John Updike, prize-winning writer, dead at age 76

Yahoo - AP ^ | 01/27/09 | HILLEL ITALIE

[Borges]

NEW YORK – John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce and other adventures in the postwar prime of the American empire, died Tuesday at age 76.

Updike, a resident of Beverly Farms, Mass., died of lung cancer, according to a statement from his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf.

[EveningStar]

GMTA.

I had just posted this and was getting ready to ping you.

I asked the admin to delete my thread. :)

[EveningStar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Updike

[ClearCase_guy]

I tried to read his stuff. Never could.

But RIP anyway.

[anniegetyourgun]

I never could get with his writing...and his faith walk was sometimes unusual, but Updike now has paradise.

[Borges]

You shouldn’t have.

*Blushes*

[EveningStar]

I read Rabbit Run. That’s about it. Pretty good.

[RinaseaofDs]

A prominent apologist for abortion.

[RichInOC]

Rabbit is dead.

[snarks_when_bored]

John Updike, prize-winning writer, dead at age 76

Rabbit's run is done.

[Marie2]

I read all the rabbit books, hoping for some sort of breakthrough, but in the end found them shallow and discouraging.

Not to speak evil of the dead, obviously, many liked his books! Pulitzer and all that.

[EveningStar]

Boston Globe article

[ssaftler]

About the only thing of his that was even worth reading was his “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu” article when Ted Williams retired. The rest of his stuff I found not worth the trouble.

[pallis]

“The Centaur” Is the only Updike book I enjoyed enough to get from cover to cover.

[Mad Dawg]

in the postwar prime of the American empire

Does anybody else find that kind of language irritating?

[oblomov]

I greatly enjoyed The Poorhouse Fair, Pigeon Feathers (short stories published in New Yorker), and The Centaur. I tried to read some of his later novels, but they lacked the energy of his earlier works. It was almost as if they were by another, very different writer. The author of his earlier works was evidently a man in search of moral absolutes and ideals in a confused world, while the author of the later works seemed to have made peace with the confusion and venality.

Perhaps his greatest contribution to literature, and what he may be most remembered for many years hence, is his book reviews, which were always interesting and perceptive.

RIP, Mr. Updike.

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.