John Updike was born in Reading, Pennsylvania. I recently moved from a small town very close to Reading. My children went to preschool in Reading. Updike received a number of honors, including the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Medal of Arts. He passed away this week.
I desired to honor his contribution to literature by reading a few of his works. And I had many from which to choose. I started with his "Rabbit" series. Nope. Perhaps "Gertrude and Claudius". Nope. I am not sure what I expected. I hate to read Hemingway, too. What would make me think that the passing of an author would spark more than superficial curiosity? Honestly, I didn't even like the movie "Witches of Eastwick". If you hate the movie, the book is not promising.
So, it is with hesitation that I give up the romantic notion of losing myself in this author's work upon his passing. I will appreciate him from afar. Thank you, John Updike, for all you did with a pen.
1 comment:
I got through two of his Rabbit books. I really wanted to read them because of them being based here. I used to live in exactly the area he wrote about. While it was fun to relate to that, the subject matter was SO depressing that it should have been an Oprah pick!
He was a great writer, but being depressed BECAUSE of a book just isn't my thing.
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