Updike with People

Emily Gordon: Was John Updike full of elegant ideas and excellent elocution? Did a nicely suited David Remnick ask respectful questions and gently tease the Rabbit raconteur about his stellar work ethic and multiple writing desks facing the sea? Did Updike confess his early ambitions to be a cartoonist and entreat us to read the classics? Were all the audience members called on to ask questions men? (I actually didn’t see any women getting up to the mike; at Lorrie Moore, on the other hand, male questioners were ignored.) Was Updike fond yet a little censorious about William Shawn’s fidgets about references to sexual organs? What do you think? On what would have been F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 109th birthday, Updike could only shake his head in sorrow and say, in effect, Jugs, Not Drugs. No, no, naturally he was much more articulate and sincere than that, and did not make infantile puns. More in a bit.

24 September 2005 | uncategorized |