The Other John Updike: Poems, Short Stories, Prose, Play

Literature & Fiction

GREINER, DONALD J.

Essays & Correspondence

Ohio University Press

<div> John Updike has won a National Book Award and has earned both critical and popular acclaim. At the moment, his reputation rests largely on his novels, especially Rabbit, Run; The Centaur; Of the Farm; and The Coup. Of his many books, more than half are volumes of poems, stories, essays and reviews, and one play, yet the numerous critical books on Updike concentrate primarily on his long fiction with the result that over one half of his canon is often ignored. The Other John Updike is the first sustained critical analysis of this significant part of Updike's achievement. Professor Greiner's study is important and impressive in its ability to treat Updike's stories and poems sensitively and to show what makes them work so well. Not only does Greiner discuss and analyze individual poems, tales, and essays, but also he suggests the development of Updike's work. Aware of Updike's reputation as a poet of light verse, Greiner shows how the autobiographical poems nd the lyrics of mortality and loss reflect more fundamental themes in Updike's writing. Similarly, Greiner argues, the short stories reveal a general tendency away from the nostalgia of the earlier tales toward lyrical meditation and irony as the Updike canon grows. Discussions of Updike's commitment to mimesis, which he develops in his critical essays and reviews, and a reading of his unusual play, Buchanan Dying, offer a perspective on an important segment of Updike's work that unfortunately seems to be unknown to all but the specialist. The Other John Updike is a major contribution to an overview of this remarkable author's achievement. </div>

History & Criticism

In 1981–82, John Updike turned fifty and published Rabbit Is Rich, the third installment of Updike’s Rabbit chronicle and the tenth novel of his career. The resulting publicity was enormous: a Time cover story; the re-issue of his first book, The Carpentered Hen, originally published in 1958; and three prestigious awards for Rabbit Is Rich—the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and an American Book Award. Add to this list of honors the fact that Updike’s books are the most avidly collected of all contemporary American writing, and one understands the timeliness of a careful analysis of Updike’s novels. Other critical studies of Updike usually stress one aspect of his writing and thus link his fiction to his interest in religion, or pastoral, or adultery, or art. John Updike’s Novels avoids the thesis approach and evaluates the novels according to what is revealed by a close reading of the texts. Of special interest is Greiner’s overview of the Rabbit chronicle, for Updike has now carried Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom through his fifty-sixth year. With an analysis of the reception of each novel and a checklist of the various editions, John Updike’s Novels offers a comprehensive overview of the major fiction of one of the few truly important American authors since World War II. It is a natural companion to Grenier’s earlier volume. The Other John Updike: Poems, Stories, Prose, Play also published by Ohio University Press in 1981. Readers who desire an in-depth account of Updike’s long career will find that together the two books treat all of Updike’s major writing through Rabbit Is Rich as well as detail the surprisingly varied reception of his work.

John Updike’s Novels

Surveys positive and negative criticism and discusses the American poet's character and literary importance

Robert Frost: The Poet and His Critics

Poetry

Amer Library Assn.

Adultery in the American Novel: Updike, James, and Hawthorne

Self-Help

Univ of South Carolina Pr

The canon of American literature - especially the American novel - has long been defined by white male writers. From Cooper, Melville and Twain to Crane, Hemingway, and Dickey, the reciprocal relationship between literature and culture has both reflected and determined the socially acceptable roles of males and females. Women scholars and writers have long pointed out that these roles are often different in novels written by female authors. This book examines how gender relationships in contemporary American novels by white males have changed even though these contemporary male writers still acknowledge the models established by earlier male novelists. Greiner maintains that these models, now a paradigm for American fiction, argue that male bonding has necessitated crossing the border between society and the wilderness to plung into the freedom of adventure and to escape women and the inhibitions of society that women normally represent. The important difference in contemporary fiction is that while males still bond and cross the border to enter the wilderness, they now either take women with them or find them already there. The author examines not only the traditional novelists who first established the paradigm but also its critics, Fiedler, Lewis and Lawrence. He then considers recent arguments by feminist scholars and anthropologists who suggest that cultural changes have influenced contemporary novels written by white males. Finally, he discusses two contemporary novels written by female authors in the context of the anthropological question of whether females bond and whether the bond holds when females cross the border.

Women Enter the Wilderness: Male Bonding and the American Novel of the 1980s

United States

Women Enter the Wilderness: Male Bonding and the American Novel of the 1980's

Donald J. Greiner's provocative new study evaluates the fiction of ten contemporary female novelists to ask questions about gender relations in American fiction. Looking closely at the reaction of female writers to what Greiner describes as a central paradigm of American literature - men bonding in the wilderness in an attempt to escape women and the social restrictions they represent - Greiner contends that female novelists have not only adopted the venerable model but also adapted it so that women venture into the wilderness while excluding men from the quest. Greiner first shows how such contemporary white male novelists as Frederick Busch, John Irving, and Larry Woiwode modify the literary model established by Cooper, Melville, and Twain to include women in the bonding process. He then argues that recent female novelists are not so eager to allow males into the wilderness or to bond with them. Rather than facilitate a closing of the gender gap, many contemporary female writers insist on separating the sexes. Greiner frames his analysis with discussions of prominent feminist literary theorists and feminist psychologists including Carolyn Heilbrun, Rachel Brownstein, Nancy Chodorow, Janice Raymond, and Judith Kegan Gardiner. From close readings of recent novels by Gloria Naylor, Marianne Wiggins, Joan Didion, Diane Johnson, Marilynne Robinson, Mona Simpson, Hilma Wolitzer, Meg Wolitzer, Joan Chase, and Lisa Alther, Greiner finds three significant differences in the way contemporary female novelists employ the quest plot: the patriarchal text is not repudiated but revised to accommodate female characters who readily accept the traditional masculine call to the quest; once outside the bounds of society, female bonds do not always hold; males are excluded from the bonding process. To contrast the gender exclusivity favored by contemporary female writers, Greiner ends his study with a discussion of bonding as portrayed by contemporary male novelist Douglas Ungar.

Women Without Men: Female Bonding and the American Novel of the 1980s

University of South Carolina Press

Comic terror: The novels of John Hawkes

Publisher

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