Higher Gossip: Essays and Criticism

by John Updike

  I never, however, presumed to think of myself as a Christian apologist—the difficulties and embarrassments of faith in a disbelieving age are all there, in my fiction and poetry, as part of reality. I believed that realism even in its darkest aspect formed a homage to the God of creation, and a gesture of trust in Him. My work, as I fallibly understand it, concerns itself with issues of religion and belief from the first novel, The Poorhouse Fair, which houses an extended religious debate and a latter-day version of the stoning of Saint Stephen, to the most recent, Terrorist, which underlines the lethal dangers of any absolute supernatural faith—it makes us ruthless and disregardful of this life and this world. This world is the one we see and experience, the one we should treasure and praise. I do not think of myself as a witness to faith but as a witness to life. Even in those many works of mine in which religion plays no overt role, mundane events are considered, I like to think, religiously, as worthy of reverence and detailed evocation. Much in our lifetimes dazzles and puzzles; much invites us to doubt and despair; yet a world in which no better is imagined, and the motions of our spirits are not at all valorized, would be one not only without religion but also without art.

  My kind commender mentions “The Deacon,” a short and perhaps small story about the humble, marginal position of churches in our contemporary landscape. That dogged deacon was, in a way, my father; and also the many, including clergy, who, against the modern grain, borrow light and lightness from ancient lamps, suffer from a Sabbath compulsion, and take comfort in the periodic company of like-minded others who—to quote from “The Deacon”—“share the pride of this ancient thing that will not quite die.”

  1That is, young readers of “Ex–Basketball Player” have never seen glass-headed pumps, or gas stations selling a medley of brands of gasoline, or the word ESSO. Other irredeemably obsolete references include the first-wave trade names invoked in “A Rack of Paperbacks,” the forty-eight states and innocent patriotism of “Quilt,” and, in “Popular Revivals, 1956,” the motion picture The Last Hunt, which starred Robert Taylor and Stewart Granger.

  2“The Dogwood Tree: A Boyhood,” Assorted Prose (Knopf, 1965), p. 156.

  3“The Arrow of Time,” Scientific American, December 1975, pp. 56–69.

  4Cf., of course, the sun at the end of The Time Machine. And, of the stars, this sentence by Wells may have been in my memory: “The circling of the stars, growing slower and slower, had given place to creeping points of light.”

  5Lincoln, in his war message of July 4, 1861, found that “A disproportionate share of the federal muskets and rifles had somehow found their way into these [seceding] states, and had been seized,” that “The Navy was scattered in distant seas,” and that his efforts to reinforce Fort Pickens were frustrated by “some quasi armistice of the late administration.” In the next paragraph, however, he cashes in resoundingly the net result of the unmartial Buchanan policy: “It is thus seen that the assault upon, and reduction of, Fort Sumter, was in no sense a matter of self-defence on the part of the assailants.”

  6Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People (1965), pp. 593, 608.

  7The only political story of my grandfather’s that I remember concerned the hypocrisy of abolitionist Quakers. Here is the story as told by John Hook, in The Poorhouse Fair (Knopf, 1959), pp. 92–93: “The Quakers among the city dwellers had a great reputation for good works, and in Buchanan’s day were much for passing the runaway slaves on up to Canada. Ah. But the truth of it was, this old fella who was the patriarch of the sect would harbor the negroes in the summer, when they would work his fields for nothing, and then when the cold weather came, and the crops were in, he would turn them out, when they had never known a winter before. One black man balked, you know, and the old fella standing on the doorstep said so sharp: ‘Dost thou not hear thy Master calleth thee?’ ”

  8“He … delighted more than any public man I have known in what is sometimes called ‘cronyship.’ ” (Henry S. Foote, Casket of Reminiscences [Chronicle Publishing Co., 1874], p. 113).

  9On October 5, 1901, James wrote to Sarah Orne Jewett apropos of her novel The Tory Lover: “The ‘historic’ novel is, for me, condemned, even in cases of labour as delicate as yours, to a fatal cheapness, for the simple reason that the difficulty of the job is inordinate and that a mere escamotage, in the interest of ease, and of the abysmal public naïveté becomes inevitable. You may multiply the little facts that can be got from pictures and documents, relics and prints, as much as you like—the real thing is almost impossible to do and in its essence the whole effect is as nought: I mean the invention, the representation of the old CONSCIOUSNESS, the soul, the sense, the horizon, the vision of individuals in whose minds half the things that make ours, that make the modem world, were non-existent. You have to think with your modern apparatus a man, a woman—or rather fifty—whose own thinking was intensely otherwise conditioned, you have to simplify back by an amazing tour de force—and even then it’s all humbug.” (Selected Letters of Henry James, edited by Leon Edel [Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1955], pp. 202–3.)

  In his introduction to The Aspern Papers in the New York edition (1909), however, James concedes “a palpable imaginable visitable past—in the nearer distances and the clearer mysteries, the marks and signs of a world we may reach over to as by making a long arm we grasp an object at the other end of our own table. The table is the one, the common expanse, and where we lean, so stretching, we find it firm and continuous. That, to my imagination, is the past fragrant of all, or of almost all, the poetry of the thing outlived and lost and gone, and yet in which the precious element of closeness, telling so of connexions but tasting so of differences, remains appreciable. With more moves back the element of the appreciable shrinks—just as the charm of looking over a garden-wall into another garden breaks down when successions of walls appear.”

  10And a possible crimp in the political fortunes of George W. Bush.

  11The fictional Northern New England Association of American Historians (Putney, Vermont), publishers of Retrospect, a tri-quarterly journal.

  12As did Professor Boyer.

  13See Odd Jobs (Knopf, 1991), p. 845, for the text of this letter.

  14See Odd Jobs (Knopf, 1991), p. 872.

  15“The town, in New England, of Tarbox, restrained from embracing the sea by a margin of tawny salt marshes, locates its downtown four miles inland up the Musquenomenee River, which ceases to be tidal at the waterfall of an old hosiery mill, now given over to the manufacture of plastic toys. It was to the mouth of this river, in May of 1634, that the small party of seventeen men, led by the younger son of the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—Jeremiah Tarbox being only his second in command—came in three rough skiffs with the purpose of establishing amid such an unpossessed abundance of salt hay a pastoral plantation. This, with God’s forbearance, they did.…”

  Index

  Note: Italicized numerals indicate pages with illustrations. Boldface numerals indicate pages where the author and/or work is specifically the subject of a review or prose piece.

  Abstract Expressionism, 14.1, 15.1, 16.1, 16.2, 17.1

  Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

  “Ace in the Hole” (Updike), 21.1, 21.2

  Adam, 14.1, 14.2

  Adam and Eve, fwd.1, 15.1, 17.1

  Adams, Alice

  Adams, Franklin P. (F.P.A.)

  Adoration of the Name of Jesus (El Greco)

  Adoration of the Shepherds, The (El Greco)

  Adoration of the Shepherds (Bernard)

  Aftermath (Meyerowitz), 18.1, 18.2

  After the Flood (Polidori), 18.1, 18.2, 18.3, 18.4

  Age of Innocence, The (Wharton), 11.1, 11.2

  Age of Reason

  AIDS, 10.1, 21.1, 21.2

  Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America (Sutton)

  Albion Rose (Blake)

  Alfred A. Knopf, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 21.1, 21.2, 21.3, 21.4


  Rabbit Run and

  All the Days and Nights (Maxwell)

  Alsop, Gulielma Fell

  altarpieces, 14.1, 14.2, 14.3, 14.4

  Altenberg, Peter

  Aman-Jean (Seurat), 16.1, 16.2, 16.3

  America America (Canin)

  “America Inside Out” (Marling)

  American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2.1, 11.1

  American art, 14.1, 15.1

  landscape painting, 15.1, 15.2, 15.3, 15.4

  American idea

  American Photobooth (Goranin)

  Ames, Elizabeth

  Amsterdam, 14.1, 14.2, 16.1

  An Béal Bocht (The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story About the Hard Life; O’Brien)

  Ancestors (Maxwell)

  Ancient of Days (Blake)

  Andersen, Hans Christian, 15.1, 15.2

  Anderson, Sherwood, 10.1, 12.1

  Angell, Roger

  Angel of the Revelation, The (Blake)

  Angelus Temple, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 13.4

  Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)

  Annunciation, 14.1, 14.2

  anti-Semitism, 13.1, 17.1, 17.2

  Appleton, Samuel

  Arbuckle, Fatty

  Arbus, Diane

  architecture, 15.1, 15.2, 17.1, 17.2, 20.1

  Arden, Elizabeth

  Arles, 16.1, 16.2, 16.3, 16.4

  Arp, Hans

  art, artists, fwd.1 9.1, 13.1

  see also drawings; paintings; portraits; sculpture; self-portraits; specific artists and movements

  Arte de la pintura (Pacheco)

  Artifice of Beauty, The (Pointer)

  Artist in the Country, The (Homer), 15.1, 15.2

  “Artist in the Country, The” (Karst, after Homer)

  Art Nouveau, 17.1, 17.2

  Art of Sculpture, The (Read)

  Art of the American Snapshot, 1888–1978, The, 18.1, 18.2

  Asian Americans

  Aspern Papers, The (James)

  Assorted Prose (Updike), fwd.1, fwd.2, fwd.3, fwd.4

  Atlantic Monthly

  At Swim-Two-Birds (O’Brien)

  Auchincloss, Louis

  Austrian art, 17.1, 17.2, 17.3, 17.4, 17.5

  authorship, end of

  “Autobiographical Notes” (Einstein)

  Autobiography of a Face (Grealy)

  automobiles, 18.1, 21.1, 21.2, 21.3

  Aved, Joseph

  Baargeld, Johannes Theodore, 17.1, 17.2

  “Babylon Revisited” (Fitzgerald), 9.1, 10.1

  Backward Glance, A (Wharton)

  Bacon, Francis

  Bailey, Anthony, 15.1, 15.2

  Bailey, Blake

  Bailey, Colin B.

  Baldwin, James, 10.1, 10.2

  Barber, Miller

  Bargue, Charles

  Barron, Louis

  Barth, John, 8.1, 21.1

  Barth, Karl, 9.1, 13.1

  Barthelme, Donald, 8.1, 10.1, 21.1, 21.2

  baseball

  “Basically Decent” (Updike), fwd.1, 11.1

  “Basium XVI” (Updike), fwd.1, 7.1

  Basket of Wild Strawberries (Chardin)

  Basten, Fred E.

  Bauhaus, the

  Baxandall, Michael

  Baxter, Charles

  Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl, The (Turner)

  Beaton, David, 10.1, 10.2

  Beaton, James

  “Beatrice Palmato” (Wharton)

  Beattie, Ann, 10.1, 10.2

  beauty, 17.1, 17.2, 17.3

  Bech: A Book (Updike)

  Bech: His Oeuvre (Updike)

  Bech at Bay (Updike)

  Bech Is Back (Updike), 21.1, 21.2

  Beckett, Samuel, 11.1, 11.2, 21.1

  Beckmann, Max, 17.1, 17.2, 17.3, 17.4, 17.5

  Bedroom, The (de Hooch), 14.1, 14.2

  Before Photography (art show)

  Bel Canto (Patchett)

  Belgium, 11.1, 16.1, 16.2, 17.1

  Bellini, Giovanni

  Belloc, Hilaire, 21.1, 21.2

  Bellow, Saul, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3

  Beloved (Morrison)

  “Beloved, The” (Updike), fwd.1 5.1

  Bélugou, Léon

  Bend Sinister (Nabokov)

  Bendz, Wilhelm

  Ben-Hur (movie)

  Bercovici, Konrad

  Berenson, Bernard, 11.1, 11.2

  Bergson, Henri, 8.1, 8.2, 21.1

  Berkeley, George

  Berlin, 15.1, 17.1, 17.2, 19.1, 19.2

  Bernanke, Ben S.

  Bernard, Émile, 16.1, 16.2

  Berry, John

  Best American Short Stories of the Century, The (Updike and Kenison, eds.)

  “Best Possible View” (McCarron-Cates)

  Bethell, Augusta (Gussie)

  Betjeman, Sir John

  Bier, Justis

  “Billie Dyer” (Maxwell)

  “Birthmates” (Jen)

  Bishop, Elizabeth

  Bismarck, Otto von

  Black, Daniel

  Black, Jeremiah

  Black-Haired Girl with Raised Skirt (Schiele)

  black humorists

  blacks, 10.1, 10.2, 11.1, 13.1, 13.2, 21.1, 21.2, 21.3, 21.4

  in Morrison’s novels

  in Run

  in The Story of a Marriage

  Blake, Catherine, 15.1, 15.2, 15.3

  Blake, William, 15.1, 15.2, 15.3, 21.1

  “Blake in His Time” (Butler)

  Blessed Virgin Chastises the Infant Jesus Before Three Witnesses, The: A.B., P.E., and the Artist (Ernst), 17.1, 17.2

  Bloemink, Barbara, 15.1, 15.2

  Bluest Eye, The (Morrison)

  Blumhofer, Edith

  Blümmer, Rudolf

  Blute-Fin Mill, The (van Gogh), 16.1, 16.2

  Boat on the Beach by Moonlight (Friedrich)

  Boats at Sea, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (van Gogh)

  Boccaccio, Giovanni

  Bogan, Louise, 11.1, 11.2

  Bonington, Richard Parkes

  book-reviewing, poetics of

  books

  defense of the amateur reader of

  end of authorship and

  booksellers, bookstores

  Bo-Peep (Girl with a Shepherd’s Crook Seated by a Tree) (Homer)

  Borchert, Till-Holger

  Borges, Jorge Luis, 8.1, 21.1

  Born, Max, 19.1, 19.2

  Börsch-Supan, Helmut

  Boston, Mass., 20.1, 20.2, 20.3, 20.4, 20.5, 20.6, 21.1

  in Run

  Boston Herald

  Bouquet of Carnations, Tuberoses and Sweet Peas in a White Porcelain Vase with Blue Decorations (Chardin)

  Bowen, Elizabeth

  Boyer, Paul

  Boy Handing a Woman a Basket in a Doorway (de Hooch)

  Bradbury, Ray

  Bradstreet, Anne, 20.1, 20.2, 20.3, 20.4

  Bradstreet, Simon, 20.1, 20.2, 20.3, 20.4

  Brancusi, Constantin, 17.1, 17.2

  Braque, Georges

  Brave New World (Huxley), 21.1, 21.2

  Breton, André, 17.1, 17.2, 17.3, 17.4

  Breton Women in the Meadow (Bernard)

  “Bright and Morning Star” (Wright), 10.1, 10.2

  Bright Center of Heaven (Maxwell), 11.1, 11.2, 11.3

  Brioche, The (Chardin)

  British Museum, 21.1, 21.2

  Brodkey, Harold

  Bromfield, Louis

  brothels, 13.1, 16.1

  Brownstein, Gabriel

  Brueghel, Pieter, the Elder

  Bryant, William Cullen

  Buchanan, James, fwd.1, 21.1, 21.2

  Buchanan Dying (Updike)

  Buffet (Chardin)

  Bukowski, Charles

  “Bulgarian Poetess, The” (Updike)

  “Burial in the Desert” (Fenton)

  Burial of the Count of Orgaz, The (El Greco)

  Burkhardt, Barbara

  Burns, Robert

  Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 19.1, 19.2

  Bush, Geoffrey

&nb
sp; Bush, George W.

  Butler, Marilyn

  Butler, Ralph

  Byron, George Gordon, Lord

  “Cafeteria, Mass. General Hospital” (Updike), fwd.1, 7.1

  Cain, James M.

  Caldwell, Erskine

  California, 13.1, 13.2, 19.1, 21.1

  Calverley, Charles Stuart

  Calvin, John

  Calvinism

  cameras, 18.1, 18.2

  Camping Out in the Adirondacks (Homer)

  Camus, Albert

  Candide (Voltaire), 8.1, 8.2

  Canin, Ethan

  Carduff, Christopher, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3

  Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures, The (Updike)

  cartoons and comic strips

  Carvaggio, Michelangelo da

  Carver, Raymond, 9.1, 10.1, 10.2

  Cary, Joyce

  Casket of Reminiscences (Foote)

  Caspar David Friedrich (Börsch-Supan)

  Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape (Koerner)

  Cather, Willa, 10.1, 11.1, 11.2

  Catherine the Great

  Cat’s Cradle (Vonnegut)

  Celebes (Ernst), 17.1, 17.2

  Cellar Boy, The (Chardin), 14.1, 14.2

  Cellini, Benvenuto

  censorship

  Centaur, The (Updike), 21.1, 21.2, 21.3, 21.4

  Cervantes, Miguel de

  Cézanne, Paul, 9.1, 14.1, 14.2, 15.1, 16.1, 16.2, 17.1, 17.2

  Chaplin, Charlie, 13.1, 19.1, 19.2

  Chardin, Jean-Siméon, 14.1, 14.2, 14.3, 14.4

  Chase, Mary Ellen

  Chase, Stuart

  Château, The (Maxwell)

  Cheever, Benjamin, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3

  Cheever, Federico (Fred), 11.1, 11.2

  Cheever, Frederick

  Cheever, John, fwd.1, 10.1, 11.1, 21.1

  Cheever, Mary Winternitz, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3

  Cheever, Susan, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3

  Cheever (Bailey)

  Chekhov, Anton

  Chernobyl, 18.1, 18.2

  chess, fwd.1, 10.1

  Chesterton, G. K.

  Chevreul, Michel-Eugène

  childhood, children, 11.1, 16.1, 17.1

  in de Hooch, 14.1, 14.2, 14.3, 14.4

  in Købke, 15.1, 15.2

  laughter of, 8.1, 8.2

  Lear and, 15.1, 15.2, 15.3

  in Nabokov

  photos of, 18.1, 18.2

  Child in White (Seurat)

  Child with a Top (Chardin)

  “Chimney-Sweeper, The” (Blake)

  China, Chinese, 12.1, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 21.1