The clunker is back on the road. First stop, the death of John Updike

Time to scrape off the rust, change the oil and recharge the battery on Quick Reads which has been sitting abandoned in the PG parking lot for nearly two months. Let’s fire it up for 2009 and take it out for a spin more often.

RIP, John Updike

One of the challenges of working for a daily newspaper is writing the obituary of a well-known person on deadline while trying to come to grips with the death personally.

John Updike’s death caught me off guard. I had no inkling that he was stricken with lung cancer. He was making a West Coast swing in November to promote his last novel, "The Widows of Eastwick."

Lea Garchick, San Francisco Chronicle columnist, reported Nov. 12:

"John Updike, 76, whose new book is "The Widows of Eastwick," was a big hit at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on Monday night, even though his wife, Martha, said he had pneumonia. That in no way deterred him from flirting with many young women who stood in line to have him autograph books."

So, something was surfacing at that time. That his family allowed him privacy as his illness progressed is admirable.

More observations on Mr. Updike will be added here. So far, here are messages from Pittsburgh guys actor David Conrad and novelist Lester Goran:

Conrad: "Bob, you showed them why they shouldn’t lean on AP. I never knew about the event in Kittanning. A ‘small audience.’ Damn."

Updike came to Pittsburgh in late March of 1992 to speak to the National College English Association and accepted an invitation to speak in Kittanning at Indiana University’s Armstrong County branch. It booked the high school auditorium.

I heard about the talk at the last minute and still recall the frantic drive up Route 28 to get there in time.

Goran: "Loved your use of the quote from Richard Ford. How do we honor John Updike enough? He’s tracked, led the way, cast a shadow, and cleared the bushes for almost every American writer of his time. I thought he’d be around forever. I own at least ten of his books."

 

One of the most meaningless and pretentious descriptions of Updike’s work comes from the New Yorker this week:

"We have always been grateful for his unerring ability to limn the fissures of ordinary American life, and for the seemingly effortless lyricism of his prose."

Who thinks these absurd comments up, the same gag writers who do the captions for the cartoons?