Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism
by John Updike
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Book Summary Information
Author: John UpdikeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-30
ISBN: 034549900X
Number of pages: 736
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism
Book Review: Bookend
Summary: 5 Stars
It's a heavy book. On the outside of it "Due Considerations" appears as one of those intimidating tomes that sit with stentorian authority on the shelves of academic potentates or literary agents, somewhat worshipped, and rarely opened. It can seem intimidating. One could be tempted to just hold it for a few minutes and savor its weightiness, reflecting on the fact of the treasure one bears: a voluminous collection of essays and criticisms by one of the most prolific and perspicacious men of letters of the twentieth century.
Then open it, and something remarkable happens. Rather than being ushered into a rarefied world of abstract ideas and abstruse language, John Updike welcomes the reader into the warm room of his mind, filled with the rich furnishings of his intimate, personal reflections on the the genius of others. Anyone is welcome. All that's required of a reader of "Due Considerations" is a disposition of curiosity, and a passion for life.
Within minutes you'll find yourself immersed. You can start anywhere--that's one of the many beauties of "Due Considerations". It seems there's not an author, breathing or otherwise, that Updike hasn't read and examined with thoughtful and affectionate precision. Melville, Thurber, Hawthorne, Baum, Beerbaum, English fiction, American fiction, biography, non-fiction, art, other languages--they're all here, spilling over each other despite the editor's obvious attempts to organize and categorize. Life, art, and language, seem, in Updike's loving hands, connected and continuous.
And then there's EB White, and Orhan Pamuk, and Henry Petroski, and oh, yes, did I mention Fernanda Eberstadt? On the way, take a detour into the world of conceptual art, and the modern political situation in China. Updike may have lived a mere 76 years, but he's packed at least five centuries of human experience into his literary soul.
For both serious and casual readers this makes "Due Considerations" a candy store. No doubt for everyone there are a few favorite authors examined here, and the chance to learn of many more. Old friends and new, Updike makes little distinction. He flings open doors on emerging and established artists like an engaging, eager host.
Despite its disparate subjects, Updike's journeys through the human existence do have a central unifying theme, though even he seems reluctant to confront it directly. It's his quest for the spiritual, a longing for the existence and knowledge of God, which seems to compel him most completely, and which eludes him continually. In his exegesis of Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" he opines "From the absoluteness of "me" a great deal of religious consolation can be spun. The self is pitted against the vast physical universe as if the two were equal." Is this a statement of fact in his mind, or a deep seated wish? Whichever, his search for the essence of humanity came a long way in his remarkable life, and did its part to move the human psyche closer towards parity with that elusive "absolute self."
Summary of Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism
?A drop of truth, of lived experience, glistens in each.? This is how John Updike, one of the world?s most acclaimed novelists, modestly describes his nonfiction work, the brilliant and graceful essays and criticism he has written for more than five decades. Due Considerations is his sixth collection, and perhaps the most moving, stylish, and personal volume yet. Here he reflects on such writers and works as Emerson, Uncle Tom?s Cabin, Colson Whitehead, The Wizard of Oz, Don DeLillo, The Portrait of a Lady, Margaret Atwood, The Mabinogion, and Proust. Updike also provides a whimsical and insightful list of ?Ten Epochal Moments in the American Libido,? from Pocahontas and John Smith to Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky; muses on how the practice of faith changes but doesn?t disappear; and shares his reaction to the attacks on 9/11 (in Brooklyn that day, ?Freedom, reflected in the street?s diversity and quotidian ease, felt palpable?). Due Considerations proves that John Updike is, as noted in The Boston Globe, ?our greatest critic of literature.?Praise for Due Considerations:
A New York Times Notable Book
?The prose is clean, elegant, exquisitely calibrated. . . . [Updike is] one of the best essayists and critics this country has produced in the last century.?
?Los Angeles Times Book Review
?Updike?s scope is rather breathtaking. . . . When I do not know the subject well?as in his finely illustrated art reviews of Bruegel, Dürer and Goya?I learn much from what Updike has to impart. When he considers an author I love, like Proust or Czeslaw Milosz, I often find myself appreciating familiar things in a new way.?
?Christopher Hitchens, The New York Times Book Review
?With his pack-rat curiosity . . . his prodigious memory and attendant knack for choosing the ?just-right? fact or quote, and his ever-present astonishment at both the stupidity and genius on display wherever he looks, Updike is in many ways an ideal critic. . . . It is a privilege to be in the company of this wonderfully American voice.?
?Rocky Mountain News
?Updike knows more about literature than almost anyone breathing today. . . . He's beyond knowledgeable?he makes Google look wanting.?
?Baltimore Sun
?Provocative and incisive . . . This volume reminds us that [Updike?s] prose sets our literary bar very high indeed.?
?The Charlotte Observer
?Updike offers an effortless mastery of form and content.?
?The Boston Globe
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