John Updike: To Be a Novelist

Host Al Page speaks with John Updike, an American author. Updike discusses diffferences between the American and the European novel. He also opines on the classic American novelist, movements in American literature and what it takes to be a good novelist.

[@JackSaturday]

"Most of American life consists of driving somewhere and then returning home, wondering why the hell you went."- John Updike

[@autofocus4556]

Jack Saturday my life story

[@johnnythunder196]

That's why I haven't driven in 20 years (I'm 44).

[@HomeAtLast501]

Doesn't reflect my life.

[@quincyfinnley2653]

sorry to be off topic but does anybody know a way to log back into an instagram account? I was stupid lost my login password. I love any tips you can give me!

[@rhysmilan5019]

@Quincy Finnley instablaster :)

[@DorothyPotterSnyder]

Updike: What a joy. Wonderful to hear he sees himself as an intellectual and not artistic novelist.

[@wanjooalexkim]

Great interview. Mr. Updike is so delightfully fluid.

[@rohitranjan78]

Hey Rabbit! Is back...Redux

[@mindsigh4]

@Evan Hodge a non drinking writer? try peddling ur fiction somewheres else!! 😎

[@jeffreyc.mcandrew8911]

Thank you for your life of writing Mr. Updike and for sharing your insights in interviews still preserved online. These are great ideas to share with our writers group.

[@mindsigh4]

hmm, ⬆️ war of words, or at least a skirmish...?

[@chaniwoodward6791]

holy shit...those graphics. amazing.

[@adrianmichaelkelly277]

". . . a man who tried to lift the ordinary into the eternal realm of art."

[@br5448]

appreciate the modesty of the man.

[@sebolddaniel]

Amazing interview. Times have changed since this interview. I have to wonder if there is even a market anymore for good writing.

[@dyerdanforth9030]

Great interview.

[@zimontov]

Simply Sublime. My favorite of favorites.

[@WrongStanceProductions]

Very cool interview. Love Updike

[@noseonscent1935]

What a great man and incredible writer! Wow! Sensational

[@bingosantamonica]

What a fantastic interview. Both were great.

[@howardkoor2796]

What a mind. Insightful and informative. Thank you.

[@Browzan]

I love you John. You writing is perfect, precise and beautiful - like your good soul. X

[@Browzan]

love this interview! Genius

[@jeffrey3498]

I love John's sense of humor: the sharpest knife delivered as ice cream.

[@petebeech]

Thanks a lot for uploading this. Some very thoughtful and probing questions from a man who obviously knew about the writing life. A lot more useful to the aspiring than most other author interviews!

[@user-un6sb4kn2z]

thank you for this

[@optimusprimevil1646]

less content back then but the quality was better

[@iamsodisappointedinyou5983]

Sadly, Al Page passed away today.

[@whawkins8636]

Love hearing talk about writing

[@redmotherfive]

Work is never finished, just abandoned. I'm not sure who said that but it's so true.

[@kelman727]

redmotherfive George Lucas.

[@brokenfingers98]

willem de kooning

[@brokenfingers98]

paul valery is actually from whom it is first attributed, though Lucas, de Kooning, oscar wilde, WH auden, among others have all put their own spin on it

[@samuelramalheira5535]

Al Page is a wonderful name for the host of a literary show

[@CA-or9ix]

I once went into a museum of dolls, toys, and miniatures. It was in a house built in the late 19th century. It was run by a woman named Wendy Littlepage. I thought I'd stepped into a Dickens novel.

[@jeffreyprokopowicz9842]

The most beautiful writer of prose ever.

[@2msvalkyrie529]

? ? ? ! ! ! ! 😳 Proust ? Even Somerset Maugham ......?!? Countless others .!

[@badkerproductions]

Television brings forth the "so what" attitude. Agreed. Loneliness.

[@kamalpreetsingh1686]

Great views......

[@martm216]

Glad the interviewer asked the question, 'What does it take to be a great novelist?' Not that I, as one of the many unpublished novelists, have any longer any expectation of being great, but of course I would like to be a good, or a better, novelist. Any observations from someone like Updike are always invaluable. (British fan.)

[@swimsanta3132]

do it man, even if it doesn't work out. Might as well make something you're proud of.

[@martm216]

@@swimsanta3132 thanks mate 🙂

[@purposebehindthepen]

Go for it. Do it now while you have a chance.

[@wonderwoman5528]

@@swimsanta3132 nice comment :)

[@matthewgordonpettipas6773]

Have some confidence in yourself for one thing. You have the potential to be great, just put your ass in the chair and practice. Don't stop. To get better at writing you must write, rinse and repeat. I wish you luck in your career.

[@drbonesshow1]

Turn on the TV and watch Updike read from a novel.

[@rhwinner]

My first 'serious' novel was Rabbit Run, in Junior High. No more dime store junk for me!

[@matthewgordonpettipas6773]

Jesus man, it never fails to amaze me how people who just read different kinds of books think it somehow makes them above those who don't or that what they read is somehow more serious. There's nothing wrong with Updike or Carver or O'Connor, I admire their work as well, but to dismiss the novelists who work hard writing 'genre' fiction, calling it junk is not only pompous bullshit but pretty disrespectful. And tbh, you'd have to be quite silly thinking that creating your own world from the ground up (like many Fantasy and Science Fiction writers do) is somehow inferior to writing about ordinary life. If anything it takes MORE imagination to be a good Fantasy, Sci-fi or hell even a western writer than a literary writer. They need to create settings a literary writer doesn't, create laws the literary writer doesn't need to, create entire mythologies and histories. The best example of this is the world of Middle Earth by J.R.R. Tolkien. There's no way anyone can convince me that that man wasn't one of the greatest artistic minds of the twentieth century. He built an entire world from nothing. Created languages for his invented races, entire cultures. If that's not art then frankly neither is Updike since all he did was write about ordinary life, which, compared to what Tolkien did, isn't anything special.

[@rhwinner]

@@matthewgordonpettipas6773 Interesting points. I have enjoyed genre fiction like Zane Gray, however the few King novels I've read put me off horror fiction, as the literary deficits were too great for me to enjoy the plot. However it is true that being exposed to great stylists can make you sensitive to it's lack in certain 'popular' writers. I assure you it's not an ego thing. I would happily read any book if I found it worth my while. The older I het the less likely I am to finish a book that is not engaging me. I recently set aside a Joyce Oates novel for that reason, even though I consider her a literary novelist.

[@drbonesshow1]

Updike reminds one of the actor Patrick O'Neal. Both RIP.

[@rohitranjan78]

As a person who wasn't ashamed of the American life ...who looked into the ordinary to transform it into the eternal realm of art ....

[@user-xn2hf9re8r]

Lovely guy - he does remind me of Jim Dale the carry on film actor though as they both have those mischievous eyes

[@FoxFoxy]

На Западе Апдайка знают в основном как автора тетралогии о Кролике. У нас эта серия тоже достаточно хорошо известна. Но я хочу вспомнить о его раннем романе «Кентавр», который был издан в США в 1963 году, а уже через два года переведен на русский и опубликован у нас в «Иностранке». Для шестидесятников этот роман стал культовым. В моем детстве он тоже оставил след. Папа дал мне прочитать «Кентавра», когда мне было лет тринадцать. Надо будет при случае спросить, по какому принципу он отбирал для меня тогда книги; как определял, в каком возрасте что посоветовать. На 13-17-летний возраст выпало множество читательских впечатлений, и всё благодаря папе. От «Повелителя мух», «Благослови зверей и детей», «Убить пересмешника» и «Над пропастью во ржи» до «Пролетая над гнездом кукушки», «Кентавра» и разной Латинской Америки. Девочка-подросток, разумеется, понимала далеко не всё, но с удовольствием читала. Теперь, по прошествии четверти века, я снова взяла в руки «Кентавра» и поняла, насколько выдающимся переводчиком был Виктор Хинкис! У меня всё та же книжка 1966 года издания. И мне, проклятому ортодоксу, кажется кощунственным, что кто-то может знакомиться с этим шедевром посредством электронной версии или даже просто другого, более современного бумажного издания, пусть даже и с тем же блестящим переводом. Обязательно нужно прикасаться именно к этим пожелтевшим страницам и смотреть именно на этот рисунок. Нашла в Интернете фотографию этого разворота: pics.meshok.net/pics3/109530944.jpg?1

[@2msvalkyrie529]

Nice tweed jacket ! Wonder if he had elbow patches...??

[@brenhugh]

Raymond Carver wasn’t a minimalist, but his editor certainly was.

[@kelman727]

Outside of Rabbit 2-4 and Roger’s Version, I don’t see Updike as a novelist first or foremost. The stories (especially ‘A Sandstone Farmhouse’) and the late poems are the sharpest things he committed to paper.

[@mindsigh4]

@Evan Hodge & it's rumored he didn't drink

[@2msvalkyrie529]

Nabokov will remain or become a " classic " I think. ?.?

[@chaniwoodward6791]

he looks exactly what i imagined rabbit looks like while reading rabbit run!

[@tonywalton1052]

+Chani Woodward Rabbit is Holden Caulfield, most people don't know this.

[@chaniwoodward6791]

rabbit is everyone. most people dont know this. :)

[@tonywalton1052]

+Chani Woodward This is true, but I deny that myself

[@MrFadeout53]

That shows how exactly great he really is.

[@rohitranjan78]

He forgets Henry James :) the most important

[@marisastevens3690]

4:50...writers should have a love of life...

[@sudarshanpoudel64]

@ekimshield I'd love to read what you've written.

[@willrobinson7521]

Anybody know the date this was recorded?

[@matthewgordonpettipas6773]

It says in the beginning I'm pretty sure, at the bottom when Updike starts talking.

[@rangetpc]

An editor is basically a midwife ☺️☺️☺️👍 that's great .

[@mymbta]

What is an, "imperial novel?"

[@2msvalkyrie529]

One whose scope extends over the widest possible areas of life. Unbounded by pre conceptions ?

[@samcollett245]

my boy Updike doing uppers

[@ricksomething]

This was filmed in 6 b.c.

[@HomeAtLast501]

They days before teeth bleaching was ubiquitous.

[@christinacascadilla4473]

What worries me about myself is that if I was interviewed I would never be able link Neo-expressionist art to styles of literature, or say that Thomas Pynchon writes “Imperial novels.” This means that either I’m not very smart, or there is no influence of neo-expressionism on novels and Thomas Pynchon really didn’t write imperial novels, and John Updike was a huge phony. Not to sound like Holden Caufield or anything. Honestly, can someone please explain how anything Pynchon wrote can be defined as imperial?

[@stevennewman5442]

I'd agree that you are not very smart

[@christinacascadilla4473]

@Evan Hodge well, that is one of the two possibilities. But if imperial novels have something to do with an Empire, then what Pynchon novel does that?

[@dantean]

Funny that he thought he was answering the criticism that his female characters were mere objects by offering us witches as the alternative. As if that doesn't simply make the problem worse. One way or another, though--and no matter how you slice him--he was second-tier. Beats all the rest but one, which is not nothing, but he was clearly second-tier among contemporary authors.

[@SandfordSmythe]

He had a story of a prostitute in which he treated her as a very responsible woman.

[@drbonesshow1]

Nowadays, if you have an opinion of your own you'll probably be told to shove it updike. Sad.

[@matthewgordonpettipas6773]

Damn....this is three years old but its even truer today lol. The world is mad my friend.

[@drbonesshow1]

@@matthewgordonpettipas6773 A three year-old wine is merely a child. I'll drink wine while they whine (i.e., the social media morons).

[@Braglemaster123]

Don’t pay attention to the Brits

[@kelman727]

Richard B. Davis ?

[@2msvalkyrie529]

We should never have given up the 13 colonies without a fight ...

[@apope06]

Updike overrated?

[@autofocus4556]

apope06 nope

[@matthewgordonpettipas6773]

Depends on the person I suppose. As you can see from the comments most people here would say no. Me? He's a good writer from what I've read but is he mind-blowingly amazing? Nah, but Gods forbid you say that since 'how would you know?' Simple, its my opinion and frankly, when it comes right down to it, that's all that matters, our individual opinion. If someone thinks Updike was the greatest writer to ever grace the page, that's awesome and I'm happy for them if they enjoy his work that much, but not everyone will think that and that's OK. Literature is subjective, as much as people hate to admit that, so differing opinions shouldn't be so surprising.