Myth And Gospel In The Fiction Of John Updike [Hardcover]

Big on style, slight on substance: that has been a common charge over the years by critics of John Updike. In fact, however, John Updike is one of the most serious writers of modern times. Myth, as this book shows, unlocks his fictional universe and repeatedly breaks open the powerful themes in his literary parables of the gospel. Myth and Gospel in the Fiction of John Updike also includes a personal tribute to John Updike by his son David, two essays by pioneer Updike scholars Alice and Kenneth Hamilton, and an anecdotal chapter in which readers share Updike discoveries and recommendations. All in all, weight is added to the complaint that the master of myth and gospel was shortchanged by the Nobel committee. John Updike had better eyes than ours. He memorably noticed everyday details that, without him, we'd miss. McTavish returns the favor, uncovering surprising mythic riches beneath Updike's deceptively mundane surfaces. Deploying wit, theological insight ( Elizanne echoes eleison ), lively links with Ayckbourn, Hawthorne and more, generous inclusion of others' views, gossipy encounters with Updike's family and the iconic writer himself, in blessedly jargon-free prose, McTavish's close reading of Updike is an eye-opener all the way. --Bruce McLeod, Retired parish minister and former Moderator of The United Church of Canada John Updike was an American treasure. In the second half of the twentieth century, Updike and Saul Bellow inherited the mantle of 'literary giant' that William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway wore in the first half. A master of the elegantly lyrical sentence and the precisely observed detail, Updike used these gifts to probe the yearnings, both spiritual and mundane, of ordinary Americans. John McTavish is an ideal reader of Updike's explorations of the complex relationship between the sacred and the profane. --Don Greiner, Curator of Modern American Literature, University of South Carolina; author, The Other John Updike: Poems, Sholã&