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Updike and Lawrence Durrell
I love the harmonies of the Beach Boys, the rush of air on the seashore, the heave and swell of waves, the sun going down on a blushing horizon, the full moon in sail on a starry night. And I love writers who can show me all this in sensuous, gorgeous prose. I love Updike…
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Rabbit Redux: From hot metal to cold type
From hot metal to cold type to online, newspapers have undergone two revolutions since the Cold War. The news used to come hot off the press, the words set on stone. It was a noisy business.
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Updike on writing
John Updike, Wilfred Owen and George Plimpton were all born on March 18, reminds the Writer’s Almanac. My favourite writer, the most celebrated First World War poet, and Plimpton, the founding editor of the Paris Review, which he helmed from 1953 till his death in 2003. I remember reading excerpts from Paper Lion, his book…
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The Widows of Eastwick
The Widows of Eastwick is a reminder of the extraordinary talent of John Updike. He died last month of cancer at the age of 76. This is his last book, published last year. But this doesn’t read like the work of an old man. It has all the zest for life and interest in sex…
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Updike’s Terrorist and adulterers
The Terrorist by John Updike India, not Iran, was the first to ban Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses shortly after it came out in September 1988, reminds the Observer. The then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress government banned the book under pressure from the opposition Janata Party. Both wanted the Muslim vote. It was only…
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