A prolific novelist, essayist, poet, and critic, Pennsylvania native John Updike
attended Harvard before becoming a staff writer for the
New Yorker. With a keen eye for middle-class drama and tragedy,
Updike’s popular novels include Rabbit, Run
(1960) and the Pulitzer Prize–winning Rabbit Is Rich
(1981).
Sites about John Updike:
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Pegasos, a literary resource Web site, includes this extensive biography of
Updike and a selected list of his many works.
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The New York Times Book Review
Web page has links to a number of interviews with Updike. You can read the
interviews online or download the RealAudio files. This site also links to
articles about Updike and reviews of his work.
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The Centaurian Web site is devoted to discussion and information about Updike’s
life and work.
Updike studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, at Oxford and
contributed both writing and drawings to the Harvard
Lampoon. What influence do you think Updike’s background in art has on his
writing? Do you see any trace of the artist in the essays in
The Norton Reader from Just Looking?
Visit some museum Web sites (listed below) where you can view the art and read
some background information on the pieces you choose. Write your own short
essays about three or four works of art. Try to capture Updike’s style and tone
by making connections between these works and your own experiences.
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/
http://www.guggenheim.org/
http://www.artic.edu/aic/
In his essay “Nineteen Forties” (http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/06/lifetimes/updike-v-reading.html),
Updike talks about himself as a reader. Write a similar biography of yourself as
a reader. Like Updike, try to be as specific as possible when you discuss the
kind of books you read when you were a child and the kind you read now, and what
those books mean to you.
Read through the essay “Nineteen Forties,” in which Updike describes his reading
habits as a child:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/06/lifetimes/updike-v-reading.html. How
do Updike’s early reading experiences compare with Dionne Brand’s? Write your
own short essay in which you describe your earliest memories of reading. Try to
be as detailed as possible. Where did you read? What books did you like? Who
influenced you the most?