RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,062
(that train kept a'rolling, zelda))
Shovels to Ipswitch? I had
always known something
about place. John Updike
lived there, until his death,
Ipswitch; the one here, in
the USA. Massachusetts. He
was actually born in Reading,
PA, and grew up, tenderly,
in Shillington PA, where
they've kept the little white
house well preserved and
marked. I don't know how
large of a 'tourist' attraction
it is, but it probably is, a
little. He wrote an early
book, called 'Of The Farm.'
I vaguely recall it, something
about his Father, a failing
farm, that father as a country
school-teacher of some sort,
and an early model, speeding
car. Another one was titled,
'The Poorhouse Fair.' It's
pretty much a descriptive
title for exactly what the
tale is about. Both are now
considered 'early' work, and
the preponderance of the
reputation he's left with
comes from his later works,
of which there were many;
considered some, even as
risque, sexy, and very 'modern'
in a way that only the 1960's
and 1970's could put across
as 'modern.' Something of ,
or akin to, the 'Loud Family'
TV series that was once on.
-
I never stayed with it all. The
Rabbit Angstrom books came
later, and established greatly
his curious fame - a sort of,
but very short-reached, novelist
of the USA of its day. I don't
want to call it 'fluff,' but it
did always seem to lack the,
say, 'Gravitas'of serious
fiction. In the same way that
'sex on the run' lacks, as a
quickie, the depth of serious
and slow lovemaking. Or in
the same way that a Honda is
not a Harley. These sorts of
books, after the Rabbit series,
('Rabbit Run'; 'Rabbit Redux';
'Rabbit Is Rich'), went from
pleasant home scenes of
wealthy, situated families,
through adultries, cheating,
detailed and precise sex scenes,
characters on the edge, and
any of those complex and
twisted ways that suburban
and wealth-driven Americans
have of finding their own
anxieties, angsts (Note thusly
the name of Updike's most
defining character, Rabbit
ANGSTROM), and disreputable
causes and complacancies. I
will say, facetiously, that for
anyone seeking the most
graphic descriptions of nipples,
breasts, vaginas, intercourse,
and orgasms, anything, for
instance, from the book titled
'The Maples' would suffice.
And others too.
-
All through the '60's and '70's
and '80's this sort of stuff
sufficed, to be seen as a soft
American, literary, pornography.
Certainly, it was, but it was NOT
in any way literature based on
the historic Euro-body of deep
and legacy-based writing. No
deep philosophy, no discursive
rambles onto side studies, issues,
or diversions. In that way, it
all was lightweight. Not in any
way discursive; and any adventure,
within the story line, never strayed
from the story line - in some
rigid idea of advancing only the
constructed plot, and cast, of
imagined characters. At the
same time, at any point Updike
was apt to ramble off into deep
discussions of coitus, sweat,
physicality, semen, coming,
moaning, resting and the
post-coital twisting and
turnings of reverie imagined.
John Updike never received
any of the big literary prizes,
and, hell, even Bob Dylan
and Peter Handke beat him
to that horse-trough of honor,
the Nobel Prize for Literature,
as diminished now as it might
be. (Those people are obviously
either very confused these days,
or on some sort of hallucinogenic,
literary drug). Suburban reveries
over cheating sex and adultries
only go so far. Perhaps, in an
oddly American way, that has
always been the tight basis of
the twisted society: Seeing what
one could 'fit it' to the appointed
crevice, so to speak, and then
writing about it - all these half
drunk and jealous cocktail party
jerks disrobing. Giving an entire
and new meaning to the 1960's
craze for 'the twist.' I love your
flip-top lids!
-
I forget when Updike died, maybe
about 2009, in his 70's, I think.
It was that period of time (years)
when I daily rode the Metuchen
to Princeton train. I also (dammit
all) forget the name of the guy I
used to ride with; it was a simple
name, and one that sounded like
something else, like an everyday
product, though I can't remember
it or find it. He was a research
scholar writing a book on Zelda
Fitzgerald. John Updike's dying,
which happened in the middle of
all this, struck him as (for some
reason) a major, American, literary
loss. 'We lost him way too soon.'
I went along while he swooned
over the lost literary lion. The funny
this, as well, was that, among the
titles authored by Updike, was
one called 'Buchanan Dying.' It
was about the romantic life, and
the pining notions of President
Buchanan - some girl in the
hometown her could never get.
Updike dying. Buchanan dying.
It seemed a fitting title, and was
one Updike book I really liked.
Buchanan was the 'pre' Civil War
president - the one who turned
itall over to Lincol in 1860, whoce
dithering inaction, Buchanan's,
allowed the growth of the issues
which became the Civil War to
fester, grow, and break out.
-
This author guy was researching
Zelda, daily, for months on end,
by going through all her papers,
as they were stored and arranged
in the Princeton University collection,
and archived for use by writers and
researchers. He was coming in from
NYC daily. His point was that her
bizarre breakout of insanity and
perplexing behavior had to do
with a conditional abuse too, by
her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
but more importantly, he claimed
- and he claimed the back-up
evidences and testimonies to show
it - the series of abortions and a
hysterectomy which were imposed
on her (in those days a woman's
'hysteria' was thought to be sexual
weirdness; thus 'eliminating' the
source of that problem was seen
to also 'solve' it). It didn't work.
Her crazed promiscuity, and her
own failed writerly efforts (a book or
two of her own that went nowhere),
drove the wild southern girl crazy.
Instead of being 'treated' and listened
to, she was stuffed away into a series
of nut-houses and sanitariums, which,
somewhere down south in Georgia
or close, she died in a fire which
also brunt down the sanitarium.
-
Man oh man, thought I, how fitting
was any of this! Fitzgerald; Updike;
Zelda: [even 'The Life and Loves of
Dobie Gillis,' an old TV show, whose
main, female character was, fittingly,
'Zelda.']. That train kept a'rolling,
day after day.
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