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Updike (2014)

by Adam Begley(Favorite Author)

4.24 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0061896454 (ISBN13: 9780061896453)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Harper

review 1: I have mixed feelings about this book in retrospect, although I did enjoy it. It is not your classic biography. It doesn’t really nail Updike. The writer obviously spoke to a number of sources, but their views seem quite muted and give limited insight into his personality and events. Perhaps the fact that Updike’s second wife did not participate in the biography may have coloured the process. Perhaps, aside from wife-swapping small town gossip, there really wasn’t that much to say, especially as Updike’s triumph is to celebrate the “middling” and his general tastes and activities, outside of literature, tended towards provincial life and the golf course. Begley’s main focus is to hold up the books as a reflection of Updike’s life and point out how much he ... moremined his own life for stories. This was never less than interesting for someone who has read a lot of Updike’s books and has inspired me to read many of them again.
review 2: I was never an Updike reader, which is odd since I read so much. Toward the end of his life, I read a book of his poetry and was quite taken with that (and will probably read it again, soon.) I flew through this very thick book. I knew he was heavily influenced with his small town life in Pennsylvania and harvested that vein for a lifetime. I didn't know what a golden boy he had been from youth (in terms of his future promise.) His life in Ipswich was a real sixties debauchery that made me pity his wife. I am going to try reading some of his fiction again and see if I've changed my mind. less

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