{"id":47,"date":"2010-12-15T22:34:18","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T03:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelifeliterary.wordpress.com\/?p=47"},"modified":"2011-01-04T15:29:06","modified_gmt":"2011-01-04T20:29:06","slug":"literary-wannabe-puts-kibosh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=47","title":{"rendered":"Literary Wannabe Puts Kibosh"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m reading a first edition Updike\u00a0I picked up for a buck a few months\u00a0ago\u00a0from a used-book sale.\u00a0\u00a0The Coup<\/span> is a delightfully typical Updike,\u00a0lush and substantial like a thick, perfectly marbled prime-rib: juicy, rich, tasty, a pleasure to savor.\u00a0 Most of the action of this\u00a0Cold-War era story takes place in an impoverished, drought-stricken African nation\u00a0whose president\u00a0is both the leader of the Islamic\/Marxist revolution that\u00a0overthrew the monarchy, and the narrator.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u00a0enjoy\u00a0rich word-use, vivid descriptions and clever juxapositions which is why I liked the book.\u00a0 Like\u00a0other Updike, it illustrated the foibles, contradictions, and maybe even dangers\u00a0of 1950s and 60s middle American society’s wealth, prejudices and suppressed sexuality.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite scenes is\u00a0the (black African) narrator’s\u00a0 reminiscence of dinner at his (white, American) girlfriend’s family’s house.\u00a0 The narrator has already described the white overstuffed furniture set in the perfectly arranged suburban livingroom.\u00a0 Now, this second look hits home.<\/p>\n

In the rebellious act of standing I changed perspective on the room, and was freshly overwhelmed by its exotisme, its fantasy, the false flowers and fires, the melting-iceberg shapes of its furniture, its whiteness and coldness and magnificent sterility; the emptiness, in short, of its lavish fullness…<\/em><\/p>\n

Empty lavish fullness:\u00a0 words that express reality like that are sweet and satisfying candy.\u00a0 I savor them while they melt in my mouth, my mind, my heart.<\/p>\n

A quote toward the end of the book struck me as something I wouldn’t mind my family reading after my death.<\/p>\n

What we most miss of those that slip from us, is their wit, the wit that attends those who knew us- lovers, grandmothers, children.\u00a0 The sparks in their eyes are kindled just once by our passing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Keen of Updike\u00a0to recognize the thing that means the most from those near us: the knowing of us, even if only in the recognition of who we are and what we’re about.<\/p>\n

Books like this by authors like\u00a0Updike used to make me despair of ever publishing anything, of ever writing anything anyone would want to read for free\u00a0let alone buy it.\u00a0 With the Life Literary, I put the\u00a0kibosh on that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m reading a first edition Updike\u00a0I picked up for a buck a few months\u00a0ago\u00a0from a used-book sale.\u00a0\u00a0The Coup is a delightfully typical Updike,\u00a0lush and substantial like a thick, perfectly marbled prime-rib: juicy, rich, tasty, a pleasure to savor.\u00a0 Most of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}