A Life of Growing Pains; John Updike's Tales of the Struggles of Adolescence and Adulthood Are Brought Together in a Stunning New Collection. By Rosemary Goring
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Summary
If, as Plato said, the unexamined life is not worth living, then John Updike's existence has been more worthwhile than most. The arch philosopher's position is, however, contentious. You could equally argue that the habit of contemplation is a form of indulgence, offering a narrow but well-lit path to smugness, vindication and exculpation on one hand, and gnawing guilt and self-recrimination on the other.
Updike's navel-gazing eye and conscience fall on the more angst- ridden side of these options. The 103 stories gathered here represent all but four of those he wrote in these years, 80 of which first appeared in The New Yorker. The business of selecting, as opposed to collecting, his stories belongs, he writes, to others, "when the writer is no longer alive to obstruct the process". As a result, what is laid before us is an extraordinary and complete body of work, revealing an endlessly questioning, reflective fictional world in which the author's face stares out at us as clearly as if he had run off a spool of self-portraits.See the full content of this document
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A Life of Growing Pains; John Updike's Tales of the Struggles of Adolescence and Adulthood Are Brought Together in a Stunning New Collection. By Rosemary Goring
Viewed as an entity, this collection is a masterpiece, establishing Updike - if anyone needed a reminder - as one of the handful of truly great writers of the past half century. It is also a stunning demonstration of what the short story can do. Although he is probably best known for his novels, his Rabbit series in particular, following the suburban trav...
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