent view of the post-apocalyptic future except to learn that some middle-aged men prefer positions other than the missionary one. Whoopee. ---
**Author:** ![Staggerlee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/staggerlee/32/3134_2.png) [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/12 "2014-11-10T12:26:26Z")
I’ve read one or two of his novels, including ‘Couples’ - I found that quite readable. But his writing is quite misogynistic, and with no great depth, it strikes me as just well-written trash. So I’ve always assumed his continued readership comes from having written high-brow, titillating page-turners. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/13 "2014-11-10T16:31:09Z")
I read but can’t say I enjoyed _Witches of Eastwick_ and some of his essays. My favorite of his fiction I’ve read was _Roger’s Version_. What I’m about to say is probably ridiculously provincial and classist, but I’ll say it anyway: He’s way too upper-middle-class white-guy-angst for my taste. It’s a social class I’ve never been a part of (I’m from a rural background and a working class [often holding on by the fingertips] adulthood) and while I absolutely realize that the country club Ivy League set have serious problems and personal issues I just can’t really relate to a lifestyle where the wolves aren’t always at the door and thus they’re free to become far more self absorbed than they might otherwise be. His work reeks of self obsession and insularity and highballs. I can see him trading heated bon mots with William F. Buckley in the sauna of their club. ONLY my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/14 "2014-11-10T17:18:54Z")
No idea about Updike but… > [@](#): > > The second layer is whether that establishment really means anything now. Are a bunch of old white dudes the only ones who care about Updike now, and what does their opinion really matter? This is a bigger topic, but I think that it really doesn’t matter much. In general, I see a trend after WWII of academic opinion drifting away from popular taste and turning into a circle jerk, pardon the expression. For example, academics in the field of music cared a lot of about atonal composition in the 1960s; the average person was oblivious to that stuff. Has the establishment ever meant anything to the general public ? Your decription of academic opinion as turning to “a circle jerk” is not totally off the mark but were the “masses” crazy about **Beethoven** or **Van Eyck** in their time? I don’t think so. The “average person being oblivious” to their work has no bearing on their worth. I agree that academic opinion should be more inclusive of points of views other than those of “old white men”. I even think it’s vital for the survival of High Art and I think that it’s increasingly the case. But that does not mean that popular taste has it right. Actually, at the risk of sounding elitist, I’d argue that we’re in need of educated people’s opinion (or even guidance) in that respect. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/15 "2014-11-10T17:28:30Z")
I get you, Sampiro. I’m poor working class from literally “the wrong side of the tracks.” WASP culture was far less meaningful to me than science fiction. That made complete sense, emotionally, probably because it was predominantly written by people from equivalent backgrounds. John P. Marquard, Louis Auchincloss, John Cheever, Edith Wharton, Evan Connell. I’m embarrassingly ignorant about that whole group. Not sure how my period favorites like John Barth, Robert Coover, and Donald Barthelme fit in. Probably their odd styles were such a poor fit for telling tales of suburban angst that they were forced to write about what was to me realer worlds, no matter how non-mimetic they became. (Mimetic, which means imitative or representative, is used in criticism similarly to realism. SF works are by definition non-mimetic and so the term got picked up early on to distinguish works meant to be real world and works meant not to be. It was coined to counter the truism that all fiction is fantasy, which is so broad a truth that it’s absolutely meaningless in the particular.) ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/16 "2014-11-10T17:48:40Z")
> [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](#): > > Your decription of academic opinion as turning to “a circle jerk” is not totally off the mark but were the “masses” crazy about **Beethoven** or **Van Eyck** in their time? I don’t think so. The “average person being oblivious” to their work has no bearing on their worth. > > I agree that academic opinion should be more inclusive of points of views other than those of “old white men”. I even think it’s vital for the survival of High Art and I think that it’s increasingly the case. But that does not mean that popular taste has it right. Actually, at the risk of sounding elitist, I’d argue that we’re in need of educated people’s opinion (or even guidance) in that respect. Actually Updike is kind of interesting because he was one of the few authors who was very well respected by the “traditional” literary establishment, and at the same time had a pretty fair degree of popular success as well. Several of his novels were best-sellers. This was a fairly important thing for me in the late 1980s, when I was an undergrad studying English, and tended to have a lot of conversations about high art versus commerce. The only one of Updike’s novels I’ve actually read is **Roger’s Version** , which I read for a college class on theology in literature. It’s about trying to prove the existence of God using a computer program. I found it interesting without necessarily enjoying it. As others have said about his work, it felt really insular. In this case, the insularity of the theology department at a small upper crust college. I do recall it having the distinction of being the only book we read in that course that included vivid sex scenes! ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/17 "2014-11-10T17:58:15Z")
[QUOTE=MrAtoz] The only one of Updike’s novels I’ve actually read is **Roger’s Version** , which I read for a college class on theology in literature. It’s about trying to prove the existence of God using a computer program. I found it interesting without necessarily enjoying it. As others have said about his work, it felt really insular. In this case, the insularity of the theology department at a small upper crust college. I do recall it having the distinction of being the only book we read in that course that included vivid sex scenes! [/QUOTE] Incestuous ones at that. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/18 "2014-11-10T18:14:34Z")
“Important” is such a weird word to use here. Important to whom, and for what reason? Generally when it’s used as the OP is using it, it means a book is important because it is so designated by academic and other lit-crit types. But the vast majority of readers could give a shit what the lit-crit types think is important. There may have been a time when they could designate a writer “important” and it might mean something outside of lit-crit circles, but … those days are long gone. The words of the prophets are now written in cyberspace. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/19 "2014-11-10T18:22:01Z")
I don’t know that he was ever “important.” Certainly, he was considered a Serious Author of Serious Books in certain circles. He probably still is. The questions are whether those circles are expanding or contracting and how much influence they have on modern literature. ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192/20 "2014-11-10T18:36:49Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > The words of the prophets are now written in cyberspace. I’m not sure I understand this. Could you be more specific? If you mean that it’s now possible to find pearls of wisdom online, then I couldn’ t agree more. You have to find them, though as they are buried under steaming piles of BS. On the other hand your post could also be interpreted as some sort of aesthetic relativism (“what I like is great and what you like is great and everything’s great”). In which case, we disagree. Sorry if I missed your point. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-john-updike-still-important/704192.md?page=2)