A Companion to the American Short Story
Page 78
whose protagonist, Credo, becomes aware of his distance from the past “ giants of faith ”
as he reads St. Augustine to fuel his ardor for seduction. “ The Gun Shop ” is a more
conventional narrative, recalling Updike ’ s earlier Pennsylvania stories, although it
focuses not on the young boy ’ s initiation but on the father ’ s dilemmas as he attempts
to bring his city - bred son closer to the rural world of his own boyhood. Other stories
concerning parents and children examine problematic breaches between generations.
“ Son, ” for instance, employs the montage technique of juxtaposing a series of vignettes
spanning four generations to depict patterns in the confl icts between fathers and sons.
“ Daughter, Last Glimpses of ” is a companion story, in which a father whose daughter
has left to live with a harpsichord maker attempts to pierce his callused soul and
recover bits of lost joy.
“ Problems, ” the clever title story, portrays the familiar drama of yearning and
betrayal, featuring characters labeled as abstract variables in a series of six interrelated
mathematical teasers which form a composite portrait of the diffi culties of separation
and its ensuing guilt. Although Updike adapts the mathematical genre of the word
problem, he undercuts its form, as there is no simple correct answer to be reached,
since numerous variables affecting human behavior wreak havoc on any straightfor-
ward calculation. “ Domestic Life in America ” is almost a concrete illustration of the
principles more abstractly outlined in “ Problems, ” illustrating that story ’ s “ Tristan ’ s
Law ” : attraction exists in inverse proportion to psychic distance. “ Guilt Gems, ” which
begins at a similar stage in its protagonist ’ s life, is another collage - like story less
concerned with forwarding a narrative line than with exploring the paradoxical nature
John
Updike
357
of guilt gems: shimmering, piercing moments that have “ volunteered for compres-
sion ” from the “ gaseous clouds of being awaiting a condensation and preservation –
faces, lights that glimmer out, somehow not seized, save in this gesture of remorse ”
(251). Unlike the unexpected rewards of Olinger, these guilt gems – and their pro-
visional coherence established within such a story – represent the hard - earned legacy
of the middle years. “ From the Journal of a Leper ” transmutes Updike ’ s own lifelong
struggle with psoriasis (chronicled in the “ At War with My Skin ” chapter of his
memoir, Self - Consciousness ) into a fi ctive exploration of the relationship between art
and alienation. Archaeology, one of Updike ’ s favorite recurrent metaphors, is featured
in three stories which explore the “ stratum of middle age ” where, as the narrator of
“ The Egg Race ” observes, “ the middle distance blurs, and the fl oor appears to tilt, as
if in unsteady takeoff toward some hopelessly remote point ” (237).
In “ Atlantises, ” a displaced couple, purportedly from the fabled lost island, seek
news from the inundated past. With its marshy landscape and perpetual parties,
Atlantis resembles Updike ’ s suburban Tarbox, a phase of life to which this story bids
farewell, although the protagonist ’ s memory of an acquaintance who taught frogmen
how to surface serves as a metaphor for the problematic transition back to actuality,
rather than indulging in a prolonged dive into the sea of nostalgia.
Following the publication of Rabbit Is Rich (1981), his third Rabbit novel, Updike
further mined his literary travels in Bech Is Back (1982), whose publication was accom-
panied by another Time cover feature, “ Going Great at 50. ” This second Bech book
more broadly examines the perils of success, as Updike ’ s literary alter ego succeeds in
breaking through his writer ’ s block with a dubiously successful potboiler. Married
and living in the suburbs, Bech has overcome his artistic stasis, only to become further
entwined in the publishing industry ’ s “ silken mechanism. ” Bech Is Back consists of
seven stories – four previously published and three written to complete the book –
strung loosely together in a short story sequence. Like the volume itself, a number of
the stories are composites, made up of smaller self - contained vignettes related by
theme or locale; “ Bech Wed, ” the penultimate novella - length work, occupies nearly
one - third of the book and helps tie the stories together.
“ Three Illuminations of an American Author ” focuses on Bech ’ s craving for fi nan-
cial and ego enrichment by seizing on opportunities for remunerative travel, all of
which result in disillusion and further diminishment; invariably, when Bech and his
books intersect, the resultant illuminations highlight corners of his life that might
best have been left in the shadows. In a collage - like form, “ Bech Third Worlds It ”
juxtaposes Bech ’ s African travels with similar journeys to Venezuela and Korea, con-
trasting the emerging countries ’ concern with the writer ’ s political role and Bech ’ s
tamer American aesthetic concerned with the personal. Solo travel in “ Australia and
Canada ” heightens his understanding of how his role as a literary celebrity has had
diminishing returns.
Travels as a husband rather than as a media creature follow in a symmetrical pair
of stories that take Bech to “ The Holy Land ” and to Scotland ( “ Macbech ” ). Although
his visit to the Holy Land reawakens some of Bech ’ s latent religious sensibilities, it
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Robert M. Luscher
is in Ossining, New York – the WASPish suburbs of Cheever country – that Bech
retrieves a deeper consciousness of his Jewishness and writes his long - deferred novel,
in “ Bech Wed. ” Despite favorable reviews, Bech knows that he has abandoned his
previous standards of artistry; the misgivings about his new status as literary lion lead
to an affair with a former mistress, his wife ’ s sister. In the fi nal story, “ White on
White, ” he perceives the kinship between his sullied achievements and the murky
underside of the pretentious avant - garde art world. If Bech is back, his return to print
has been an ambiguous triumph, diffi cult for him to savor and leaving him once again
perpetually dissatisfi ed and manipulated by the publishing industry.
Updike ’ s contribution to literary criticism was recognized with a National Book
Critics Circle Award for Hugging the Shore (1983) , whose title derives from the fol-
lowing remark in the preface: “ Writing criticism is to writing fi ction and poetry as
hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea ” (xv). As editor of Best American Short
Stories 1984 , Updike not only gleaned twenty superior stories for recognition, but also
penned an introduction that makes a number of astute critical observations about the
short story form. His next novel, The Witches of Eastwick (1984), which returned to
small town Massachusetts, was made into a feature fi lm three years later. Another
volume of poetry, Facing Nature (1985), preceded the novel Roger ’ s Version (1986).
Updike ’ s tenth short story collection, Trust Me (1987), reasserts his place as Joyce ’ s
successor in refi ning the ep
iphanic short story, yet also shows him integrating earlier
narrative experiments. This volume, for which Updike was awarded Italy ’ s Premio
Scanno Prize in 1991, may be his most consistent effort, full of poignant and expertly
crafted tales that mark a renewed interest in dramatic action and a leaner style that
accentuates the poetic precision of his language. The stylistic fl ights of his earlier lyric
fi ction are muted and the experimental meditative mode has been supplanted with
narrative experiments that span a signifi cant stretch of time – even an entire marriage
– within the limited compass of the short story. Updike ’ s familiar concerns – suburban
life, marriage, sex, and mortality – dominate the volume, though his characters are
generally older, having passed through divorce and middle
-
aged restlessness and
assumed an increasing consciousness of death. Many have established new relation-
ships, but the foundations of trust in themselves, others, social structures, and religion
are often shaken, even in seemingly placid suburban lives. If trust is faith on a human
scale, Updike ’ s stories show that rarely can we afford to believe blindly in a world
that continues to disappoint with its unavoidable limitations and compromises. Those
in whom his characters long to trust are only human, prone to lapses in judgment
and whims of desire, as the dust jacket illustration – selected by Updike – highlights:
Icarus, poised in midair and about to fall, foreshadows the breaches of trust, the fra-
gility of promises, the familial betrayals, and the inevitable shattering of faith in
human nature ’ s perspicacity that occur as Updike ’ s characters confront the inevitable
betrayals or failings of those who ask for trust and seek some provisional assurances
on which to reconstruct a foundation of belief.
“ Trust Me, ” the lead story, weaves together four juxtaposed vignettes of incidents
involving trust and betrayal that cover the territory from the protagonist ’ s childhood
John
Updike
359
to his current life beyond divorce. The hazards of extending and expecting assurance
resonate throughout each incident, and Updike deftly ties these four vignettes together
with his protagonist ’ s recognition of the patterns within his past and with an epiphany
involving a dollar bill – an embodiment of and reminder that trust, despite its prob-
lematic nature, remains the prevalent currency of human affairs. Other stories likewise
show Updike stretching the short story form to encompass a temporal space greater
than the epiphanic moment. “ More Stately Mansions ” has a structure that resembles
the chambers of its central symbol, the nautilus shell whose marine inhabitant pro-
gressively builds a chambered home. As he uses a nautilus shell as the center of a
lesson to his class, the narrator ponders his personal history of guilt, infi delity, and
tragedy and examines his tenuous reconciliation after rising above his “ low - vaulted
past. ” “ Made in Heaven, ” a sweeping chronicle that traces the history of a marriage,
is an ironic study of religiosity, depicting a husband ’ s progressive sapping of his wife ’ s
religious faith as she struggles to preserve it against his masculine control and intru-
sion. Updike selected this story for an anthology of writers ’ favorites, citing its subject
matter – “ the mystery of churchgoing ” – and the depiction of a long - term marriage ’ s
“ secret and fi nal revenge, its redressing of a long - sustained imbalance ” (26) as ratio-
nales for his choice.
Older protagonists dominate the collection as Updike explores the pressure mortal-
ity exerts on his characters ’ fragile structures of belief. “ Slippage, ” for instance, features
a history professor who loses his “ heart for history ” and his grip on certainty after an
earth tremor, which opens an emotional chasm between his present routine and his
unrealized ambitions. “ The Wallet ” depicts a retired investment broker ’ s erosion of
confi dence in his memory and in the psychological props that keep the void at bay,
all from the misplacing of his wallet and the subsequent unraveling of other circum-
stances beyond his control. Trust Me also includes trademark Updike stories that
explore domestic life ’ s shadowy corners, centering on epiphanic moments that simul-
taneously reveal its beauty and fragility. “ Still of Some Use ” exhibits Updike ’ s talents
for realism, as his protagonist forges new bonds with his son as they discard old games;
“ Learn a Trade, ” another tightly structured story involving fathers and sons, links a
successful artist ’ s past rebellious relationship with his father to his current confl ict
with his son, whose stubborn pursuit of the artistic avocations that he warns him to
avoid teaches him a lesson in trust when the beauty of his son ’ s fragile mobiles over-
whelms him. “ A Constellation of Events ” and “ Killing ” make rare ventures into the
female consciousness, while “ Poker Night ” features an atypical blue - collar protagonist
attempting to control his growing dread after learning that he has cancer. “ Unstuck ”
concerns a young couple whose marital problems are metaphorically portrayed through
their attempts to get their car moving in the snow; it stands out as the only story
with protagonists the age of those in The Same Door . Five families – older versions of
the young suburban couples in Updike ’ s earlier fi ction – form an ensemble cast in
“ Leaf Season, ” an experiment in using the short form to explore a group dynamic.
Another story lacking a central protagonist is “ The Ideal Village, ” which uses a visit
to an isolated Latin American village to explore familiar themes concerning the
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Robert M. Luscher
perpetual unrest and dissatisfaction of the human spirit. A number of other stories
explore the vagaries of attraction and betrayals of trust in the more typical Updike
milieu of suburban New England. Overall, the collection has an autumnal mood, as
Updike ’ s older characters attempt to refurbish their trust and create whatever precari-
ous shelters they can as they become further aware of death ’ s increasingly visible
horizon.
Updike followed Trust Me with a novel, S. (1988), and two books in 1989, the year
his mother died: Just Looking: Essays on Art and his memoir Self - Consciousness . The early
1990s saw the appearance of his fi nal Rabbit novel, Rabbit at Rest (1990), as well as
another volume of criticism, Odd Jobs (1991), his volume of Collected Poems 1953 – 1993
(1993), and two novels: Memories of the Ford Administration (1992) and Brazil (1994) ,
which appeared the same year as his eleventh collection of short fi ction, The Afterlife
and Other Stories . As Updike ’ s protagonists enter this “ afterlife – the phase after their
children are grown, their marriages have failed, and new relationships have become
settled – they are becoming comfortably familiar with “ death ’ s immediate neighbor-
hood ” (253) and share one character ’ s lament that “ [t]hings used to be more substan-
tial ” (255). Ennui and a winding down of aspiration pervades this phase; with death
tion from experience that evens out the disappointments and the satisfactions so that
neither upsets the equilibrium. If characters are “ Playing with Dynamite ” – as one
story is titled – the risk seems curiously defused, as the ache of memory has become
less immediate and profound.
In the title story, a couple whose lives have drifted on uneventfully visits England
in the wake of many of their friends doing “ sudden surprising things, ” although the
husband believes that whatever shocks nature and personal experience might bring,
he and his cohorts “ were beyond all that now. ” Nonetheless, he experiences an unex-
pected but ephemeral moment of grace as he witnesses a heron that resembles an angel
in the symbolically appropriate rearview mirror, producing uncharacteristic daring as
he drives through a storm, and heightened sensitivity in its aftermath. “ Wildlife ”
provides an Aids - era analogy for the peril from which Updike ’ s older characters seem
insulated in the Lyme disease that threatens the town to which its protagonist returns
for periodic visits to his children. A tick bite to his grown son, discovered before the
symptoms become severe, leads him to conclude that he has made a timely escape
from his former life, despite its retrospective appeal. In “ Brother Grasshopper, ” the
protagonist ’
s scattering of his deceased brother
-
in
-
law
’
s ashes at sea produces the
insight that their shared times were “ priceless – treasure, stored up against the winter
that had arrived ” (45). Memories of the deceased also comprise “ His Mother Inside
Him, ” in which Allen Dow – a character from The Same Door – is spurred by a friend ’ s
remark about his physical resemblance to his mother to discover how he embodies
her traits more than her features.
“ A Sandstone Farmhouse, ” featured both in Best American Short Stories 1991 and as
First Prize winner in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards the same year, chronicles an
older character
’
s return to his parents
’