John Updike occupies almost an entire bookcase in my parents’ house.
When I was a young child, he didn’t take up quite as much space — there were so many books he had yet to write — but he was always a presence. Each Christmas, my mother gave my father the latest Updike book, and it took its rightful place in the bookcase. This year was no exception: My father received “The Widows of Eastwick,” Updike’s final novel.
I love reading, and so one might assume that at some point I would have cracked open one of my father’s many Updike books, and checked him out. But no. I never had the slightest interest in reading Updike, and for a long time that made sense, because I was a kid, and Updike’s books are not for kids. Yet even after I had moved on to more adult authors, and discovered writers such as John Irving, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood and Roddy Doyle, I stayed away from Updike. Whenever one of his short stories appeared in The New Yorker, I skipped it.
It wasn’t that I had a problem with John Updike, who died this week at age 76. He was my father’s favorite author; presumably, there was some reason why. He won two Pulitzers, and was generally regarded as one of the best American writers of his generation. And he was amazingly prolific — like clockwork, a new Updike book got released almost every year. But his books always seemed like My Father’s Books, rather than my own, and I regarded Updike as a relic from another era. I respected him, yes, but read him? Why would I do that? Especially when I could be tackling “Infinite Jest,” by David Foster Wallace.
Then, when I was in my mid-20s, a friend mentioned Updike’s Rabbit series; he and his fiance were reading them aloud to each other. “Have you read them?” my friend asked. “They’re great.” “My dad loves John Updike,” I said. “But, no, I’ve never read him.”
This conversation was enough to convince me that people besides my dad enjoyed reading John Updike — people who could be considered as my peers. The next time I was in a used bookstore, I picked up a volume containing the first three books in the Rabbit series: “Rabbit, Run,” “Rabbit Redux” and “Rabbit Is Rich,” and a few years later, I actually read them, borrowing the final Rabbit book, “Rabbit at Rest,” from the Updike bookcase at my parents’ house.
From the very first pages of the Rabbit series, I could see that my dad was on to something — that this Updike fellow was quite a writer, and that he clearly had something to say.
The Rabbit books, which detail the life and times of Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a small town, high school basketball star who marries his high school sweetheart, are amazing. They are sweeping, but precise, the moving story of an ordinary man who, despite his ordinariness, is one of the most unforgettable characters in American fiction. The series itself is an impressive literary achievement, and whenever someone tells me they don’t like John Updike, I ask, “Have you read the Rabbit books?” Usually, they haven’t.
I never related to Rabbit, but it didn’t matter, because it felt like I knew him — like I knew everything about him. He did any number of things I disapproved of, and I almost lost patience with him when he slept with his daughter-in-law. (“Good grief!” I remember thinking. “Even for you, Rabbit, that is beyond the pale!”) And yet I always sympathized with his struggle to find meaning in the world, because that’s something I struggle with, too. So maybe, in some ways, I did relate to Rabbit.
My dad is currently reading Updike’s 2006 novel “The Terrorist,” but it’s the first Updike he’s read in a long time. When I talked to him this week, he said that he hasn’t actually read much Updike since 1973, when he was writing about the Rabbit books for his seminary thesis paper. (My dad is a minister). “But why do you have all his books?” I asked. “Well, I’m kind of like your grandfather,” he explained. “Late in life, he read the works of Shakespeare. I don’t feel like doing that, so I’m going to read John Updike, instead.” He added that he likes Updike for his ability to write about both the ordinary and the spiritual, and for his focus on regular people.
Updike isn’t the only author I long avoided, despite his place of prominence in my parents’ bookcases. I’ve still never read any Saul Bellow, or James Michener, or Carolyn Chute. (Though I have read Annie Dillard, Jose Saramago and Barbara Kingsolver, who also reside on my parents’ bookshelves.) But my irrational prejudice against these authors has lifted. I can see that these are not just my Father’s Books, or my Mother’s Books, but books for me, too. Yes, they have become My Books, just as John Updike became one of My Writers. Maybe someday, I’ll check them out.
Right now I’m thinking that if I ever finish “War and Peace,” I may try to read John Updike’s 1968 novel, “Couples.” I’ve got a battered old copy that’s been gathering dust on my bookshelf for about three years. Much like my dad, I enjoy accumulating books, and reading them when the time is right.
Foss Forward makes a weekly appearance in print, in The Gazette’s Saturday Lifestyles section.
