I was sad to hear John Updike died. At seventy-seven. Somehow I thought he would live forever, be invulnerable to the human frailties he wrote so beautifully about. He will live forever of course in my mind and in his writings. Although his last novels were not my favorites, I love his style, his thoughts, his expressions of everyday life. How he can take four pages to cross the street. The flood of memories, details, associations, how a leaf on the road can turn the mind around and around.
I think my favorite book of his is Rabbit at Rest. I reread the Rabbit series a few years ago and still love them. Even as a man facing poor health and possible death, Harry Angstrom, like all of Updike’s characters, is obsessed with sex right to the end.
As a friend once said to me (of herself), I was single in the seventies. Both of us immediately understood the implications. That was a time of easy sexuality. And Updike wrote about this without shame or hesitation. I’ve had several friends say they didn’t like his writing because of his dark, brooding (and naughty) relationship with sex. It’s not "nice". But it’s life, friends, life at its core. And very beautiful.