John updike

JOHN UPDİKE
(1932-2009)
• John Hoyer Updike was an American
writer, poet, literary critic and novelist. He
was born on 18th March 1932 in Reading,
Pennsylvania. Updike was the only child
of Wesley Russell Updike, a mathematics
teacher and an aspiring writer Linda
Grace Hoyer. His mother’s writing
passion became a major influence on
young John. He often used to recall his
mother’s writing desk, the typewriter and
clean sheets of paper. One day he hoped
to have it all. Updike went to Shillington
High School and graduated as a
valedictorian and class president in 1950.
He then enrolled into Harvard where he
gained the reputation of a prolific writer
being a regular contributor and president
of the ‘Harvard Lampoon’. He graduated
in 1954 ‘summa cum laude’ with a degree
in English

Updike’s initial desire was to become a cartoonist. To
pursue this goal he entered the ‘The Ruskin School
of Drawing and Fine Arts’ at the University of Oxford.
After completing school he returned to America
where began to contribute to ‘The New Yorker’ at a
regular basis marking the beginning of a remarkable
writing career. His first story for this magazine was
called ‘Friends from Philadelphia’. John Updike
remained at his post of staff writer for ‘The New
Yorker’ for two years. He wrote the columns ‘Talk of
the Town’, poetry and short stories for the magazine.
Some of these stories became the groundwork for
his later poetry books such as ‘The Carpentered Hen’
(1958) and ‘The Same Door’ (1959). His 1968 novel,
‘Couples’ created a great hype by portraying the
relationship of young married couples and the
complications in their lives.

• Though Updike’s work in general
was highly respected, his
outstanding career as a poet was
distinguished with successful
volumes of poems such as
‘Telephone Poles and Other
Poems’ (1963), ‘Midpoint’ (1969)
and ‘Tossing and Turning’ (1977)
which is considered to be one of
his best works. Updike also went
through a deep spiritual crisis
which he overcame by reading
the works of the theologians Karl
Barth and Søren Kierkegaard. This
religious journey also influenced
many of his books.

• John Updike was popular for many
of his previous books but he rose to
great eminence with his novel
‘Rabbit Run’ that was published in
1960. This book gave birth to one of
the most famed American characters
of the 20th century; Harry (Rabbit)
Angstrom. His story starts in high
school where he was appreciated as
a terrific basketball player. The
events that unfold bring him to a
dead end job at the age of 26 and he
had given up on life. Following his
name he does what he does best; he
runs. Updike’s skill as a writer should
be credited here because a character
so unlikable ends up gaining
sympathy from the public. The other
three novels of the series are a
continuation of Rabbit’s life story.
They are ‘Rabbit Redux’ (1971),
‘Rabbit is Rich’ (1981) and ‘Rabbit at
Rest’ (1990). ‘Rabbit is Rich’ won
him the ‘Pulitzer Prize’ in 1982.

• At 32 years of age, John
Updike became the
youngest person to get
elected to the ‘National
Institute of Arts and Letters’.
George H. W Bush
presented him with the
‘National medal of Art’ in
1989 and the ‘National
Medal for the Humanities’
by G.W Bush in 2003. This
great writer of English
literature died on 27th
January 2009 in Beverly
Farms, Massachusetts

Period of him
• A highly disciplined person, he wrote
about 7 hours a day, 6 days a week.
• He found his subject matter in the
lives of middle class, WASP (white
Anglo-saxon protestant), small town
people-those everyday souls
struggling with daily life, with
marriage, sex, religion and the fear
of death-which they knew face us all
and which will occur sooner or later.
• He was known for his beautiful
prose, every word carefully chosen,
nothing left to waste. His poetry,
light verse, and his essays on
authors, art, religion and other topics
filled volumes.

• Updike is accepted as a modernist.
but John Updike is versatility writer
and he produced about a book a
year, publishing 60 volumes
(including 26 novels) during his
lifetime,and these works show that
the characteristics of different
literary movements.
• Updike has described himself as ''
a conservative realist writer .
• Although Updike is involed in
modelist movement , actually we
can say he is between the
modernisim and the
postmoderenisim.

• For example; John Updike's short
story, "Separating, Published in
1975 , , (seventy years are
accepted postmodernisim) fit
well in modernist literature;
However, "Separating" bears
enough postmodernist attributes
• And also Updike utilizes the
Realist styles and themes in the
'Rabbit ' series. And symbolism
more closely related to the
modernist period,in this series.
• Updike infuses his writing with
symbols. For example, the
basketball and its game in
Rabbit, Run represents Harry's
rise and fall. His failure at
basketball represents his
continued failures in life.

modernisim
• The large cultural wave of Modernism,
which gradually emerged in Europe
and the United States in the early
years of the 20th century,
• expressed a sense of modern life
through art as a sharp break from the
past, as well as from Western
civilization’s classical traditions.
Modern life seemed radically different
from traditional life — more scientific,
faster, more technological, and more
mechanized.
• Modernism embraced these changes.
World war II created a generation of
writers who questioned traditional
values.

• As a resultmany of them focused
on social problems,a loss of belief
in the old truths, and human
despair.
• Dominad mood in modernist
American literature is
alienationand disconnection.
• People unable to communicate
effectively.fear of eroding traditions
and grief over loss of the pastare
common in this kind of literature.
• Allusionsin writing often refer to
classical Greek and Roman writings.
Use of fragments, juxtaposition and
streamof consciousness are
common

Themes
• The principal themes in Updike’s
work are religion, sex, America,
adultery, and death.
• Religion
• Updike underwent spiritual crisis
because of suffering from a loss
of religious faith. In the Beauty of
the Lilies (1996): decline of
religion in America alongside the
history of cinema.
• In Rabbit Rest, God seems hardly
to exist at all. Christian values
such as pity, piety, love and
selflessness etc. Their absence
severely criticized in the novel.

• Sex
• Updike’s proses heavily
favors’’external sexuality imagery’’
rife with ‘’explicit anatomical detail’’
rather than describtion of ‘’internal
emotion’’ in describtion of sex. His
contemporaries invade the ground
with wild Dionysian yelps, mocking
both the taboos that would make it
forbitten and the lust that drives men
to it. Updike can be honest about it,
and his describtion of the sight, taste
and texture of women’s bodies can
ben perfect little madrigals.

• America
• Updike’s novels abouth
America almost always
contain referance to politic
events of the time. In this
sense, they are artifacts of
their historical eras,
showing how national
leaders shape and define
their times. The lives of
ordinary citizens take place
against this wider
background.

• Death
• As he had some problem with religion
whe you was young, his characters also
live same events inhis works. Their fear
of death threatens to make everything
they do feel meaningless, and it also
sends them running after God. About
his own fear of death, we can see a
short quote from his poem ‘’Perfection
Wasted’’
‘’And another regrettable thing abouth death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic…’’

Writing style
• Widely recognized as one of the
best American writers of his era
• Simple yet sophisticated
• Plot was often simple, easy to
follow
• Extremely descriptive prose
• "Give the mundane its beautiful
due"
• Utilized complex metaphors, and
elegant prose
• Many of his stories had cliff
hanger endings
• Used subtext effectively and
didn't always directly tell the
reader what was happening in
the story

What others had to
say about Updike
•
"The reason I didn't review the book is
that it perhaps would have taken me
three weeks. My appreciation of it is
that diverse and that complicated ...
John is perhaps the only contemporary
writer who I know now who gives me
the sense of the fact that life is—the
life that we perform is in an
environment that enjoys a grandeur
that escapes us... It's the vastness of
John's scope that I would have
described if I could through a review" -
John Cheever
• "The man who broke the curse of
incompleteness that had haunted
American writing" -Adam Gopnik New
Yorker

The Works of John Updike
• Updike was most famous for his ‘’
Rabit’’ series, which included five
novels about Rabbit Angstrom, a
middle-class man who exemplified
spritual and cultural problems of his
generation
• (time). Two of novels, Rabbit is
Rich(1981) and Rabbit at rest (1991)
both received Pultizer Prizes for
Fiction, which made Updike only the
thrid American to win two Pultizer
Prizes

JOHN UPDIKE'S
INFLUENCES
• Updike was born and raised in
rural Pennsylvania
• His mother was a writer (albeit a
failed one) and that inspired
Updike to start writing
• His original plan was to be a
cartoonist
• In his college years he
underwent a spiritual crisis and
became a believing Christian for
the rest of his life
• As a result, religion is a main
theme in many of his stories
• His mentor was Vladimir
Nabokov and he also drew
inspiration from writers James
Joyce, Marcel Proust, Henry
Green and J.D. Salinger

• He , first and foremost, experienced
family life in the hills and valleyse of
Southeastern Pennsylvania in a way
thatmight seem forgein to
contemporary reddetse.
• Like most authours, much of Updike’s
wrting is based on personal history.
His early years in Shilington,
Pennsylvania would influence the
environment of the Rabbit Angstrom
series, as well as many of his early
novels and short stories.
• He began writing for the New Yorker
as hisfirst job out of college and he
has acknowledged the influence of
fellow New Yorker poets Odgen Nash
and Phyllis McGinley ON HİS LİGHT
PROSE , Updike’s career and
reputation were nurtured and
expanded by his long association with
tThe New Yorker , which puplished
him frequently throughout his lifetime

• At home, he consumed
popular fiction, espevially
humor and mysteries. His
mother , herself an aspiring
writer , encouraged him to
write and dese.

impress
• Ann Beattie
• David Foster Wallace
• Alice Muno
• George Saunders
• Nicholson Baker
• Ian McEwan
• Rick Moody
• Joseph O’Neill
• Ethan Canin
• Martin Amis
• Loyd Kropp
• Cerdwen Dovey
• David Baddiel
• Jonathan Lethem
• Richerd Ford
Be impressed
• Ernest Hemingway
Henry Green
Nathaniel Hawthorne
James Joyce
Søren Kierkegaard
Franz Kafka
Marcel Proust
Truman Capote
Vladimir Nabokov
J. D. Salinger
John Cheever
Karl Barth
William Shakespeare
James Thurber

Conclusion
• John Updike is versatility writer by his
different Works and He is as a mirror
to reflect the rural life of Middle Class
White Americans, american social and
political history and also an
indisputable fact that he is very
succesful to convey "rural boredom"
with a not boring style and an ironic
style. One of the most successful
works and winning to him twice The
Pulitzer Prize are among the works
that best discribe the distortions in
American culture even today. He is
one of the best novelist and story
tellers in the twentieth century. He
has a very innovative language fort he
his period, and he brought a
humorous perspective view of the
literary world. No matter how people
effect on his style to describe the ‘’sex
theme’’ in his works, he actually
wants people to live that in his works.

John updike

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