The dude was long on the short of it

There he is, churning out 6 pages worth of consummate New Yorker short story. The problem is, I don't always like New Yorker short stories. So getting through all of Updike's Early Stories: 1953-1975 - even just a few stories at a time, over more than a month - was tough at times.

Earlier this year I had my first encounter with Updike in the form of his Rabbit novels. Here were my thoughts way back then. Reading those four novels back-to-back might have spoiled me on his characters. There just isn't enough time in some of these stories for much depth in the characters and at their most one-dimensional Updike's characters can be pretty weak and samey from story to story. The young men are naive and weak, the older men dashing horndogs, and the women, most disturbingly, often relegated to scenery or singular objects of desire. Also, most everyone is white as hell. I feel like I need some Junot Diaz just to remind myself that writing doesn't have to be this prim. Here's an example of Updike having some good, clean fun:

(I should note that although I am an aesthetically-inclined white dude - Updike's office above looks awesome to me - I have pretty easily resisted the urge to play the recorder during my adult life.)

Some specific stories:
Pigeon Feathers - A beautiful story from the Olinger section of the book that was pretty damned great until it gets Intelligent Designy at the end. Maybe people who believe in I.D. should use this story instead of a crazy museum with displays of dinosaurs and people hangin' out. Flintstones episodes do not equal science people.

A&P - An appropriately short story that supposedly gets taught in school. It kind of gets lost in this huge book.

Maples Stories - This crazy couple pops up a bunch in these stories. Their super-fun marriage featured an "understanding" and there was much talk of one spouse knowing about the other's lover. How protestant, or maybe, Russian?

Friends from Philadephia - A nice lil story I enjoyed because of the Raymond Carver-like tension that just hung over everything. It just seemed like someone was about to shout, "WHADDA YA THINK YER BETTER'N ME?!?!" at any moment. But they don't. Carver would love it. Then he would get drunk and fall asleep.

The section "Far Out" seems to include stories where Updike experimented outside his comfort zone, including a story about dinosaurs. And like David Sedaris' weird animal fiction, the less said, the better. Actually, these stories were worse than that. Sorry to drag you into this David. Tell the Rooster I said, "hey."

I started Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds (from his "Complete Novels" - a big book) alongside a rereading of Middlesex. Supposedly O'Brien's an under-read Irish writer actually named Brian O'Nolan who also wrote under another super-Irish pseudonym: Myles na gCopaleen (not misspelled, I promise). As an over-reading, potato-lovin' Irish-American I thought I'd give him a shot. I'm interested to see influence of Joyce since I'm enjoying Ulysses more and more in retrospect (maybe the best way to enjoy it?).

Wabbits

Apologies for the black and white photo.

I've just finished the last of Updike's four "Rabbit" novels. I really enjoyed them and am glad that this project and his recent death (and many subsequent appreciations) encouraged me to read Updike. Much like with Mailer, I didn't know what to expect from him other than he was a respected American author who could be a bit of a bastard. Updike had quite a bit more style than Mailer and more of an ability to turn the boring beautiful. Also, Updike was able to write Rabbit Angstrom (at least in the early novels) as the type of shitty person that Mailer was in real life.

Reading the four novels in succession had it's rewarding moments; particularly being able to see the parallels between Rabbit's early and late lives and the similarities between Rabbit and his son when they are at comparable ages. If it weren't for an all-day jury duty session during which the featured, alternate entertainments were the films Radio, Flightplan, and Calendar Girls; I probably wouldn't have blazed through them quite so quickly.

Next up, Gravity's Rainbow. A random goal: Read Ulysses before Bloomsday, possibly rereading The Odyssey beforehand, and watching O, Brother throughout.

Note: "Updike, fight" didn't yield any videos.

The Norman and the Dead

I finished The Naked and the Dead last night. Some of my Mailer fears were confirmed. I didn't really enjoy it on the whole. I thought Mailer's simple-language style wasn't particularly evocative and was pretty boring when stretched over 700 pages. I did like the character sketches that gave background on the characters, both because of the way they were written and because they provided welcome respite from the overly detailed war narrative. I've read about similar military mismanagement issues in a much funnier book and actually quit on a recent televised presentation covering some of the same areas. So what you're left with after removing all of those parts is a lot of "he doesn't know any better/it was another time"-style racism. I'm still holding out hope that I'll enjoy The Executioner's Song since it's about an issue in which I'm actually interested and is often favorably compared to one of my favorite books, In Cold Blood.

Also, John Updike died. Meaning that Pynchon, Joseph McElroy, Howard Zinn and Bob Spitz are the only living authors left on my list. Watch out fellas. It also means that John Irving is the only one left alive to fight against the literary scourge (his opinion, not always mine) that is Tom Wolfe.

Next Up, Howard Zinn's A People's History of the Unites States.