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Rabbit Is Repulsive
Fearful of losing his scholarship [at Harvard], [John Updike] fretted before every exam and duly recorded the results, even on quizzes, in his letters home. “I seem to be somewhat of a grind,” he wrote in an early letter, adding, “This surprises no one more than it does me.” Since he planned to be a writer, he majored in English to force himself to read classic literature. (His own taste ran to James Thurber.) And though he wanted to master French, he dropped it when he discovered he had little aptitude for languages. He finished ninth in his class but was chagrined when two of his oral examiners, noting his weak grasp of classical literature, hesitated before awarding him summa cum laude distinction.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/books/21updike.html?pagewanted=2&sq=updike&st=cse&scp=2
I mean, aside from Updike's relentless sniggery misogynism and unrelentingly nasty suburban downlow sex, says here Harvard thought Updike had no aptitude for language? And the NYT asserts, after examining some of the 170-carton archive His Holiness left Harvard, that Updike's literary go-to guy was that 20th century style titan, James Thurber?
Nobody I know, much less the writers I know, was so callow or frivolous at 18 to prefer Thurber. My teenage years, and those of everybody I know who reads, were the Magellan years of reading, true epic courage and stamina. My go-to guys at 18 were Patrick Dennis, Hardy, and Lawrence Durrell and I'm sure yours were equally hi lo, like Seventeen magazine, Exupery and Steinbeck.
Steinbeck! I read in the TLS a while back his rep is on the rise. Good.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/books/21updike.html?pagewanted=2&sq=updike&st=cse&scp=2
I mean, aside from Updike's relentless sniggery misogynism and unrelentingly nasty suburban downlow sex, says here Harvard thought Updike had no aptitude for language? And the NYT asserts, after examining some of the 170-carton archive His Holiness left Harvard, that Updike's literary go-to guy was that 20th century style titan, James Thurber?
Nobody I know, much less the writers I know, was so callow or frivolous at 18 to prefer Thurber. My teenage years, and those of everybody I know who reads, were the Magellan years of reading, true epic courage and stamina. My go-to guys at 18 were Patrick Dennis, Hardy, and Lawrence Durrell and I'm sure yours were equally hi lo, like Seventeen magazine, Exupery and Steinbeck.
Steinbeck! I read in the TLS a while back his rep is on the rise. Good.