As we finish this semester, we have explored many crevices of the life and times of one John Updike; an American author, novelist and critic who's works have outlasted his lifespan and will continue for decades to come. I have thoroughly enjoyed this study and it has made me a better reader and critic. We studied sex, the suburbs, religion and America through the decades. However, a fair assessment and conclusion is what comes at the end: a legacy. There is no doubt that Updike is a literary legend, a titan in anyone's measure. But there is a glaring flaw to his career which saddens me, this is the fact that Updike left no literary progeny. While Hemingway can point to Mark Twain as his inspiration and model as an author, Myers and I found no such relationship for Updike. He is a man who lived and wrote alone. Taking on the American suburbs with the view for the contemporary is admirable and bold. But, there is no one who does this same thing now. No one comments on America in such a fashion or centers his works on a character like Rabbit.
Why does no one hold the flame for Updike today? I have several ideas as to why but there is one that stands out more than others. Updike has no followers because in his works he held total control. When I say that I mean this: Updike's characters said and did exactly what he told them to say and do and they did no more. Never does a man like Rabbit or Nelson take on lives or personas outside of their respective typecasts. After the first two books, Rabbit's moves and mannerisms become predictable and somewhat stale. He continues the same choices that got him into the messes he started with his family and job life and does not see that the troubles continue. Updike was too afraid to relinquish control. This is tricky because all fiction is made up and characters are all written by an author; but consider this: Yossarian changed war novels forever. Period. Everyone since Heller has written about war with a cockeyed view. Long gone are the days of the stoic soldiers fighting for a cause, knife gritted between their teeth, hacking and slashing their way through nameless and faceless enemies for God and country. All Quiet on The Western Front is a beautiful novel about war and the individual, but it comes nowhere near the realization that war is an insane proposition. Those soldiers of the Kaiser fought because it was their duty and death in the field was just bad fortune. No. Today's war author considers the other guys, after all they are humans too, and sees that the "good" guys and "bad" guys want the same thing: to survive a situation in which they have little control and the forces in action are greater than themselves. Yossarian helps us to see the futility of war and its effect on the individual. Making war a farce was Heller's calling and he did it quite well. But without Yossarian none of this would be possible. Heller sort of gave his careening bombardier a push and the character took off by himself. Yossarian Lives is not just the cult slogan for those of us who love Catch 22, it is also a literary saying that Yossarian lives outside of the novel, that is his situations and personality can exist outside of the book. Updike never allowed his characters such freewill.
Also none of his characters are "smarter" than him. All of his books are written in third person. And where a smart character would say something intuitive or intelligent or do something outside of himself Updike's ever present and omniscient Narrator jumps in and offers expert analysis and commentary. Where Updike should be offering thoughts on baseball in Rabbit, Redux it is instead the Narrator acting in his stead. Rabbit would be a different and more interesting character if he were allowed to offer Updike's thoughts on baseball himself instead of the Narrator. If Rabbit offered some salient point on the national pastime or discussed how the forced interaction with his father in law and son made him feel would be better for all involved. It would make Updike look that much more benevolent as an author because he allowed his character to voice Updike instead of Updike voicing Updike, it would be better for Rabbit because it would show the audience that Rabbit is capable of complex thought and further it would be better for the audience and longevity of the work because instead of the author directly speaking he would offer his thoughts through the filter of the character which is not only more empathetic but intersting too. Its like the voice over in a sitcom or the future Ted Mosby talking to his dumbass kids in the insufferable How I Met Your Mother. (My hatred for that show deserves its own post but suffice to say that I find Ted to be laughably weak and creepily fixated on getting married, I find Robin to be an unpleasant distraction if she isn't going to end up as Ted's wife. Further I think that Jason Segal and his redheaded wife don't add anything and that Neil Patrick Harris' back must be killing him from carrying this enema of a show.)
Further, this fits in line with Updike's fervent devotion to Realism. Updike always wrote within the realm of the real because he lacked the imagination to see outside of those walls. Why didn't Ahmad blow up the tunnel in Terrorist? Because Updike has no concept of the mind of a terrorist, and since he cannot comprehend those machinations he leaves the end of the story with no conclusion other than the tunnel is intact and our fair weather terrorist going home to live another day in Jersey. A more imaginative writer (or at least one who did his homework) could conceive Ahmad blowing up the tunnels in a tribute to his deadbeat father or as an anger fueled rejection of his mother's lax Catholicism. What I am saying is that because Updike only wrote and acted within the bounds of that which he could see and comprehend, he bungled the end of Terrorist and showed the limits of his writing prowess.
Now, it pains me to write so disparagingly about Updike. He is a great author and man in his own right and my undergraduate complaints certainly don't permeate the vast library he wrote. But don't forget that Updike only just died in 2009. He is still widely read and consulted as an expert on words and ideas. However, he has no family tree. Consider this: great coaches are measured on their wins and championships but they are also judged on how many successful coaches they produced too. Woody Hayes won championships, but guess what? He taught Bo Schembechler, Lou Holtz, Ara Parseghian and Earle Bruce. Good list, but if you take it a step further those guys brought Pete Carrol, Urban Meyer, Jim Tressel, Nick Saban and Ron Zook among others by their tutelage. Now if you add up the number of football championships that have been won because of Woody Hayes it is astounding. This is my point, success breeds success. Rarely is there one man who is successful and doesn't pass the good stuff along. Updike breaks the trend. He is the exception, the man who didn't have a protege.
“All of his books are written in third person.” You are here overlooking at least five novels so constructed—A Month of Sundays, The Coup, Roger’s Version, S, and Toward the End of Time—which leads me to suppose that the late D.G. Myers, himself a conscientious scholar, did not supervise your semester quite as closely as he might have.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in my twenties (quite some time ago, back when Myers and I were both in college together) I used to dismiss Updike as a mere chronicler of suburban adultery. I later discovered that the subject was more fraught and, in some ways, more piquant than I'd imagined then. Put the Rabbit tetralogy aside for two or three decades: if you revisit them in middle age with a nice thick substrate of follies committed, opportunities spurned, lessons absorbed, rewards earned, you may find more authenticity in Angstrom and in his creator than you presently descry.