Updike

Passed away today.

On Charlie Rose, after his book Terrorist was published:



Here's a quote from the interview I quite like. He and Charlie are discussing the use of Arabic in the book:

"There's a certain mystery to a language you don't know, a certain beauty even—I don't know. Maybe it was a bad idea."

That post em-dash stuff was just sort of thrown in there. I love the fact that Updike happily admits to his own authorial fallibility there. "What the heck do I know? I'm just John Updike."

When an author dies, many readers—possibly out of a feeling of guilt—decide the time is right to familiarize or re-familiarize themselves with that author's work. I would like to suggest that readers who feel like they would like to become better acquainted with Updike's work also consider reading Nicholson Baker's remarkable book on Updike and his influence on Baker, U and I.