Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism by John Updike (PDF)

Description

“A drop of truth, of lived experienced, glistens in each.” This is how John Updike modestly described his nonfiction pieces, of which Due Considerations is perhaps his most varied, stylish, and personal collection. Here Updike reflects on such writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James, Don DeLillo, A. S. Byatt, Colson Whitehead, andMargaret Atwood. He visits China, goes to art exhibitions, provides a whimsical and insightful list of “Ten Epochal Moments in the American Libido,” and shares his thoughts on the fall of the Twin Towers, which he witnessed from a tenth-floor apartment in Brooklyn. John Updike was always more than simply one of America’s most acclaimed novelists; he was also, as the Los Angeles Times noted in appraising this volume,“one of the best essayists and critics this country has produced.”

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐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.”

⭐The master speaks in this latest collection of what Updike calls his freelancing. What a pleasure to survey literature from his perspective. Beautiful language, fascinating views of technique in others’ writings, and brilliant, poignant comments on so many times and places in the American experience. Like a modern day Hawthorne, or a latter day Edmund Wilson, we hear the master novelist review recent literature and the times with an extraordinary eye for the moral and aesthetic values of our literary times. As Updike knows full well, he’s been lucky in his chosen profession; many are called but few are chosen to stay self-employed as fiction writers over such a long, illustrious career. A member of a vanishing breed in the inditer tribe, we are fortunate to enjoy the mature reflections of this senior scribe.

⭐John Updike may come to be regarded as a writer equal to, or greater in stature than Shakespeare. As a novelist he is incomparable, but it is as a literary critic that his unique talent bowls one over. This volume provides new insights into art and literature, from Bruegel to Proust. There is sheer joy in moving from the index to topic. It makes Google look second rate. Once you get hold of this book you’ll want more. Updike, as ever, was obliging, and wrote “More Matter” – a New York times Notable Book. Order it at the same time. You’ll never regret it.

⭐Due Considerations is a compilation of various individual essays and articles published over a span of years and published in this volume shortly before John Updike’s physical demise. I found many of the “stories” particularly revealing as to his own feelings of vulnerability in his later years after remarrying and, as always, most of the work it contains is reflective of a thoughtful, extremely articulate, and delightful delineator of the cultural milieu of his time and place.

⭐A great collection of Updike’s criticism

⭐This book is filled with sharp insights and lucid writing, always revealing something new and unexpected and thus enhancing my own appetite for knowing more about the world of literature and art and all the wondrous things they lead us to.

⭐Due Considerations is a heavyweight paperback, but chock full of essays and critiques by one of America’s best writer, and my favorite.

⭐Along with Hugging the Shore this is great book to dip in and out of. What amazes me is the amount of reading John Updike must have done as he not only comments on the book he is reading/reviewing but also compares it to how other writers may have done it. Along with writing his own books where did he find time to play golf let alone carry out his many well documented affairs. He was most certainly a busy man.

⭐Purchasing pre owned books, can be a pig in a poke. But as a bit of serendipity would have it this disclose to perfect. I shall dip into the works of this great master with added pleasure.

⭐Updike at his polymath best. Excellent book from an excellent source – Rivermead books – always a pleasure to do business with them

⭐Here is Updike at his stylist best. It is best to begin on his American pieces like those on henry james, f scott fizgerald, and Nathaniel hawthorne and then delve into several of his articles on religion and spirituality. This will give you a foundation on what updike is all about and then from that foundation almost we can say American protestant puritaness we can go on and ramble through updike’s pieces on foreign travel, writer’s from other locales and articles dealing with matters other than writers. This will give us a wholeness of what updike is all about I find him to be like henry james and as the novel the Scarlet letter dealing with the religiousness of man and we can see that when he discusses painting or sketches and pieces of art and we sense the American puritaness of updike when he discusses the puritaness of g.b.shaw///a book recommended on how to write reviews and for the religiousness of its author a subject lacking among contemporary reviewers. Recommended

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