Memories of the Ford Administration by John Updike
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Book Reviews of Memories of the Ford Administration
Book Review: Good, not Great
Summary: 4 Stars
Updike tries to incorporate his decades long research of James Buchanon into a storyline that has a professor recalling his life during the mid-70s. The graphic depiction of the sex overtakes the book in ways that are unsettling, but the emptiness of the protagonist's life at the end is undeniable. It would have been better if Updike has just written a history of Buchanon that echoed the "New Journalism," but then he would have been entering Tom Wolfe territory and that would have been a "no-no."
Still, Updike's middling efforts on a book like this is worth the time to sink in the classic prose and realize that this world is fallen and passing away.
Book Review: Giving up on Updike
Summary: 3 Stars
Do you know how they say one picture paints a thousand words? Well, I'm going to quote just ONE SENTENCE from this book; if it appeals, this book, and Updike in general, is for you; if it doesn't, steer clear of this novel, and Updike in general. Here goes: "As her mind clears of its dreams -- plausible dramas sinking rapidly into oblivion, leaving behind shreds that melt as her mind tries to grasp them: her father and mother present in the Jenkinses' front parlor on South Duke Street, her father holding a teacup poised beneath his double chin, the saucer several buttons below, her mother on the sofa in her lace cap, Ann feeling her breast bursting with pent-up rage, the handle of a riding crop long and leathery in her hand, all discussing some issue (there were others present, Slaymakers and Jacobses) involving Mr. Buchanan, how a prankish bid of his at an auction had caused all the banks in Lancaster to fail, and a terrible vastation of financial panic to fall upon the entire town, while she was crying that it had not been his fault, he had simply misjudged, in the eagerness of his desire to be accepted by his peers and fellow Masons; and then they were outdoors, or rather she was outdoors alone, in a little close place of frozen ferns and ivy and mossy bricks, all rising around her like the walls of a well, to a spot of sky no bigger than the moon, a man's cut-out shadow at the top, gazing silently down, and she tried to scream for help and the silence that emerged from her locked throat must have been what woke her so suddenly -- as her mind clears, she sees the horror in her hopeless social humiliated situation."
Folks, this is ONE SENTENCE, and it took up more than half the page of my edition of the book. (I measured it; the page is six and a half inches long, the sentence is three and a half inches long.) I congratulate Mr. Updike on his ability to remain grammatical while avoiding the punctuation mark known as a period for over half a page of text. But I don't much care for this unnecessarily convoluted writing style.
I really liked Updike's first two "Bech" books (I haven't yet gotten to the third one), and was very fond of "Roger's Version." I really disliked the much-celebrated "Rabbit" books, and couldn't stand "The Witches of Eastwick." (The movie was lousy also.) I plan on reading his latest "Bech" book, and then, as I said in my title, I'm giving up on Updike.
Book Review: Very Disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
John Updike is a great writer - so I have no idea why he wrote this confusing, disjointed, rambling book. I did not enjoy it, and normally would not have finished a book I was getting so little pleasure from, but I believed to the bitter end that Mr. Updike would somehow reward my efforts. Unfortunately, this was just a bad book