John Updike: To Be a Novelist 

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

Great interview. Mr. Updike is so delightfully fluid.

Sadly, Al Page passed away today.

holy shit...those graphics. amazing.

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.

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

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

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

He forgets Henry James :) the most important

What a great man and incredible writer! Wow! Sensational

appreciate the modesty of the man.

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

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

Very cool interview. Love Updike

Simply Sublime. My favorite of favorites.

Great interview.

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!

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

Johnson Elizabeth Thompson Elizabeth Johnson Donald

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

less content back then but the quality was better

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

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

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

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

Love hearing talk about writing

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

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

What a fantastic interview. Both were great.

The most beautiful writer of prose ever.

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 Not that I, as one of the many unpublished novelists, have any longer any expectation of being great, but of course I would like to be a good, or a better, novelist.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.)

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 ....

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

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

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

What a mind. Insightful and informative. Thank you.

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.

thank you for this

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

Great views......

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

They days before teeth bleaching was ubiquitous.

What is an, "imperial novel?"

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

This was filmed in 6 b.c.

love this interview! Genius

Anybody know the date this was recorded?

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

my boy Updike doing uppers

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.

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?

Don’t pay attention to the Brits

Updike overrated?