Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism by John Updike (3)

I received some awful news today. Writing would be therapeutic to some, but not I. This entry serves only to memorialize that fact, not the details that would substantiate it. For now.

Some time in the future I may add some annotations.

For now I’ll just paraphrase (or directly quote) from Updike’s Three Talks On American Masters – specifically, the section on Melville which I found to be particularly heartfelt, wherein his “withdrawal” from writing is discussed.

The “hypothesis” I derive from it (I do not think Updike intended to hypothesize much): simply put, Melville’s successes (Typee, Moby), then subsequent failures (Pierre), complicated his interest in writing.

Pierre was an attempt at “popular” literature. It was not popular; it was lampooned. My impression is, in the course of things, he lost interest. Or he wanted to lose interest, in writing.

What I feel most moved to write, that is banned,-it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches.

Was Pierre really what he “[felt] most moved to write”? Or, was it some sort of compromise-because he knew what he most wanted to write would be banned, or wouldn’t pay? In any case, the public received Pierre badly-but instead of consider Pierre bad, Melville considered the public out of touch.

Based on the Updike piece-and here it makes sense to say, explicitly, I have not read all of the Melville titles I mention-it sounds like Pierre is, among all of Melville’s works, least like Melville’s works. (For one, it features female roles!)

(Or, maybe this is me projecting.)

Updike says this of his reflection on Melville:

[it] left me with a sense the Melville was right to withdraw, when he did,  from a battle that had become a losing battle. His rapport had been broken with an audience that cared about him chiefly as “the man who had lived among the cannibals.”

(A man who no longer seemed to be that same man, he implies.)

Skimming over this post (should I post, should I leave as draft?), I notice my use of quotation marks here and there where they may not be entirely necessary, although i think they serve to convey things a certain way I intend (see “hypothesis” and “withdrawal”). It reminds me of another short piece in Hugging the Shore called A Mild ‘Complaint’ wherein Updike lambastes a subset of commentators on Henry James (you know, that subset) for their overuse of quotation marks.

Very “amusing.”

Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism by John Updike (2)

More than 800 pages of essays and criticism to work with…Indicates there will be many many posts with the same title (save a parenthetical numeral). But I hope the content doesn’t feel the same-Both the content of the book to me, and the content of these essays to you.

The Chaste Planet is certainly not the same as anything else I’ve read. A quick read, it is the sort of science fiction someone familiar with Updike would expect-Primarily, I think, for its exploration of sex from a unique (and, in this case, bizarre) perspective.

In this case, Minerva is a planet located within the gaseous “skull” of the planet Jupiter. There, the dominant life form-Which, in addition to being able to communicate and collaborate with humans in some industrial pursuit, is able to have sex with humans-Is described as looking like:

pearl-gray pickles, with six toothpick-thin limbs stuck in for purposes of locomotion, and a kind of tasseled seventh concentrating the neural functions-but there appeared to be no sexual differentiation among them.

Now let me reiterate: This life form, in addition to being able to communicate and collaborate with humans some industrial pursuit, is able to have sex with humans. Did you catch that?

The Minervans resemble “pearl-gray pickles, with six toothpick-thin limbs stuck in for purposes of locomotion,” and are able to have sex with humans!

“Courtesans” are described-But only in passing. Taken for granted, not explored much.

The real theme of The Chaste Planet is: What humans consider sex to be (and to represent) is different from the Minervans. So for the Minervans to have human-sex with humans is not very significant. If that does not sound very enlightening to you, the story ends with an all-to-quick, and not particularly compelling, revelation of what exactly the Minervans do consider to be analogous to human sex.

~~~

Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Masters is a fun exposition of some of Updike’s impressions of the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia-Very “Updikeian.” (Or, can i say “Dikey”?).

In any case, maybe I should elaborate: What exactly do I mean by either of those terms?

Well, here’s an example of how Updike talks about the crowd:

When, on the last two days, the television equipment arrives, the crowd itself is watched. Dutifully, it takes its part as a mammoth unpaid extra in a national television spectacular. As part of it, patting out courteous applause at a good shot or groaning in chorus at a missed putt, one felt, slightly canned.

“Canned.” Updike has a way of conveying a vivid image, with many or few words, then reiterating with only one word, or a phrase. That is not the entirety of what it means to be “Updikeian,” just an example.

I found 13 Ways amusing, but I think it made a special impression because I am amid planning a vacation to Scotland with my father (the birthplace of golf, if you don’t count the play of a similar game by the Chinese). I’m not very interested in golf, but my father plays, watches the tournaments. It occurred to me just yesterday, as I trolled the internet for interesting tours, spending time at a course like St. Andrews may be of some real interest to him.

How serendipitous, I find myself reading something (marginally, I am aware) on the topic.