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Brief Biography
John Updike was born on March 18, 1932, in Reading, Pennsylvania. He spent his early childhood in Shillington, Pennsylvania, where his father taught math to high school students. Updike’s mother was a novelist, from whom he inherited such passion for writing. During their high school years, John Updike contributed nearly 300 pieces of writing and drawing to the school paper – Chatterbox. He graduated as a high school president and a co-valedictorian. The writer was able to obtain higher education through a reward of a full scholarship at Harvard University, from where Updike graduated in 1954 with a Bachelor’s degree in English (Britannica). During Updike’s time in the university, he was well known for his talented writing in The Harvard Lampoon. In 1955, Updike began his association with The New Yorker, to which he contributed several decades of his life. Updike’s first book, The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures came out in 1958. Not long after, the first novel of a writer, The Poorhouse Fair, was released that same year.
In 1953, the writer married Mary E. Pennington, an art student at the time. Mary accompanied John to England, where the writer attended art school. In 1955, they had a girl they named Elizabeth, and several years later, three more were born: David, Michael, and Miranda, in 1957, 1959, and 1960, respectively. After long 20-years of marriage, the couple divorced in 1974 (Britannica). Updike’s second marriage was to Martha Ruggles Bernhard, with whom he lived until his last days. The life of John Updike ended in 2009, in the 76th year of his life, due to lung cancer.
The Writer’s Contemporaries
Late 20th-century literature is the reflection of the horrific events that occurred in the first half of the period. Authors of the time opened a new modernistic page in the literature world, which influenced the development of future classic masterpieces. Literature, including that of Updike, during the late 20th century, became franker and more explicit, influenced by Freud’s “theories of infantile sexuality and the Oedipal complex” (De Bellis 184).
New, talented novelists emerged, among whom was John Updike. At the peak of his writing career, a new generation of writers was formed with distinct views of religion, ethnic and social views from the previous one. Among contemporary novelists that were writing at the time of John Updike, we can distinguish the most prominent ones like Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, and Haruki Murakami. Updike reviewed many of Philip Roth’s novels, offering criticism and alternating between praise and disapproval (De Bellis 315). He centered most of his jobs around the Jewish culture, and conflicts on their traditions. Toni Morrison, whose novel was named the best of the 25 years in 2006, demonstrated insights into the African-American culture, including the realities of slavery (Beavers 187). The writer is a receiver of the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature, which identifies her as a prominent contemporary of Updike (De Bellis 307). Haruki Murakami is a novelist who stepped into the magical realism genre. Coming from a Buddhist family in Japan, Murakami gained popularity all over the world with his melancholic and, at the same time, surreal novels.
The art of the late 20th century is a unique era that voices all significant changes that happened in previous decades. It became more diverse in terms of style and themes, which is why some find it challenging to understand. Artists like Judy Chicago used their talent to speak out on feminist topics in the early 1970s (Zetterman 4). She utilized specific art forms and images that were closely connected with women. Judy Chicago was the founder of the first feminist art program at California State University in Fresno, which made a significant impact on the development of feminist art education (Zetterman 2).
Joseph Kosuth is one of the first artists of conceptual art during the 1960s. He is known for the theories that art should not be measured by skills or craft, so the ideas are not explicit and direct. Kosuth is well known for his combination of visual and linguistic features in art, which resulted from his belief that “being an artist now means to question the nature of art” (Green 7). It is essential to mention Andy Warhol – the most prominent pop art artist of the late 20th-century era. His works integrate a variety of art forms like writing, filmmaking, performance art, which consequently connected mainstream aesthetic with fine art.
Music of the late 20th century is distinct by similar experiments as in art; composers were eager to step out of the traditional forms and expectations of a specific genre. Moreover, multiple new music subgenres emerged, creating a new perspective on modern music. Little Richard is a legendary musician who defined the USA’s rock and roll style in the 1950s. He was one of the first musicians to wear makeup and talk about sexuality openly (White). Muddy Waters is yet another talented singer that popularized blues across the United States in the late 1960s. Waters created unique techniques, with his deep voice that became so well known in every corner of the country (Perone 121). Talking about composers, Leonard Bernstein was one of the first American musicians and conductors to be known worldwide. Bernstein conducted the biggest concerts in the New York Philharmonic of his musical pieces, which brought him success around the world and made him one of the most talented musicians of the 20th century.
The Writers who Influenced Updike Most
Throughout John Updike’s writing career, various authors and classical writers influenced him. Several of the magazine writers influenced Updike’s style during the period when he worked in The New Yorker. From his words, the poets Ogden Nash and Phyllis McGinley contributed to his light verse formation (De Bellis 253). It is more complicated to trace the evident influence of any writer in his more serious poetry; however, it is notable that some of Updike’s literature was affected by writers he read while attending Harvard, like George Herbert and E. Cummings.
James Joyce was one of the leading influences on Updike’s writing. Updike was inspired by the myths and the thoughts of Joyce that reflected on the works like Couples, Pigeon Feathers, and Rabbit Run. The protagonists in some of their novels are similar, using descriptions and colors that create a certain mood. However, the most influence from James Joyce, Updike, experienced the freedom to write about sex (De Bellis 254). Erotic images used in Rabbit Run emerged from Joyce’s inspiration. He was the one to convince Updike to explicitly talk about sensuality, which made some of his books censored for some time.
John Updike’s love and concern for the beauty of details in literature and his fondness for metaphors were the results of Marcel Proust’s impact. The extensive use of autobiographic features that intertwine with fictional characters in the works of Updike was also significantly influenced by Proust’s literary style. The abstract elements of Updike’s novels were aroused by Proust and reflected in such pieces as Leaves and The Music School. Updike was extremely involved in the works of Proust, and his influence on society’s satiric view is distinctly seen in the writer’s many prominent works.
John Updike was a big admirer of V. Nabokov, claiming that he “wished to create a ‘Nabokovian unreality’ in his effort to create a country and to write Nabokov’s ‘spectacular English’” (De Bellis 296). Even though they never met, the two writers consistently praised each other. A reader can trace a parallel line in some of the elements of Nabokov’s Lolita and Updike’s Rabbit, Run. A similar theme of jealousy over a previous lover can be noted in both books, as well as elements of the strong character of an intelligent, sexually open woman. As much as John Updike admired the enthusiastic style of writing of Nabokov, he also sought to adapt it to his manuscripts.
Nabokov’s dedication to literature and specifically the genre of fiction was the primary motivation for Updike to become devoted to his craft. An American writer was seeking to move, a “mass of images,” as he stated, however, in the critical review of Nabokov’s Ada Updike was unwilling to agree with some of his craft for the first time (De Bellis 253). Therefore, Nabokov is the writer that influenced Updike’s style the most, as he not only praised the Russian novelist for years but evident notes of his influence are traced in the most prominent works of an American writer.
The Historical Period in Which Updike Wrote Its Impact on His Writing
The uprising of John Updike’s literary career is defined in the post-Second World War period. While the world was recovering from the aftermath of the War for several decades, writers, influenced by the events, started creating and exploring new themes and techniques in the literature. The horrific events also impacted John Updike, a progressive writer of his era, which was reflected in his novels and poetry.
An active start of Updike’s career began in the 1950s and lasted until he died in 2009. The 1950s in the United States are identified by the economic and military prosperity of the country. However, the decade is also known for the civil rights movement and furious acts against communism, which divided society. Updike’s career at that time just started to prosper; thus, his work in The New Yorker, and the awareness of all the events in the country, undeniably, influenced his writings. Another novelist J. Kerouac helped Updike to step out of the 1950s influence of domestic imprisonment and excellence in style, which contributed to the development of Updike’s unique writing (De Bellis 235).
The country’s affluence created a sense of stability for the upcoming decade in the United States. However, the prosperity did not last; at the beginning of the 1960s, a new era of the Vietnam War started. The Civil Rights movement escalated, and after years of fighting President, Johnson adopted the Civil Rights Act in 1964. The campaign for civil rights and the heated arguments around the Vietnam War were only becoming more aggressive by the end of the decade. During the 1960s, Updike releases his most famous novel Rabbit, Run (1960), where a clear reflection of uprising protests and disconnects of the postwar state of the United States was seen. By the end of the decade, Updike started to speak out on sexual politics and incorporate it into his works like Couples (1968), which became his first commercial success.
The 1970s were a continuation of the previous decade, where women, Native Americans, LGBTQ+, and other minorities besides African Americans joined the wave of protests for their rights. Other citizens of the USA entered the fight against the Vietnam War that was extremely controversial. The Watergate scandal and the energy crisis also affected the 1970s, and Updike “has called Coup an allegory of Watergate” (De Bellis 120). In the second book of Rabbit, Run, published in 1971, the writer responded to the political events of the sixties, where he depicted his resentment toward the changes in the country. Updike continued to break the silence about sexual topics, which is seen in Marry Me (1976). The uprising family structure conflicts at the end of the decade reflected in his work Too Far to Go (1979), which explored the notion of marriage and divorce.
The 1980s era became a new age of conservatism in all spheres of life, characterized by the successful political approach of Ronald Reagan. During this decade, pop culture began to uprise, which gave life to many legendary artists. One of Updike’s bestselling novels, The Witches of Eastwick (1984), was an attempt to speak out on the feminist movement that was actively developing in the United States at the time. In his last book of Rabbit, Run Updike portrayed an image of modern America through the protagonists and the specific imagery.
The 1990s period is known for its relatively peaceful and prosperous nature for the United States. It has given people the new era of the Internet and started the rapid development of technology and the new perspective on communications. John Updike did not stay aside from the notion of obsession with pop culture and technologies. In In, the Beauty of the Lilies (1996), the writer draws a parallel between the spiritual life and the mainstream fascination of the movie industry. Therefore, John Updike’s literature is influenced by the events of the different eras in which he wrote. Each historical period affected the style and the plot of various novels, short stories, and poetry of Updike.
John Updike’s Major Works
John Updike is famous for several of his works, which are mostly novels. The most prominent work of the author must be a tetralogy about Rabbit Angstrom: Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; and Rabbit at Rest. It is a sequence of four novels and a novella that were released with a ten-year interval from 1960 to 2000. These tales established Updike in the community of the writers and made him one of the most admired and prominent novelists of the generation in America. The books tell a story about a young man fighting the social standards of marriage, family stereotypes, and society overall (Britannica).
Updike’s work is not only the stories about one protagonist but also a reflection of the historical events in America of each era, which made the tetralogy so successful. The Rabbit Angstrom series became Updike’s best work with which he is associated most of the time. The books featuring Rabbit Angstrom upraised the critical political and social topics of four decades. Moreover, the novels were included in Time magazine “Time 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005”, and the latest Rabbit novels won the Pulitzer Prize, which underlines the series importance to modern literature.
The Witches of Eastwick is another prominent novel by John Updike that became one of the best-selling works of the author. A comic piece, released in 1984 with three female protagonists and a supernatural plot, immediately attracted the public’s attention. The novel was so successful that a full movie was made based on it. The innovative magical realism genre and the feminist theme made the book unique and exciting. The fact that it was pro-women and condemned the concept of patriarchy described by a male writer initiated many controversies and made the work so successful. One of the New York Times reviewers in 1984 said, “No one is better than Mr. Updike at conveying the sadness of the sexual, the melancholy of motel affairs” (Atwood). The book also combines political aspects: a statistical view on the era of baby boomers and liberalism and a picturing of witchcraft from three strong women. A second book of the series The Widows of Eastwick, as a return of the protagonists in their old age, was published in 2008 and became Updike’s last released novel.
A novel that gave Updike the cover of Time magazine with the headline “The Adulterous Society” and became one of his most prominent works is Couples, published in 1968. The magazine’s review initiated a wave of concern around the topic of America abandoning all standard social norms that refer to a sexual matter that was implied in the novel itself. Remaining in the list of Updike’s most successful books, Couples shocked the reader at the end of the 1960s with a candid demonstration of unspoken sexual topics (Britannica). In the story, the protagonists take turns to have intercourse with each other, which at first may be seen as a sick way of writing; however, Updike’s initial goal was to show that sex can be both: a pleasant time spending and a shield against trauma. Couples received numerous fascinated reviews from the most notable critics and magazines and opened a new perspective on writing about intimate topics.
Updike’s Private Life and its Influence on his Writing
Talented people and literature surrounded John Updike from childhood age. The novelist’s mother was an unpublished writer, which had an immense impact on the choice of his career in the early years. Seeing Updike’s mother by the typewriting machine and admiring the writing equipment inspired him to be a writer in the future. During college, a young man experienced a deep struggle with his faith. A spiritual crisis evoked the writer’s deep interest in philosophy, particularly the works of Søren Kierkegaard and Karl Barth (De Bellis 236). Their views on life forever influenced and shaped the future religious beliefs of Updike. The impact of ideas of these philosophers is evident in many of the novelist works, as he frequently upraised the question of religion and faith.
Updike’s first marriage made an immense impact on his writing style. His wife, Mary E. Pennington, moved to England with Updike so he could attend Oxford’s Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. The writers and editors of the magazine E. B. and Katharine White, whom he met while in England, urged Updike to try and apply for a position there. Inspired by the idea, Updike returned to the United States and took a job in The New Yorker writing reviews, features, and editorials, which he held for two years.
The birth of Updike’s second son in 1957 evoked a desire to move to a smaller town of Ipswich, Massachusetts. The novelist continued his partnership with The New Yorker, however, and would contribute to it continuously throughout his life (Britannica). After a third child was born, Updike decided to rent a separate office, where he could write his novels and poetry in peace. From that time, a novelist had a specific schedule of writing for a few hours six days a week throughout his whole literary career.
The separation from his first wife caused Updike to move to Boston and teach at Boston University for a while. Two years of separation ensured that there is no hope for the marriage; thus, the couple got divorced. The reflection of Updike’s marriage is depicted in his collection of short stories Too Far To Go (1979). The tales tell autobiographical to some extent situations about the gradual disconnect of his marriage. A straight parallel of his marital life and divorce can be drawn in the stories Separating (1974) and Here Come the Maples (1976).
With Updike’s second wife, Martha Ruggles Bernhard, he lived for thirty years in a quiet town in Massachusetts until his last days. Life in suburban areas influenced his writing style, and the themes of middle-class family problems and suburban life became central for Updike (Britannica). A peaceful living was what inspired him and all his novels, where a subject of American small-town life dominated in most of his books.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. “Wondering What It’s Like to Be a Woman.” The New York Times, 1984, Web.
Beavers, Herman. Geography and the Political Imaginary in the Novels of Toni Morrison. Springer International Publishing, 2018.
Britannica. “John Updike | Biography & Writings.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019, Web.
De Bellis, Jack. The John Updike Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press, 2000.
Green, Charles. The Third Hand: Collaboration in Art from Conceptualism to Postmodernism. UNSW Press, 2001.
Perone, James E. Listen to the Blues! Exploring a Musical Genre. ABC-CLIO, 2019.
White, Charles. The Life and Times of Little Richard. E-book, Omnibus Press, 2003.
Zetterman, Eva. “Curatorial Strategies on the Art Scene during the Feminist Movement: Los Angeles in the 1970s.” Curating Differently: Feminisms, Exhibitions and Curatorial Spaces, edited by Jessica Sjöholm Skrubbe, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016, pp. 1-28.
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