Author John Updike has passed away

lilac_jive · 01-27-2009, 02:03 PM

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/book...ike/index.html

RIP.

Dr. Drib · 01-27-2009, 02:34 PM

Jesus Christ, this is bad news.

I very much enjoy his work, and was hoping he would win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Don

lilac_jive · 01-27-2009, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Jesus Christ, this is bad news.

I very much enjoy his work, and was hoping he would win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Don

Can they give them post-mortem?

Dr. Drib · 01-27-2009, 03:30 PM

No, unfortunately.

Don

lilac_jive · 01-27-2009, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

No, unfortunately.

Don

Oh bummer

xianfox · 01-27-2009, 04:03 PM

It is a sad day indeed.

Never awarding him a Nobel prize for literature will be their loss, not his.

bwaldron · 01-27-2009, 04:08 PM

Yes, it is sad news. Here is more from the Boston Globe.

HarryT · 01-28-2009, 02:30 AM

He won two Pulitzer prizes - that's pretty good going!

vivaldirules · 01-28-2009, 09:32 AM

A barn, in a day, is a small night. The splinters of light between the dry shingles pierce the high roof like stars, and the rafters and crossbeams and built-in ladders seem, until your eyes adjust, as mysterious as the branches of a haunted forest. David entered silently, the gun in one hand.... The smell of old straw scratched his sinuses.... the mouths of empty bins gaped like caves. Rusty oddments of farming — coils of baling wire, some spare tines for a harrow, a handleless shovel — hung on nails driven here and there in the thick wood. He stood stock-still a minute; it took a while to separate the cooing of the pigeons from the rustling in his ears. When he had focused on the cooing, it flooded the vast interior with its throaty, bubbling outpour: there seemed no other sound. They were up behind the beams. What light there was leaked through the shingles and the dirty glass windows at the far end and the small round holes, about as big as basketballs, high on the opposite stone side walls, under the ridge of the roof.

From the story “Pigeon Feathers.”

Dr. Drib · 01-28-2009, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

A barn, in a day, is a small night. The splinters of light between the dry shingles pierce the high roof like stars, and the rafters and crossbeams and built-in ladders seem, until your eyes adjust, as mysterious as the branches of a haunted forest. David entered silently, the gun in one hand.... The smell of old straw scratched his sinuses.... the mouths of empty bins gaped like caves. Rusty oddments of farming — coils of baling wire, some spare tines for a harrow, a handleless shovel — hung on nails driven here and there in the thick wood. He stood stock-still a minute; it took a while to separate the cooing of the pigeons from the rustling in his ears. When he had focused on the cooing, it flooded the vast interior with its throaty, bubbling outpour: there seemed no other sound. They were up behind the beams. What light there was leaked through the shingles and the dirty glass windows at the far end and the small round holes, about as big as basketballs, high on the opposite stone side walls, under the ridge of the roof.

From the story “Pigeon Feathers.”

Yes, exactly like that.

Don

RonPrice · 01-29-2009, 04:34 AM

UPDIKE

John Updike’s Rabbit tetralogy chronicles reflectively the decades since I first had contact with the Baha’i Faith back in 1953. With the help of a Guggenheim Fellowship Updike was working on the first of these four books, Rabbit, Run, when I became a Baha’i in October 1959. The book was published a few months later in 1960 and is the story of a young man, one Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom, from a small town in the USA. The book concerns Harry’s attempts to escape the constraints of life. In my teens I, too, lived in a small town and, although I could see the attractiveness of escaping from social constraints, I also left the need for a set of limits. I was only too well aware of just how easily I could go beyond the appropriate limits. By the late fifties I could see what happened to those who did escape from life’s, from society’s, constraints. I knew from personal experience by my early teens, by 1957, what it was like to be caught stealing, breaking and entering, going too far sexually, misbehaving around the family home, at school or with my play-mates and pushing the envelope of life. Had I read Updike’s book, Rabbit, Run I think I would have had my need, my desire, for limits reinforced. The Baha’i Faith provided that framework, those limits, at a critical stage in my life, my mid-teens. This Faith also provided that sense of the sacredness of life which is at the centre of Updike’s work.

When I was preparing to leave North America for Australia in 1970/1 people were watching the movie Rabbit, Run. It had opened just as I began planning to leave Canada in 1970. Rabbit Redux, Updike’s sequel to Rabbit, Run came out four months after I arrived in Sydney for what became my life in Australia. Harry Angstrom took to the road in 1971 in Rabbit Redux as I took to a different road in the southern hemisphere. Updike’s final two Rabbit books took Harry Angstrom into the 1990s and his rather bleak retirement and old age. The following prose-poem compares and contrasts my life with Harry’s. –Ron Price with thanks to “Articles on John Updike’s Works,” in The New York Times on the Web.

You didn’t think much about politics
back then in the ‘50s, did you John?
Private destiny was your concern,
then and now--not that partisan game.
And your then theories about how
to write are now forgotten, eh John?

When Rabbit is Rich was set in ’79,
I was living in Tasmania fighting
another bi-polar episode; Harry was
fighting his many losses in life
or was it life’s pleasures--sex, booze,
marital infidelity and having fun?

Then Harry got old--at just 55--
in 1990 in Rabbit At Rest, a decade
before I headed into quieter pastures
where death and age awaited---
inevitably long down life’s road,
but not with fear, emptiness
and Harry’s downward slide
with its world inhabited by
ghosts and demons of his past.

Ron Price

bozon42 · 01-29-2009, 05:15 AM

I am also sad.
I have read almost all of his books and enjoyed them very much.

RIP Rabbit...

bozon42

HappyMartin · 01-29-2009, 06:34 AM

Oh no. loved his work. Sad

harryE123 · 01-31-2009, 12:05 AM

Rip, john. He sure was prolific. I 've read just small part of his work, there seemed to be a lot of breadth to it, but, allow me to say, I found little depth to it really. A man's writer for sure, an in no way a writer's writer. At least he was way way better than vapid twunts like Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie. I am sure he will be missed by a lot of readers.

01-27-2009, 02:03 PM	#1
lilac_jive Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,870 Karma: 27376 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Device: PRS-505	Author John Updike has passed away http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/book...ike/index.html RIP.

01-29-2009, 04:34 AM	#11
RonPrice Mr RonPrice Posts: 26 Karma: 1010100 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: George Town Tasmania Australia Device: I have 2 ebooks on the internet	Some Reflections on the Passing of John Updike UPDIKE John Updike’s Rabbit tetralogy chronicles reflectively the decades since I first had contact with the Baha’i Faith back in 1953. With the help of a Guggenheim Fellowship Updike was working on the first of these four books, Rabbit, Run, when I became a Baha’i in October 1959. The book was published a few months later in 1960 and is the story of a young man, one Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom, from a small town in the USA. The book concerns Harry’s attempts to escape the constraints of life. In my teens I, too, lived in a small town and, although I could see the attractiveness of escaping from social constraints, I also left the need for a set of limits. I was only too well aware of just how easily I could go beyond the appropriate limits. By the late fifties I could see what happened to those who did escape from life’s, from society’s, constraints. I knew from personal experience by my early teens, by 1957, what it was like to be caught stealing, breaking and entering, going too far sexually, misbehaving around the family home, at school or with my play-mates and pushing the envelope of life. Had I read Updike’s book, Rabbit, Run I think I would have had my need, my desire, for limits reinforced. The Baha’i Faith provided that framework, those limits, at a critical stage in my life, my mid-teens. This Faith also provided that sense of the sacredness of life which is at the centre of Updike’s work. When I was preparing to leave North America for Australia in 1970/1 people were watching the movie Rabbit, Run. It had opened just as I began planning to leave Canada in 1970. Rabbit Redux, Updike’s sequel to Rabbit, Run came out four months after I arrived in Sydney for what became my life in Australia. Harry Angstrom took to the road in 1971 in Rabbit Redux as I took to a different road in the southern hemisphere. Updike’s final two Rabbit books took Harry Angstrom into the 1990s and his rather bleak retirement and old age. The following prose-poem compares and contrasts my life with Harry’s. –Ron Price with thanks to “Articles on John Updike’s Works,” in The New York Times on the Web. You didn’t think much about politics back then in the ‘50s, did you John? Private destiny was your concern, then and now--not that partisan game. And your then theories about how to write are now forgotten, eh John? When Rabbit is Rich was set in ’79, I was living in Tasmania fighting another bi-polar episode; Harry was fighting his many losses in life or was it life’s pleasures--sex, booze, marital infidelity and having fun? Then Harry got old--at just 55-- in 1990 in Rabbit At Rest, a decade before I headed into quieter pastures where death and age awaited--- inevitably long down life’s road, but not with fear, emptiness and Harry’s downward slide with its world inhabited by ghosts and demons of his past. Ron Price

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01-27-2009, 02:34 PM	#2
Dr. Drib Grand Sorcerer Posts: 44,737 Karma: 55645321 Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Peru Device: Kindle: Oasis 3, Voyage WiFi; Kobo: Libra 2, Aura One	Jesus Christ, this is bad news. I very much enjoy his work, and was hoping he would win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Don

01-27-2009, 03:30 PM	#4
Dr. Drib Grand Sorcerer Posts: 44,737 Karma: 55645321 Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Peru Device: Kindle: Oasis 3, Voyage WiFi; Kobo: Libra 2, Aura One	No, unfortunately. Don

01-27-2009, 04:03 PM	#6
xianfox Ebook Addict Posts: 225 Karma: 2136 Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Appleton, Wisconsin, USA Device: Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition	It is a sad day indeed. Never awarding him a Nobel prize for literature will be their loss, not his.

01-27-2009, 04:08 PM	#7
bwaldron Wizard Posts: 1,229 Karma: 543210 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Gatlinburg, Tennessee Device: Kindles: Paperwhite Signature Ed., Oasis 2, Voyage	Yes, it is sad news. Here is more from the Boston Globe.

01-28-2009, 02:30 AM	#8
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	He won two Pulitzer prizes - that's pretty good going!

01-28-2009, 09:32 AM	#9
vivaldirules When's Doughnut Day? Posts: 10,059 Karma: 13675475 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Houston, TX, US Device: Sony PRS-505, iPad	A barn, in a day, is a small night. The splinters of light between the dry shingles pierce the high roof like stars, and the rafters and crossbeams and built-in ladders seem, until your eyes adjust, as mysterious as the branches of a haunted forest. David entered silently, the gun in one hand.... The smell of old straw scratched his sinuses.... the mouths of empty bins gaped like caves. Rusty oddments of farming — coils of baling wire, some spare tines for a harrow, a handleless shovel — hung on nails driven here and there in the thick wood. He stood stock-still a minute; it took a while to separate the cooing of the pigeons from the rustling in his ears. When he had focused on the cooing, it flooded the vast interior with its throaty, bubbling outpour: there seemed no other sound. They were up behind the beams. What light there was leaked through the shingles and the dirty glass windows at the far end and the small round holes, about as big as basketballs, high on the opposite stone side walls, under the ridge of the roof. From the story “Pigeon Feathers.”

01-29-2009, 05:15 AM	#12
bozon42 Enthusiast Posts: 36 Karma: 18 Join Date: Apr 2008 Device: Lbook V3	I am also sad. I have read almost all of his books and enjoyed them very much. RIP Rabbit... bozon42

01-29-2009, 06:34 AM	#13
HappyMartin Martin Kristiansen Posts: 1,546 Karma: 8480958 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Johannesburg Device: Kindle International Ipad 2	Oh no. loved his work. Sad

01-31-2009, 12:05 AM	#14
harryE123 Banned Posts: 272 Karma: 70 Join Date: Dec 2008 Device: irex reader	Rip, john. He sure was prolific. I 've read just small part of his work, there seemed to be a lot of breadth to it, but, allow me to say, I found little depth to it really. A man's writer for sure, an in no way a writer's writer. At least he was way way better than vapid twunts like Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie. I am sure he will be missed by a lot of readers.

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