Justin Cartwright

My memories of the American Dostoevsky

Justin Cartwright recalls his conversations over the years with John Updike, who died this week, and the master’s contention that the only excuse for reading is to steal

Justin Cartwright recalls his conversations over the years with John Updike, who died this week, and the master’s contention that the only excuse for reading is to steal

I love John Updike immoderately. I am profoundly shocked that he has gone, because he was for me the greatest American writer of the second half of the 20th century. He was also a gracious, charming and witty man. But above all he had a very rare quality in writing — absolute integrity. He never jumped on bandwagons, he never wrote down or pretentiously, he never pulled his punches, he never renounced his patriotism or his religious faith, as he applied himself diligently and sympathetically to his depiction of America in his time. He was also one of the most penetrating of critics, always honest, always looking for the best in a writer, always sympathetic to the great project, but at the same time relentlessly following the demands of a serious writer’s life. His son once described him as having a ruthlessness in family relations too, inclined to place the needs of his writing above the needs of his family. There are exceptions, but it is almost impossible for a writer to achieve the great heights without this quality of single-mindedness. He told me once that he liked to get up after the domestic chores in the house were complete: enviable but impossible to emulate in my house. In his great Rabbit series he displayed an almost chilling understanding of family.

Rabbit at Rest, the final book in the series, is an absolute masterpiece, and will live for ever: in it, his own description of his literary goals — to give the ordinary its beautiful due — is most fully realised.

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