so that my nights are not full of regrets

I suppose it has become apparent by now that I am sensitive to certain turns of phrase; certain ways of the written word; and that there are ways of expression that touch me more than others. And that doesn’t refer to the topic, necessarily. It has more to do with intent. I am a romantic at heart, essentially. Not bodice-busting romance, of course not … but the romance of subtle gestures and recognitions; of outright lust and desire; of honest want and need. I doubt if that comes as a surprise to anyone who has read more than one of my posts. And, this is why I have never liked John Updike. And it is why I’ve read almost every book he’s written. Because, as with things I love, I need to know the things I despise just as well, in order to feel comfortable in my opinions of them. It has nothing to do with his writing ability. I think he (and I’m sure he would agree) is an exemplary wordsmith. Yes, he writes a fine sentence. The first 16-odd pages of Rabbit, Run and his description of basketball? Unparalleled. I grant all of that. That is not my issue.

My issue (as a romantic) is this: I hate his view of women. And I suppose, those of you who have been reading closely might find that odd as well. How could I hate good, Protestant, white-bread Updike’s view of women and crush on Bukowski’s? It’s quite simple. Yes, Bukowski wrote extensively of f*cking, and used that word liberally; he used a lot of other less delicate words, too. Here’s the difference: Bukowski loved women. Updike hates them. And please—I'm no prude, no feminist, and no saint, certainly. I would hope my comparison of those specific two writers would be enough to quell that thought. What I hate about Updike are the lies, the ease with which he allows his men to go to and from them. The completely unsympathetic female creations he conjures. The shrill tone he places on all of their tongues (I say this, mind you, as a woman who only in the past few years has been able to have close friendships with other women, and generally prefers the company of men). Bukowski's women could be ugly, vulgar, and often deceptive, but never more or less than he (Hank), his male character, was. It was all on equal ground. And that is the difference.

Since I no longer have any Updike in my library, I am working strictly from memory in this post. And, specifically, I am working from my remembrance of Couples, a book that I despised from its very first page. I understand that I am not alone in this opinion, and in fact, came to it some thirty years after the first reviews were posted. Still, looking back years after reading the book, and finding I am not alone now, and would not have been alone then, makes me feel a little less reactionary in my critique. A clip I found from the New York Times review of the book by Norman Mailer suggested he "keep his foot in the whorehouse and forget about his damn prose style." To that, I say, amen.

I’m not sure what it is about certain men (authors specifically) that exalt in the pleasure of deception, and in the game of deceit. I am not naïve, I know of the nature of desire, of what is unknown, and of what is wrong (and the pleasure in that). But to celebrate it? To offer it up as love (all the while pretending it is not)? To use such talent—and indeed, it is talent—to accomplish this? Let me tell you. That first page I spoke of? I remember it well. It all begins the story as told from “within,” which is the central conceit of this exercise for Updike. The opening scene is a bit of dialogue between one of the couples as they are undressing each other. The man says something to his wife, what he says is not important (though it is a tease of a sentence between two long-familiar and exhausted lovers). What is important is the point of view that we are offered; peeking out from the closet, fly on the wall. Updike is giving us access to this humiliation of the wife through the husband's critical internal narrative of her form as she hopefully awaits his touch. And it is about having this knowledge--of the truth of the lies--that we are to be titillated—not by the naked woman at the end of the page, you understand. That we are there to witness it, that we are in on the joke of her, that is the point for him. And we are to revel in the skill of the paragraph, for his words placed ever so purposefully, cruelly, so there can be no mistake about just how clever he is. That is pornography, in its essential form.