as they occupy the threshold between a youthful past and a diminishing present, often
unaware of how to savor the domestic love and ephemeral pleasure.
The volume
’
s fi rst three stories take place in Olinger, the fi ctional version of
Updike ’ s hometown, Shillington. “ Friends from Philadelphia, ” opens the collection
with the depiction of an unexpected gift whose irony is just below the threshold of
its young protagonist ’ s awareness. Like many stories in the collection, this effort has
a slightly Joycean tone, although the retrospection and character - based epiphany of a
story such as “ Araby ” is absent. Ace Anderson, the title character of “ Ace in the Hole, ”
may foreshadow Rabbit Angstrom: a former basketball star who has just lost his job,
Ace has little space to run, however, within the confi nes of the short story. Now
married and a father, Ace can no longer score baskets to stave off anxiety; in domestic
skirmishes he is plagued by the “ tight feeling ” he was once able to vanquish on the
court. Despite his escapist tendencies, Ace is mature enough to realize the inevitability
of maturity ’ s compromises, although the momentary respite he obtains from an argu-
ment with his wife about losing his job only postpones the resolution of his problems.
Mark Prosser, the high school teacher in “ Tomorrow and Tomorrow and So Forth, ”
is a younger version of George Caldwell in Updike ’ s novel The Centaur (1963), simi-
larly compassionate but more aloof from his students and less deeply wounded by his
work. Like Ace, he is caught in routine, feeling that his life creeps along at the “ petty
pace
”
mentioned in the Macbeth soliloquy whose implications his students seem
unwilling or unable to grapple with as they maintain their “ quality of glide ” through
life.
Stories of young married couples living in New York form the volume ’ s core.
Varying in technique and focus, they all depict the early waning of marital bliss that
results in domestic compromise and receding youth. “ Toward Evening ” experiments
348
Robert M. Luscher
with a looser short story form, using an imagistic counterpoint within a stream of
consciousness chronicle that follows the protagonist on a journey home through an
urban realm affl icted with a paralysis reminiscent of Joyce
’
s Dublin. Demolished
buildings and advertising dominate the landscape, while recurrent bird imagery pro-
vides emblems of the imaginative transcendence that surprisingly results from con-
templation of the spiritually empty world of advertising. “ Snowing in Greenwich
Village ” employs a more traditional narrative to depict the nascent marital problems
of Joan and Richard Maple, a couple whose recurrence in later stories leads to being
featured in a book of their own. Their dialogue is rich with implications, as the Maples
communicate on a plane of familiarity inaccessible to their guest, whose remarks and
actions seem full of sexual innuendo to Richard, tempting him to stray from his sick
wife, although he draws back from pursuing the opportunity. “ A Gift from the City ”
links its central image of magic circles with the insularity of its young married pro-
tagonists, transplants whose charmed isolation of personal security cuts them off from
the city ’ s more unexpected gifts when they banish the perceived threat of a persistent
African American beggar with guilt money. Close in spirit to J. D. Salinger ’ s work,
“ Who Made the Yellow Roses Yellow? ” is an imaginative extrapolation from Updike ’ s
days as editor of the
Harvard Lampoon
, featuring a blue
-
blooded version of Ace
Anderson, striving to keep his youthful glory alive. Religious themes, which fi gure
more strongly in subsequent works, fi rst appear in “ Dentistry and Doubt, ” in which
a student ’ s crisis of faith and restored spiritual vision unexpectedly coincide with a
dental visit. “ Intercession ” depicts a dissatisfi ed comic strip writer ’ s encounter on the
golf course with a brash teenager reminiscent of his youthful self. In a modern reen-
actment of the Fall, he heads home across a barren fi eld after a wicked slice, sadder
but wiser as he reconciles himself to accepting that maturity – not lawless, unencum-
bered youth – contains its own intrinsic satisfactions.
Updike returns to Olinger to round out the volume. “ The Alligators ” relates a
young schoolboy
’
s frustrated attempt to realize his idealized vision of love, and
culminates in a Joycean epiphany of his folly and blindness. The fi nal story, “ The
Happiest I
’
ve Been,
”
features the return of John Nordholm, the protagonist of
“ Friends from Philadelphia. ” The cinematic quality of this retrospective and medita-
tive fi rst - person narration foregrounds the narrative ’ s quest to recapture the past,
keeping the door between youth and maturity propped open for access. As Nordholm
lingers on the threshold between youth and maturity, nostalgia intensifi es from his
growing awareness of time ’ s inevitable diminishment. The concerns of these early
stories in The Same Door – the problems of loss, the redemptive nature of memory,
and the discovery of ordinary life ’ s spiritual essence – preoccupied Updike throughout
his career.
Published the same year his daughter Miranda was born, the novel Rabbit Run
(1960) solidifi ed Updike ’ s reputation as a compelling and articulate voice in contem-
porary fi ction.
Pigeon Feathers
(1962)
, his second short story collection, exhibits
Updike ’ s versatility in a variety of narrative strategies, including fi rst - person experi-
ments with epistolary, lyric, and montage forms. In the lyric story, Updike discovered
John
Updike
349
a form suited to his stylistic gifts and to his talent for capturing the detailed texture
of life ’ s domestic corners. This richly imagistic prose version of the dramatic mono-
logue allows Updike to dramatize the mind ’ s search through the darkening past for
some vital spark that might illuminate the present and guide his characters onward
through maturity ’ s increasing complexities. The montage stories that conclude the
volume are Updike ’ s fi rst experiments with an aesthetic that involves juxtaposition
of seemingly disjunct multiple lyric segments whose loose formal coherence comments
thematically on the possibility of forging coherence from the reimagined past. The
protagonists in this collection range from 10 years old to their late twenties – roughly
the same age as those in Updike ’ s fi rst. Olinger youths reappear, but the characters
include a signifi cant number of young marrieds. While the younger characters appear
to be fl eeing from the past, those who have crossed the threshold from adolescence to
maturity fl ee toward the past, yearning to recapture its mystery and vitality. In
general, the characters in Pigeon Feathers slip deeper into themselves, grapple more
with doubt, and ponder the increasing narrowness of their lives. As the past recedes
and concerns about mortality arise, their struggle against loss assumes greater urgency
and takes on an increasingly metaphysical dimension.
The opening story, “ Walter Briggs, ” foregrounds the theme of memory in a young
couple ’ s nostalgic but competitive excursion into their shared past as they drive home
from a party, recalling the early days of their marriage during this “ enforced time
together. ” This same couple recurs in “ Should Wizard Hit Mommy? ” a well - crafted
frame tale in which a simple bedtime story manifests underlying marital tension
between their imaginative and pragmatic opposition. Exploring similar territory,
“ Wife - Wooing ” – Updike ’ s fi rst inclusion in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards – is a
linguistic tour de force, a self
-
satiric dramatic monologue in which the narrator
exposes his own foibles as he portrays the anxious, striving male psyche; rebuffed and
baffl ed as he attempts to seduce his wife, his unexpected reward the next evening
leads to an epiphanic moment. “ Archangel ” also showcases Updike ’ s linguistic prowess
in a dramatic monologue in which the heavenly narrator offers an abundance of earthly
delights transposed into a fi ner key to an auditor who seems to dismiss them. Another
fi rst - person narrator, the divinity school student in “ Lifeguard, ” may be less reliable,
celebrating his own virtue as he perches above the beachgoers he sees as his sun
worshiping congregation; elite and narcissistic, this lusty novice theologian urges
enjoyment of the present moment even as he decries the sunbathers ’ shallowness.
In “ The Astronomer, ” which also examines issues of faith, the narrator recalls how
his own uncertain religious beliefs are challenged during a visit from an astronomer.
Surveying this incident from his past, which he likens to a night sky of randomly
shining stars, he proves to himself that his vision of faith is more viable than that of
the atheistic astronomer, who still fears the desert ’ s open spaces. “ Pigeon Feathers, ”
later made into a fi lm for the American Short Story series, couples David Kern ’ s
metaphysical doubt with the physical separation that his parents ’ move to a farm
outside Olinger brings. After reading an H. G. Wells work denying Christ ’ s divinity,
he experiences a vivid premonition of extinction that sends him searching for some
350
Robert M. Luscher
solid foundation of faith to allay his fears. Not his mother ’ s vague pantheism, his
father ’ s perfunctory Protestantism, nor the minister ’ s vague analogies can provide him
with solace. The pigeons he kills that have been soiling their Olinger furniture in the
barn, however, provide an unlikely source of religious affi rmation: in observing their
intricate beauty he fi nds assurance of God ’ s hand and care, although his leap of cer-
titude may be a provisional measure in an ongoing struggle.
“ A & P, ” Updike ’ s most frequently anthologized story, is atypical in its fast - moving
plot and brash teenage narrator, but features Updike ’ s trademark attention to detail
and focuses on thematic concerns similar to the volume ’ s other stories. As Sammy
relates the tale of his impulsive attempt to become a hero to three girls in bathing
suits when the store manager confronts them, he depicts his gesture of quitting his
cashier job as a principled act that will propel him into adulthood and make his life
much harder thereafter. While his celebration of the girls ’ physical virtues is marked
by chauvinism, his perception of the butcher ’ s ogling provides him with a glimpse
of his own attitude; his attraction to Queenie, however, consists of lust mingled with
the allure of her socioeconomic class and his own yearning to be a free spirit who is
not corralled in the A & P ’ s checkout lane. Like other characters in the collection,
Sammy is caught between the pulls of romance and realism as he begins to learn the
bittersweet lessons of his nascent movement into the realm of experience.
In “ The Persistence of Desire, ” a slightly older character outwardly possesses the
trappings of happiness, but longs for a more passionate life. Returning to Olinger
seeking a cure for misdiagnosed eye problems, he encounters reminders of time slip-
ping away, but latches on to an old fl ame as an emblem of past joy; despite his hopes
of recapturing an idealized past, he remains in “ a tainted world where things evaded
his focus ” ( Pigeon Feathers 25). One early Olinger story, “ You ’ ll Never Know Dear,
How Much I Love You, ” is a variant of Joyce ’ s “ Araby, ” with a young boy ’ s disillu-
sionment occurring at a carnival; in “ A Sense of Shelter, ” an older youth retreats into
the town ’ s inherent protectiveness, while in “ Flight, ” another high - school - age pro-
tagonist looks back on his preparation to take fl ight from Olinger. As he unfolds the
tale of casting off from his mother, he touches her suffering and sacrifi ce, understand-
ing her life as well as his own more deeply.
The collection concludes with two stories that Updike characterizes as “ farraginous
narratives ” : assembled from independent narrative segments but ultimately coherent
in their thematic and imagistic substructure. Their long titles signal their composite
nature, though Updike artfully links the sections via metaphor as the narrators dra-
matize the process of memory in search of connectedness. “ The Blessed Man of Boston,
My Grandmother ’ s Thimble, and Fanning Island ” ostensibly records three successive
artistic failures, but each section progressively moves toward understanding how
recovery of the past ’ s minutiae can put one in touch with a larger body of memory.
More explicitly connected are the segments of
“
Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, A
Dying Cat, A Traded Car, ” in which John Nordholm (returning from “ Friends from
Philadelphia
”
) retrospectively constructs a cyclical journey, wearing a new path
through the obstructive rubble of adult life via forays into his past, each centered on
John
Updike
351
a single image or incident. As Updike notes, the story interweaves themes that “ had
long been present to me: paternity and death, earth and faith and cars ” ( Hugging 852).
After the publication of his fi rst children ’ s book, The Magic Flute (1962) and his
second book of poetry, Telephone Poles and Other Poems (1963), Updike effectively brings
his early career to a close with Olinger Stories: A Selection (1964) , published only as a
Vintage paperback. This short story sequence arranges the tales featuring Updike ’ s
younger protagonist in rural Olinger into a loose bildungsroman of a composite char-
acter that Updike calls “ a local boy ” in his foreword. Olinger is a realm of grace and
unexpected gifts, where, as Updike remarks, “ the muddled and inconsequent surface
of things now and then parts to yield us a gift ” (vii). However, the sequence culminates
in departure to a less secure territory, where access to memory is increasingly prob-
lematic and spiritual inquiry yields only provisional answers. Ultimately, this gather-
ing of earlier work – one that Updike hoped “ might generate new light, or at least
focus more sharply the light already there ” (vi) – succeeds in both recapturing the
past and closing the book on this phase. The same year Olinger Stories was published,
Updike became the youngest person ever elected to the National Institute of Arts and
Letters.
Following the 1965 publication of Assorted Prose – his fi rst volume of collected
essays, reviews, and other occasional prose pieces – the novel Of the Farm , and A Child ’ s
Calendar , an illustrated volume of poems for children, Updike published his fourth
collection of short fi ction, The Music School (1966), which transposes the themes of
memory and its redemptive power, the tension between spiritual yearnings and their
physical realizations, and the ambiguous blessings of domestic life into a new key
suited to characters no longer able to linger in memories of young adulthood. His
middle - aged protagonists have moved from idyllic Olinger to suburban Tarbox, where
satisfaction is harder earned: romantic discord, infi delity, and perplexity all arise
during their disillusioned attempts to realize some mature version of the romantic
pastoral. In a realm no longer sustained by memory and where marital tensions have
widened to gulfs, separation becomes the dominant experience. While most of the
collection ’ s stories strike a common thematic chord, they exhibit an impressive variety
of techniques, ranging from traditional linear narrative to the meditative lyric mode,
the Hawthornesque sketch, and an epistolary experiment. The lyricism of what
Updike calls the “ abstract - personal ” mode of a story such as “ Leaves ” is especially
suited to many of his characters ’ conditions: at this crux in their lives they are more
disposed to refl ect than act.
“ In Football Season ” opens the volume with a lyric meditation providing an affec-
tionate backward glance, a prelude to music in a new key. The sensory immediacy of
the narrator ’ s evocation memorializes the ephemeral beauty of Olinger, portraying its
fragility and imminent dissolution even as it holds the adult “ winds of worry ” at bay.
Access to the past is more problematic in many of the volume ’ s subsequent stories.
A Companion to the American Short Story Page 76