Academic

In Memory of John Updike

By Laura Appleman

For those of you who haven't heard, John Updike, celebrated Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist and short story writer, died today.  He was 76.  This is a tremendous loss for the literary community and all of us who care about wonderful storytelling and great writing.

I can think of no better tribute than to borrow from W.H. Auden's famous poem, "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" : 

He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree 
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
* * *
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man 
Are modified in the guts of the living.
* * *
 Follow, poet, follow right
 To the bottom of the night,
 With your unconstraining voice
 Still persuade us to rejoice;
 With the farming of a verse
 Make a vineyard of the curse,
 Sing of human unsuccess
 In a rapture of distress;
 In the deserts of the heart
 Let the healing fountain start,
 In the prison of his days
 Teach the free man how to praise.

Rest in peace, John Updike.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on January 27, 2009 (boomark / email).