John Updike: To Be a Novelist

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
  • Host Al Page speaks with John Updike, an American author. Updike discusses diffferences between the American and the European novel. He also opines on the classic American novelist, movements in American literature and what it takes to be a good novelist.

ความคิดเห็น • 93

  • @JackSaturday
    @JackSaturday 7 ปีที่แล้ว +86

    "Most of American life consists of driving somewhere and then returning home, wondering why the hell you went."- John Updike

    • @autofocus4556
      @autofocus4556 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      Jack Saturday my life story

    • @johnnythunder196
      @johnnythunder196 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      That's why I haven't driven in 20 years (I'm 44).

    • @HomeAtLast501
      @HomeAtLast501 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Doesn't reflect my life.

    • @quincyfinnley2653
      @quincyfinnley2653 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      sorry to be off topic but does anybody know a way to log back into an instagram account?
      I was stupid lost my login password. I love any tips you can give me!

    • @rhysmilan5019
      @rhysmilan5019 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      @Quincy Finnley instablaster :)

  • @wanjooalexkim
    @wanjooalexkim 8 ปีที่แล้ว +34

    Great interview. Mr. Updike is so delightfully fluid.

    • @rohitranjan78
      @rohitranjan78 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Hey Rabbit! Is back...Redux

    • @mindsigh4
      @mindsigh4 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @Evan Hodge
      a non drinking writer?
      try peddling ur fiction somewheres else!! 😎

  • @jeffreyc.mcandrew8911
    @jeffreyc.mcandrew8911 7 ปีที่แล้ว +13

    Thank you for your life of writing Mr. Updike and for sharing your insights in interviews still preserved online. These are great ideas to share with our writers group.

    • @mindsigh4
      @mindsigh4 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      hmm, ⬆️ war of words, or at least a skirmish...?

  • @DorothyPotterSnyder
    @DorothyPotterSnyder 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Updike: What a joy. Wonderful to hear he sees himself as an intellectual and not artistic novelist.

  • @adrianmichaelkelly277
    @adrianmichaelkelly277 9 ปีที่แล้ว +21

    ". . . a man who tried to lift the ordinary into the eternal realm of art."

  • @sebolddaniel
    @sebolddaniel ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Amazing interview. Times have changed since this interview. I have to wonder if there is even a market anymore for good writing.

  • @br5448
    @br5448 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    appreciate the modesty of the man.

  • @chaniwoodward6791
    @chaniwoodward6791 8 ปีที่แล้ว +15

    holy shit...those graphics. amazing.

  • @petebeech
    @petebeech 9 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    Thanks a lot for uploading this. Some very thoughtful and probing questions from a man who obviously knew about the writing life. A lot more useful to the aspiring than most other author interviews!

  • @redmotherfive
    @redmotherfive 8 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Work is never finished, just abandoned. I'm not sure who said that but it's so true.

    • @kelman727
      @kelman727 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      redmotherfive
      George Lucas.

    • @brokenfingers98
      @brokenfingers98 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      willem de kooning

    • @brokenfingers98
      @brokenfingers98 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      paul valery is actually from whom it is first attributed, though Lucas, de Kooning, oscar wilde, WH auden, among others have all put their own spin on it

  • @martm216
    @martm216 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Glad the interviewer asked the question, 'What does it take to be a great novelist?' Not that I, as one of the many unpublished novelists, have any longer any expectation of being great, but of course I would like to be a good, or a better, novelist. Any observations from someone like Updike are always invaluable. (British fan.)

    • @swimsanta3132
      @swimsanta3132 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      do it man, even if it doesn't work out. Might as well make something you're proud of.

    • @martm216
      @martm216 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@swimsanta3132 thanks mate 🙂

    • @purposebehindthepen
      @purposebehindthepen 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Go for it. Do it now while you have a chance.

    • @wonderwoman5528
      @wonderwoman5528 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@swimsanta3132 nice comment :)

    • @matthewgordonpettipas6773
      @matthewgordonpettipas6773 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Have some confidence in yourself for one thing. You have the potential to be great, just put your ass in the chair and practice. Don't stop. To get better at writing you must write, rinse and repeat.
      I wish you luck in your career.

  • @noseonscent1935
    @noseonscent1935 7 ปีที่แล้ว +7

    What a great man and incredible writer! Wow! Sensational

  • @bingosantamonica
    @bingosantamonica 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    What a fantastic interview. Both were great.

  • @Browzan
    @Browzan 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    I love you John. You writing is perfect, precise and beautiful - like your good soul. X

  • @WrongStanceProductions
    @WrongStanceProductions 9 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    Very cool interview. Love Updike

  • @iamsodisappointedinyou5983
    @iamsodisappointedinyou5983 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Sadly, Al Page passed away today.

  • @zimontov
    @zimontov 8 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Simply Sublime. My favorite of favorites.

  • @samuelramalheira5535
    @samuelramalheira5535 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Al Page is a wonderful name for the host of a literary show

    • @CA-or9ix
      @CA-or9ix ปีที่แล้ว

      I once went into a museum of dolls, toys, and miniatures. It was in a house built in the late 19th century. It was run by a woman named Wendy Littlepage. I thought I'd stepped into a Dickens novel.

  • @jeffreyprokopowicz9842
    @jeffreyprokopowicz9842 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    The most beautiful writer of prose ever.

    • @2msvalkyrie529
      @2msvalkyrie529 5 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      ? ? ? ! ! ! ! 😳
      Proust ? Even Somerset Maugham ......?!? Countless others .!

  • @dyerdanforth9030
    @dyerdanforth9030 9 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    Great interview.

  • @whawkins8636
    @whawkins8636 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Love hearing talk about writing

  • @badkerproductions
    @badkerproductions 7 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Television brings forth the "so what" attitude. Agreed. Loneliness.

  • @jeffrey3498
    @jeffrey3498 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

    I love John's sense of humor: the sharpest knife delivered as ice cream.

  • @optimusprimevil1646
    @optimusprimevil1646 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    less content back then but the quality was better

  • @howardkoor2796
    @howardkoor2796 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    What a mind. Insightful and informative. Thank you.

  • @rohitranjan78
    @rohitranjan78 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    As a person who wasn't ashamed of the American life ...who looked into the ordinary to transform it into the eternal realm of art ....

  • @drbonesshow1
    @drbonesshow1 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Turn on the TV and watch Updike read from a novel.

  • @FoxFoxy
    @FoxFoxy 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    На Западе Апдайка знают в основном как автора тетралогии о Кролике. У нас эта серия тоже достаточно хорошо известна. Но я хочу вспомнить о его раннем романе «Кентавр», который был издан в США в 1963 году, а уже через два года переведен на русский и опубликован у нас в «Иностранке». Для шестидесятников этот роман стал культовым. В моем детстве он тоже оставил след. Папа дал мне прочитать «Кентавра», когда мне было лет тринадцать. Надо будет при случае спросить, по какому принципу он отбирал для меня тогда книги; как определял, в каком возрасте что посоветовать. На 13-17-летний возраст выпало множество читательских впечатлений, и всё благодаря папе. От «Повелителя мух», «Благослови зверей и детей», «Убить пересмешника» и «Над пропастью во ржи» до «Пролетая над гнездом кукушки», «Кентавра» и разной Латинской Америки. Девочка-подросток, разумеется, понимала далеко не всё, но с удовольствием читала. Теперь, по прошествии четверти века, я снова взяла в руки «Кентавра» и поняла, насколько выдающимся переводчиком был Виктор Хинкис! У меня всё та же книжка 1966 года издания. И мне, проклятому ортодоксу, кажется кощунственным, что кто-то может знакомиться с этим шедевром посредством электронной версии или даже просто другого, более современного бумажного издания, пусть даже и с тем же блестящим переводом. Обязательно нужно прикасаться именно к этим пожелтевшим страницам и смотреть именно на этот рисунок. Нашла в Интернете фотографию этого разворота: pics.meshok.net/pics3/109530944.jpg?1

  • @rhwinner
    @rhwinner ปีที่แล้ว +1

    My first 'serious' novel was Rabbit Run, in Junior High. No more dime store junk for me!

    • @matthewgordonpettipas6773
      @matthewgordonpettipas6773 ปีที่แล้ว

      Jesus man, it never fails to amaze me how people who just read different kinds of books think it somehow makes them above those who don't or that what they read is somehow more serious.
      There's nothing wrong with Updike or Carver or O'Connor, I admire their work as well, but to dismiss the novelists who work hard writing 'genre' fiction, calling it junk is not only pompous bullshit but pretty disrespectful. And tbh, you'd have to be quite silly thinking that creating your own world from the ground up (like many Fantasy and Science Fiction writers do) is somehow inferior to writing about ordinary life.
      If anything it takes MORE imagination to be a good Fantasy, Sci-fi or hell even a western writer than a literary writer. They need to create settings a literary writer doesn't, create laws the literary writer doesn't need to, create entire mythologies and histories. The best example of this is the world of Middle Earth by J.R.R. Tolkien.
      There's no way anyone can convince me that that man wasn't one of the greatest artistic minds of the twentieth century. He built an entire world from nothing. Created languages for his invented races, entire cultures. If that's not art then frankly neither is Updike since all he did was write about ordinary life, which, compared to what Tolkien did, isn't anything special.

    • @rhwinner
      @rhwinner ปีที่แล้ว

      @@matthewgordonpettipas6773 Interesting points. I have enjoyed genre fiction like Zane Gray, however the few King novels I've read put me off horror fiction, as the literary deficits were too great for me to enjoy the plot. However it is true that being exposed to great stylists can make you sensitive to it's lack in certain 'popular' writers. I assure you it's not an ego thing. I would happily read any book if I found it worth my while. The older I het the less likely I am to finish a book that is not engaging me. I recently set aside a Joyce Oates novel for that reason, even though I consider her a literary novelist.

  • @drbonesshow1
    @drbonesshow1 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Updike reminds one of the actor Patrick O'Neal. Both RIP.

  • @user-un6sb4kn2z
    @user-un6sb4kn2z 6 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    thank you for this

  • @kelman727
    @kelman727 6 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Outside of Rabbit 2-4 and Roger’s Version, I don’t see Updike as a novelist first or foremost.
    The stories (especially ‘A Sandstone Farmhouse’) and the late poems are the sharpest things he committed to paper.

    • @mindsigh4
      @mindsigh4 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @Evan Hodge
      & it's rumored he didn't drink

  • @chaniwoodward6791
    @chaniwoodward6791 8 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    he looks exactly what i imagined rabbit looks like while reading rabbit run!

    • @tonywalton1052
      @tonywalton1052 8 ปีที่แล้ว

      +Chani Woodward Rabbit is Holden Caulfield, most people don't know this.

    • @chaniwoodward6791
      @chaniwoodward6791 8 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      rabbit is everyone. most people dont know this. :)

    • @tonywalton1052
      @tonywalton1052 8 ปีที่แล้ว

      +Chani Woodward This is true, but I deny that myself

    • @MrFadeout53
      @MrFadeout53 8 ปีที่แล้ว

      That shows how exactly great he really is.

  • @Browzan
    @Browzan 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    love this interview! Genius

  • @marisastevens3690
    @marisastevens3690 7 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    4:50...writers should have a love of life...

    • @sudarshanpoudel64
      @sudarshanpoudel64 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      @ekimshield I'd love to read what you've written.

  • @brenhugh
    @brenhugh ปีที่แล้ว

    Raymond Carver wasn’t a minimalist, but his editor certainly was.

  • @kamalpreetsingh1686
    @kamalpreetsingh1686 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Great views......

  • @2msvalkyrie529
    @2msvalkyrie529 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Nice tweed jacket ! Wonder if he had elbow patches...??

  • @rohitranjan78
    @rohitranjan78 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    He forgets Henry James :) the most important

  • @2msvalkyrie529
    @2msvalkyrie529 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Nabokov will remain or become a " classic " I think. ?.?

  • @user-xn2hf9re8r
    @user-xn2hf9re8r 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Lovely guy - he does remind me of Jim Dale the carry on film actor though as they both have those mischievous eyes

  • @rangetpc
    @rangetpc 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    An editor is basically a midwife ☺️☺️☺️👍 that's great .

  • @ricksomething
    @ricksomething 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    This was filmed in 6 b.c.

  • @christinacascadilla4473
    @christinacascadilla4473 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    What worries me about myself is that if I was interviewed I would never be able link Neo-expressionist art to styles of literature, or say that Thomas Pynchon writes “Imperial novels.” This means that either I’m not very smart, or there is no influence of neo-expressionism on novels and Thomas Pynchon really didn’t write imperial novels, and John Updike was a huge phony. Not to sound like Holden Caufield or anything. Honestly, can someone please explain how anything Pynchon wrote can be defined as imperial?

    • @stevennewman5442
      @stevennewman5442 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      I'd agree that you are not very smart

    • @christinacascadilla4473
      @christinacascadilla4473 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @Evan Hodge well, that is one of the two possibilities. But if imperial novels have something to do with an Empire, then what Pynchon novel does that?

  • @willrobinson7521
    @willrobinson7521 ปีที่แล้ว

    Anybody know the date this was recorded?

    • @matthewgordonpettipas6773
      @matthewgordonpettipas6773 ปีที่แล้ว

      It says in the beginning I'm pretty sure, at the bottom when Updike starts talking.

  • @samcollett245
    @samcollett245 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    my boy Updike doing uppers

  • @mymbta
    @mymbta 9 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    What is an, "imperial novel?"

    • @2msvalkyrie529
      @2msvalkyrie529 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      One whose scope extends over
      the widest possible areas of life.
      Unbounded by pre conceptions ?

  • @HomeAtLast501
    @HomeAtLast501 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    They days before teeth bleaching was ubiquitous.

  • @dantean
    @dantean 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    Funny that he thought he was answering the criticism that his female characters were mere objects by offering us witches as the alternative. As if that doesn't simply make the problem worse. One way or another, though--and no matter how you slice him--he was second-tier. Beats all the rest but one, which is not nothing, but he was clearly second-tier among contemporary authors.

    • @SandfordSmythe
      @SandfordSmythe 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      He had a story of a prostitute in which he treated her as a very responsible woman.

  • @drbonesshow1
    @drbonesshow1 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    Nowadays, if you have an opinion of your own you'll probably be told to shove it updike. Sad.

    • @matthewgordonpettipas6773
      @matthewgordonpettipas6773 ปีที่แล้ว

      Damn....this is three years old but its even truer today lol. The world is mad my friend.

    • @drbonesshow1
      @drbonesshow1 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@matthewgordonpettipas6773 A three year-old wine is merely a child. I'll drink wine while they whine (i.e., the social media morons).

  • @Braglemaster123
    @Braglemaster123 6 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Don’t pay attention to the Brits

    • @kelman727
      @kelman727 6 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Richard B. Davis
      ?

    • @2msvalkyrie529
      @2msvalkyrie529 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      We should never have given up
      the 13 colonies without a fight ...

  • @apope06
    @apope06 6 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Updike overrated?

    • @autofocus4556
      @autofocus4556 6 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      apope06 nope

    • @matthewgordonpettipas6773
      @matthewgordonpettipas6773 ปีที่แล้ว

      Depends on the person I suppose. As you can see from the comments most people here would say no. Me? He's a good writer from what I've read but is he mind-blowingly amazing? Nah, but Gods forbid you say that since 'how would you know?'
      Simple, its my opinion and frankly, when it comes right down to it, that's all that matters, our individual opinion. If someone thinks Updike was the greatest writer to ever grace the page, that's awesome and I'm happy for them if they enjoy his work that much, but not everyone will think that and that's OK. Literature is subjective, as much as people hate to admit that, so differing opinions shouldn't be so surprising.