I wanted to start a discussion about John Updike - the amazing author who tends to take life and give it another… dimension. I think I read that on the back of one of his, books, though. Which just goes to show how true it is, because that phrase just stuck to my brain like that.
Anyways, I’m new to the boards as well - my name’s Alyssa, and I’m 13 years old and in 8th grade. Erm - if anyone cares, I also ride dressage and LOVE to talk about it with others, especially those from other disciplines. :smack:
Okay, well about John Updike. I’ve read his anthology, Pigeon Feathers and recently purchased Toward the End of Time, but haven’t started it yet. Has anyone else read him? What’s your opinion? I’m dying to see other’s views - my mother doesn’t care for him, but she’s the only other person I know who has read him.
It seems like people feel that short stories are inconclusive, and though obviously some are meant to be this way - or to have meanings that aren’t convenient and obvious… I’ve noticed this trend in a few. Admittedly, the conclusion could be over my head. I’m not denying that. Some just seem to hit home more than others.
I couldn’t get over The Doctor’s Wife and the Blessed Man , the former for the casual trend of the story, even though there were all these EMOTIONS underneath, but it seemed to me that they were buried finely under something… the same way the characters in the book lightly buried their emotions.
The Blessed Man’s ending was just mint. hehe - mint. Nobody says that anymore. I aspire to be an author as wonderful as John Updike, and it’s amazing to me to see that he, too, has shortcomings that he wishes to overcome. He admits this, in elegant prose, and it hits a nerve.
I’m not a particularly great writer, but I know what it’s like to want to describe absolutely everything - to capture a certain feeling that jumps away just as you try to catch it, and you’re left with an inconclusive jumble of words that drones on into… something. And you’re not sure what that something is, but it SURE it’s what you want to say. It’s sloppy. And John Updike says:
…It would be days, the evocation of the days… the green days.The tasks, the grass, the weather, the shades of sea and air. Just as a piece of turf torn from a meadow becomes a Gloria when drawn by Durer. Details. Details are the giant’s fingers. He seizes the stick and strips the bark and shows, burning beneath, the moist white wood of joy.
GOD. Exactly. That’s exactly it. He just TAKES that feeling that it seems like everyone has, that need to put something ineffable on paper, and just smacks it right on the nose. Just as a piece of turf torn from a meadow becomes a Gloria when drawn by Durer. “An elusive feeling becomes tangible when written by John Updike.”
Yeah, that’s exactly it.