John Updike, 1932-2009

"One of Augustine's 'fair and fit,'" wrote Elizabeth Hardwick in her essay "Citizen Updike."  It did seem to come easily to him, the Rabbit tetralogy for example, wherein "there are no staccato notations; it unwinds and unwinds, scene after scene, a long flow of attention and feeling."  Yes, yes: I remember luxuriating in its pages for weeks, and the joy I felt contemplating the fact that, at some time of my choosing, I could read it all again.  His "picked up pieces" of criticism, a sufficient reason to subscribe to The New Yorker beginning in the Eisenhower administration, would alone have been a considerable contribution to literature. "Fill the room with your intelligence" the trial lawyer is advised. Updike filled fifty books with his.