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His title, this time, echoes Queen Gertrude's editorial advice to Polonius: "More matter, with less art." Only reluctantly does Updike assent to our age's appetite for facts, facts, and more facts, with fiction relegated to a kind of imaginative finger bowl:
Human curiosity, the abettor and stimulant of the fiction surge between Robinson Crusoe's adventures and Constance Chatterley's, has become ever more literal-minded and impatient with the proxies of the imagination. Present taste runs to the down-home divulgences of the talk show--psychotherapeutic confession turned into public circus--and to investigative journalism that, like so many heat-seeking missiles, seeks out the intimate truths, the very genitals, of Presidents and princesses.Strong stuff, that last line, especially from the man whom Nicholson Baker called "the first novelist to take the penile sensorium under the wing of elaborate metaphoric prose."
But if Updike's critical investigations tend to stay above the belt, they remain as wide-ranging and elegant as ever. In More Matter, he takes on Herman Melville and Mickey Mouse, Abraham Lincoln and the male body--not to mention the cream of modern cosmology. His formulations on almost any subject seem ripe for the commonplace book. Here he is on sexual appetite: "Lust, which begins in a glance of the eye, is a searching, and its consummation, step by step, a knowing." On the short story: "The inner spaces that a good short story lets us enter are the old apartments of religion." On the austerity of biblical narrative: "The original Gospels evince a flinty terseness, a refusal, or inability, to provide the close focus and cinematic highlighting that the modern mind expects." And finally, on the raw intimacies of John Cheever's published journals:
His confessions posthumously administer a Christian lesson in the deep gulf between outward appearance and inward condition; they present, with an almost unbearable fullness, a post-Adamic man, an unreconciled bundle of cravings and complaints, whose consolations--the glory of the sky, the company of his young sons--have the ring of hollow cheer in the vastness of his dissatisfaction. Comparatively, the journals of Kierkegaard and Emerson are complacent and academic.These sentences neatly unite the author's literary and theological concerns--although the latter topic takes something of a back seat in More Matter--and remind us of the compound pleasures of his prose. In his preface, Updike refers to the book as "my fifth such collection and--dare we hope?--my last." We very much hope not. --James Marcus
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. A superlative collection from the late, great John Updike, the finest American critic and essayist of his timeWith a fiction writer's affectionate, shaping hand, Updike explores everything from the nature of evil and the philosophical content of literature to the wreck of the Titanic and the infuriating phenomenon of unopenable parcels.Exploring the work of both his peers and his predecessors, there are numerous fascinating pieces on literature, but Updike also gives sharp-eyed impressions of the other arts, from film to photography to painting, as well as honing in, with his peerless acuity, on the incidental and overlooked details that constitute so much of our lives. Offers a collection of author's critical essays and reflections. This title presents a discussion on contemporary art, issues and people. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780140289701
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9780140289701
Book Description Condition: New. In. Seller Inventory # ria9780140289701_new
Book Description Condition: New. Offers a collection of author's critical essays and reflections. This title presents a discussion on contemporary art, issues and people. Num Pages: 928 pages, illustrations. BIC Classification: DNF. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 197 x 131 x 41. Weight in Grams: 634. . 2000. Paperback. . . . . Seller Inventory # V9780140289701
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 928 pages. 7.72x5.04x1.73 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0140289704
Book Description Condition: New. Offers a collection of author's critical essays and reflections. This title presents a discussion on contemporary art, issues and people. Num Pages: 928 pages, illustrations. BIC Classification: DNF. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 197 x 131 x 41. Weight in Grams: 634. . 2000. Paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # V9780140289701
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. A superlative collection from the late, great John Updike, the finest American critic and essayist of his timeWith a fiction writer's affectionate, shaping hand, Updike explores everything from the nature of evil and the philosophical content of literature to the wreck of the Titanic and the infuriating phenomenon of unopenable parcels.Exploring the work of both his peers and his predecessors, there are numerous fascinating pieces on literature, but Updike also gives sharp-eyed impressions of the other arts, from film to photography to painting, as well as honing in, with his peerless acuity, on the incidental and overlooked details that constitute so much of our lives. Offers a collection of author's critical essays and reflections. This title presents a discussion on contemporary art, issues and people. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780140289701
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. A superlative collection from the late, great John Updike, the finest American critic and essayist of his timeWith a fiction writer's affectionate, shaping hand, Updike explores everything from the nature of evil and the philosophical content of literature to the wreck of the Titanic and the infuriating phenomenon of unopenable parcels.Exploring the work of both his peers and his predecessors, there are numerous fascinating pieces on literature, but Updike also gives sharp-eyed impressions of the other arts, from film to photography to painting, as well as honing in, with his peerless acuity, on the incidental and overlooked details that constitute so much of our lives. Offers a collection of author's critical essays and reflections. This title presents a discussion on contemporary art, issues and people. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780140289701