John Updike: To Be a Novelist

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  • Опубликовано: 28 июл 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.

Комментарии • 92

  • @JackSaturday
    @JackSaturday 7 лет назад +85

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

    • @autofocus4556
      @autofocus4556 5 лет назад

      Jack Saturday my life story

    • @johnnythunder196
      @johnnythunder196 4 года назад +3

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

    • @HomeAtLast501
      @HomeAtLast501 3 года назад +1

      Doesn't reflect my life.

    • @quincyfinnley2653
      @quincyfinnley2653 2 года назад

      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 2 года назад

      @Quincy Finnley instablaster :)

  • @wanjooalexkim
    @wanjooalexkim 8 лет назад +34

    Great interview. Mr. Updike is so delightfully fluid.

    • @rohitranjan78
      @rohitranjan78 4 года назад +1

      Hey Rabbit! Is back...Redux

    • @mindsigh4
      @mindsigh4 Год назад

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

  • @jeffreyc.mcandrew8911
    @jeffreyc.mcandrew8911 7 лет назад +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 Год назад

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

  • @DorothyPotterSnyder
    @DorothyPotterSnyder 2 года назад +2

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

  • @br5448
    @br5448 5 лет назад +5

    appreciate the modesty of the man.

  • @chaniwoodward6791
    @chaniwoodward6791 8 лет назад +15

    holy shit...those graphics. amazing.

  • @sebolddaniel
    @sebolddaniel Год назад +2

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

  • @WrongStanceProductions
    @WrongStanceProductions 9 лет назад +8

    Very cool interview. Love Updike

  • @bingosantamonica
    @bingosantamonica 3 года назад +2

    What a fantastic interview. Both were great.

  • @adrianmichaelkelly277
    @adrianmichaelkelly277 9 лет назад +21

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

  • @petebeech
    @petebeech 9 лет назад +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!

  • @dyerdanforth9030
    @dyerdanforth9030 9 лет назад +8

    Great interview.

  • @noseonscent1935
    @noseonscent1935 7 лет назад +7

    What a great man and incredible writer! Wow! Sensational

  • @zimontov
    @zimontov 8 лет назад +4

    Simply Sublime. My favorite of favorites.

  • @Browzan
    @Browzan 3 года назад +3

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

  • @howardkoor2796
    @howardkoor2796 3 года назад +1

    What a mind. Insightful and informative. Thank you.

  • @Browzan
    @Browzan 3 года назад

    love this interview! Genius

  • @redmotherfive
    @redmotherfive 7 лет назад +5

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

    • @kelman727
      @kelman727 6 лет назад

      redmotherfive
      George Lucas.

    • @brokenfingers98
      @brokenfingers98 5 лет назад

      willem de kooning

    • @brokenfingers98
      @brokenfingers98 5 лет назад +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

  • @jeffrey3498
    @jeffrey3498 3 месяца назад

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

  • @user-un6sb4kn2z
    @user-un6sb4kn2z 6 лет назад +1

    thank you for this

  • @badkerproductions
    @badkerproductions 6 лет назад +2

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

  • @martm216
    @martm216 5 лет назад +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 года назад +2

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

    • @martm216
      @martm216 3 года назад

      @@swimsanta3132 thanks mate 🙂

    • @purposebehindthepen
      @purposebehindthepen 3 года назад +1

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

    • @wonderwoman5528
      @wonderwoman5528 Год назад

      @@swimsanta3132 nice comment :)

    • @matthewgordonpettipas6773
      @matthewgordonpettipas6773 11 месяцев назад +2

      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.

  • @samuelramalheira5535
    @samuelramalheira5535 3 года назад +2

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

    • @CA-or9ix
      @CA-or9ix Год назад

      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.

  • @whawkins8636
    @whawkins8636 Год назад

    Love hearing talk about writing

  • @optimusprimevil1646
    @optimusprimevil1646 2 года назад +1

    less content back then but the quality was better

  • @jeffreyprokopowicz9842
    @jeffreyprokopowicz9842 3 года назад +2

    The most beautiful writer of prose ever.

    • @2msvalkyrie529
      @2msvalkyrie529 4 месяца назад +1

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

  • @kamalpreetsingh1686
    @kamalpreetsingh1686 4 года назад +1

    Great views......

  • @iamsodisappointedinyou5983
    @iamsodisappointedinyou5983 2 года назад +3

    Sadly, Al Page passed away today.

  • @drbonesshow1
    @drbonesshow1 4 года назад +3

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

  • @drbonesshow1
    @drbonesshow1 4 года назад +1

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

  • @rhwinner
    @rhwinner Год назад +1

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

    • @matthewgordonpettipas6773
      @matthewgordonpettipas6773 11 месяцев назад

      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 11 месяцев назад

      @@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.

  • @user-xn2hf9re8r
    @user-xn2hf9re8r 4 года назад

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

  • @rohitranjan78
    @rohitranjan78 4 года назад +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 ....

  • @FoxFoxy
    @FoxFoxy 5 лет назад

    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

  • @2msvalkyrie529
    @2msvalkyrie529 4 месяца назад

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

  • @kelman727
    @kelman727 6 лет назад +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 Год назад

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

  • @chaniwoodward6791
    @chaniwoodward6791 8 лет назад +4

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

    • @tonywalton1052
      @tonywalton1052 8 лет назад

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

    • @chaniwoodward6791
      @chaniwoodward6791 8 лет назад +1

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

    • @tonywalton1052
      @tonywalton1052 8 лет назад

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

    • @MrFadeout53
      @MrFadeout53 8 лет назад

      That shows how exactly great he really is.

  • @brenhugh
    @brenhugh 11 месяцев назад

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

  • @2msvalkyrie529
    @2msvalkyrie529 4 месяца назад

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

  • @rohitranjan78
    @rohitranjan78 11 месяцев назад +1

    He forgets Henry James :) the most important

  • @marisastevens3690
    @marisastevens3690 7 лет назад +5

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

    • @sudarshanpoudel64
      @sudarshanpoudel64 3 года назад

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

  • @mymbta
    @mymbta 8 лет назад +1

    What is an, "imperial novel?"

    • @2msvalkyrie529
      @2msvalkyrie529 4 месяца назад

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

  • @willrobinson7521
    @willrobinson7521 Год назад

    Anybody know the date this was recorded?

    • @matthewgordonpettipas6773
      @matthewgordonpettipas6773 11 месяцев назад

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

  • @rangetpc
    @rangetpc 3 года назад +1

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

  • @samcollett245
    @samcollett245 5 лет назад +1

    my boy Updike doing uppers

  • @ricksomething
    @ricksomething 2 года назад +2

    This was filmed in 6 b.c.

  • @HomeAtLast501
    @HomeAtLast501 3 года назад

    They days before teeth bleaching was ubiquitous.

  • @christinacascadilla4473
    @christinacascadilla4473 3 года назад

    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 года назад +3

      I'd agree that you are not very smart

    • @christinacascadilla4473
      @christinacascadilla4473 2 года назад

      @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?

  • @dantean
    @dantean 3 года назад

    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 4 месяца назад

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

  • @drbonesshow1
    @drbonesshow1 4 года назад

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

    • @matthewgordonpettipas6773
      @matthewgordonpettipas6773 11 месяцев назад

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

    • @drbonesshow1
      @drbonesshow1 11 месяцев назад

      @@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 лет назад +2

    Don’t pay attention to the Brits

    • @kelman727
      @kelman727 6 лет назад +1

      Richard B. Davis
      ?

    • @2msvalkyrie529
      @2msvalkyrie529 4 месяца назад

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

  • @apope06
    @apope06 6 лет назад +1

    Updike overrated?

    • @autofocus4556
      @autofocus4556 5 лет назад +2

      apope06 nope

    • @matthewgordonpettipas6773
      @matthewgordonpettipas6773 11 месяцев назад

      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.