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Higher Gossip: Essays and Criticism
A collection both intimate and generous of the eloquent, insightful, beautifully written prose works that John Updike was compiling when he died in January 2009.
This collection of miscellaneous prose opens with a self-portrait of the writer in winter, a Prospero who, though he fears his most dazzling performances are behind him, reveals himself in every sentence to be in deep conversation with the sources of his magic. It concludes with a moving meditation on a modern world robbed of imagination--a world without religion, without art--and on the difficulties of faith in a disbelieving age. In between are previously uncollected stories and poems, a pageant of scenes from seventeenth-century Massachusetts, five late "golf dreams," and several of Updike's commentaries on his own work. At the heart of the book are his matchless reviews--of John Cheever, Ann Patchett, Toni Morrison, William Maxwell, John le Carré, and essays on Aimee Semple McPherson, Max Factor, and Albert Einstein, among others. Also included are two decades of art criticism--on Chardin, El Greco, Blake, Turner, Van Gogh, Max Ernest, and more.
Updike's criticism is gossip of the highest order, delivered in an intimate and generous voice.
This collection of miscellaneous prose opens with a self-portrait of the writer in winter, a Prospero who, though he fears his most dazzling performances are behind him, reveals himself in every sentence to be in deep conversation with the sources of his magic. It concludes with a moving meditation on a modern world robbed of imagination--a world without religion, without art--and on the difficulties of faith in a disbelieving age. In between are previously uncollected stories and poems, a pageant of scenes from seventeenth-century Massachusetts, five late "golf dreams," and several of Updike's commentaries on his own work. At the heart of the book are his matchless reviews--of John Cheever, Ann Patchett, Toni Morrison, William Maxwell, John le Carré, and essays on Aimee Semple McPherson, Max Factor, and Albert Einstein, among others. Also included are two decades of art criticism--on Chardin, El Greco, Blake, Turner, Van Gogh, Max Ernest, and more.
Updike's criticism is gossip of the highest order, delivered in an intimate and generous voice.
528 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
28 people are currently reading
252 people want to read
About the author
John Updike
863 books2,435 followersJohn Hoyer Updike was an American writer. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered). Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest both won Pulitzer Prizes for Updike. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike is well known for his careful craftsmanship and prolific writing, having published 22 novels and more than a dozen short story collections as well as poetry, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems have appeared in The New Yorker since the 1950s. His works often explore sex, faith, and death, and their inter-relationships.
He died of lung cancer at age 76.
He died of lung cancer at age 76.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
June 7, 2013
Higher Gossip is the latest collection of essays and occasional prose by John Updike. A posthumous publication--he died in 2009--it contains some work which I think was written some time ago and has been included here, perhaps the final compilation of his shorter criticism. Like earlier volumes, there are essays written for various publications, some forwards or afterwords written for new editions of books, a few poems, and a few book reviews. Under a heading of "Pet Topics" are brief essays on cosmology, Ipswich, Massachusetts, the town where he lived, and five pieces on golf. As if rounding out his life and gathering everything important in the interest of making all his critical work available in book form, a final section contains some articles expressing views on reading and writing along with his own forwards to commemorative or celebratory editions of his more widely-read novels and stories. A couple of speeches round out the book. Not everyone knows Updike was a respected art critic. The book's longest section has 20 reviews of gallery exhibits in which he writes about the work of such artists as Van Gogh, Seurat, and Magritte. I thought the pieces on art and artists less inspired. They read as descriptively plodding. The words about the individual works have the feel of a man struggling to describe what's seen, obligatory and verbose, as if he was filling space. In fact, that's the feeling of Higher Gossip in general, as a hodgepodge of items hastily packed so they wouldn't be forgotten and left out. And because there will be no more. He could write, though, Updike could. For the most part in this volume he gives us elegant sentences laying down cogent point on illustrious insight concerning a blazing idea, just as he thrilled us his entire career.
February 10, 2012
This is the seventh such collection of short pieces by John Updike; it was assembled after his death by Christoper Carduff, on the invitation of Updike's widow (who is also his literary executor). According to his introduction, Cardiff tried to follow the structure that Updike himself had imposed on the previous six collections; the pieces are organized into five main categories. These are
Real Conversation (stories and poems not included in previous collections, ~ 50 pages)
Book Chat (book reviews, pieces about writing and the work of other authors, ~ 150 pages)
Gallery Tours (reviews of specific art exhibitions and pieces about the visual arts, ~ 150 pages)
Pet Topics (idiosyncratic pieces, spanning a range of topics that piqued Updike's interest, ~ 50 pages)
Table Talk (pieces about Updike's own writing, the literary landscape in general, transcriptions of invited addresses ~ 80 pages)
In total, it amounts to a hefty 500 pages. By the time I got to the end, I found myself wishing hard that Cardiff had stopped after the first three sections. 500 pages in hardback is hefty to have to carry around and the last two sections did not sustain my interest.
I believe that essays reflecting an author's personal enthusiasms need to do at least one of two things (preferably both) to succeed: (i) transmit the sense of enthusiasm (i.e. make the reader understand what sparked it) (ii) provide the reader with some fresh insight. I thought the great majority of pieces classified as "Pet Topics" failed -- I get it that Updike was interested in dinosaurs, Mars, specific places in Massachusetts, and (God forgive him) golf, but what he wrote about these topics didn't manage to spark my interest. "Pet Topics" is the weakest part of this collection.
The "Table Talk" pieces were a little more interesting, I particularly appreciated the inclusion of Updike's recommendations on book reviewing. But I have to think that his "x-years later" assessments of his own earlier works will be of interest only to those who have read and enjoyed the works in question. And though I know that including transcripts of an author's presentations is standard practice for this kind of collection, I'm not sure these transcripts necessarily make interesting reading. For instance, Updike's commencement address to the Amherst class of 1993 is interesting only in a negative sense - it seems completely anodyne and totally irrelevant. Nonetheless, the pieces in this section will likely be interesting for true Updike junkies.
The good news is that the first three sections of this book (350 out of 500 pages!) are pretty much uniformly terrific. I've quibbled enough (some might say too much). So let me acknowledge what a joy it is to read Updike's book reviews, that his generous assessments of the works of other authors are inspiring. His writing about art and artists may not match the pyrotechnics of, say, Simon Schama, but it is lucid, persuasive, unpretentious, and highly accessible. The first three sections of this collection are a reminder of Updike's particular strengths, and of how much he will be missed. If the book stopped there, I'd give it 4 stars, but the weaker material towards the end prevents me from doing so.
Real Conversation (stories and poems not included in previous collections, ~ 50 pages)
Book Chat (book reviews, pieces about writing and the work of other authors, ~ 150 pages)
Gallery Tours (reviews of specific art exhibitions and pieces about the visual arts, ~ 150 pages)
Pet Topics (idiosyncratic pieces, spanning a range of topics that piqued Updike's interest, ~ 50 pages)
Table Talk (pieces about Updike's own writing, the literary landscape in general, transcriptions of invited addresses ~ 80 pages)
In total, it amounts to a hefty 500 pages. By the time I got to the end, I found myself wishing hard that Cardiff had stopped after the first three sections. 500 pages in hardback is hefty to have to carry around and the last two sections did not sustain my interest.
I believe that essays reflecting an author's personal enthusiasms need to do at least one of two things (preferably both) to succeed: (i) transmit the sense of enthusiasm (i.e. make the reader understand what sparked it) (ii) provide the reader with some fresh insight. I thought the great majority of pieces classified as "Pet Topics" failed -- I get it that Updike was interested in dinosaurs, Mars, specific places in Massachusetts, and (God forgive him) golf, but what he wrote about these topics didn't manage to spark my interest. "Pet Topics" is the weakest part of this collection.
The "Table Talk" pieces were a little more interesting, I particularly appreciated the inclusion of Updike's recommendations on book reviewing. But I have to think that his "x-years later" assessments of his own earlier works will be of interest only to those who have read and enjoyed the works in question. And though I know that including transcripts of an author's presentations is standard practice for this kind of collection, I'm not sure these transcripts necessarily make interesting reading. For instance, Updike's commencement address to the Amherst class of 1993 is interesting only in a negative sense - it seems completely anodyne and totally irrelevant. Nonetheless, the pieces in this section will likely be interesting for true Updike junkies.
The good news is that the first three sections of this book (350 out of 500 pages!) are pretty much uniformly terrific. I've quibbled enough (some might say too much). So let me acknowledge what a joy it is to read Updike's book reviews, that his generous assessments of the works of other authors are inspiring. His writing about art and artists may not match the pyrotechnics of, say, Simon Schama, but it is lucid, persuasive, unpretentious, and highly accessible. The first three sections of this collection are a reminder of Updike's particular strengths, and of how much he will be missed. If the book stopped there, I'd give it 4 stars, but the weaker material towards the end prevents me from doing so.
July 8, 2024
A wonderful, rollicking, joy-filled old man's romp through the vagaries of his past and present encounters with human oddities!😂
April 4, 2019
The last of John Updike's collected essays, reviews, and observations. Wonderful writing and timeless evocations.
I noted that one of the last pieces included was his speech upon receiving the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1984 for his first essay collection entitled Hugging the Shore. I was fortunate enough to be in attendance when he made his remarks and have remembered to this day his comment that literary criticism "needs repeated injected of amateurism." Which he said was the goal of his essays and was a pitch-perfect observation.
After the event, by a stroke of luck, I rode the elevator with him down 30 floors in the Gulf & Western Building.
I noted that one of the last pieces included was his speech upon receiving the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1984 for his first essay collection entitled Hugging the Shore. I was fortunate enough to be in attendance when he made his remarks and have remembered to this day his comment that literary criticism "needs repeated injected of amateurism." Which he said was the goal of his essays and was a pitch-perfect observation.
After the event, by a stroke of luck, I rode the elevator with him down 30 floors in the Gulf & Western Building.
November 25, 2021
The bounce from the previous volumes is absent. The pieces feel more dutiful than vital. Updike’s fiction flamed out in 1990 and his non-fiction shares the same slow decline.
December 7, 2011
If you are among the legions who paused in January 2009 to mourn John Updike passing, then //Higher Gossip// a posthumous collection of essays, reviews, poems, and other writings, will make you cry all over again. While the title refers to an Updike quote regarding book reviews, this volume demonstrates that being one of America's greatest post-war novelists and short story writers was only part of his great talents. Indeed, when Updike died America lost one of its great – and most prolific – public intellectuals.
Like a broken pinata, what pours of this volume is a bounty of surprising delights. For example, you might expect to read Updike on Fitzgerald, Carver, or Nabokov (which are just a few among those dealing with authors), but his brief piece on Kierkegaard offers a slit window into the author's spiritual side. Almost 150 pages of reviews and meditations on art exhibitions and artists further speaks to his wide interests. Several previously uncollected poems similarly delight, as does a section titled “Pet Topics” which includes considerations on subjects ranging from Albert Einstein, to dinosaurs, to Updike's devotion to golf. Added into this thrilling mix are talks on varied topics (one on humor in fiction stands out as particularly fine), as well as Updike's introductions to some later editions of his own work.
As often as not, when volumes such as this appear after a great writer death, one receives a hastily collected hodgepodge of works of varying quality and importance. Christopher Carduff, the editor of this book, is therefore deserving of much praise for creating something which Updike lovers will surely treasure. Instead of reading it in one sitting, consider imbibing these pieces a little bit at a time; give yourself a chance to savor the unique genius that was John Updike.
Like a broken pinata, what pours of this volume is a bounty of surprising delights. For example, you might expect to read Updike on Fitzgerald, Carver, or Nabokov (which are just a few among those dealing with authors), but his brief piece on Kierkegaard offers a slit window into the author's spiritual side. Almost 150 pages of reviews and meditations on art exhibitions and artists further speaks to his wide interests. Several previously uncollected poems similarly delight, as does a section titled “Pet Topics” which includes considerations on subjects ranging from Albert Einstein, to dinosaurs, to Updike's devotion to golf. Added into this thrilling mix are talks on varied topics (one on humor in fiction stands out as particularly fine), as well as Updike's introductions to some later editions of his own work.
As often as not, when volumes such as this appear after a great writer death, one receives a hastily collected hodgepodge of works of varying quality and importance. Christopher Carduff, the editor of this book, is therefore deserving of much praise for creating something which Updike lovers will surely treasure. Instead of reading it in one sitting, consider imbibing these pieces a little bit at a time; give yourself a chance to savor the unique genius that was John Updike.
November 23, 2011
For those of us who were saddened by John Updike's passing in January, 2009, this final collection of his writing comes as some consolation. Among its many pleasures, Higher Gossip gives us a handful of previously uncollected stories and poems. Updike worked as a reporter early in his career, filing Talk of the Town pieces for the New Yorker, and in the poem "Cafeteria, Mass. General Hospital" he is still on the beat, still telling us what it is like out there. For Updike, "out there" takes in the entire human experience; his close observation of his last days is deeply moving.
Novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, he was also a consummate critic and essayist. His foreword to The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter, included here, is a delight. Some years ago he co-edited The Best American Short Stories of the Century (best North American stories in English, in fact, since English-Canadian writers are represented), and his foreword for that volume is a master class on short fiction. He was interested in everything, it seems. There are essays on Dutch art and Toni Morrison, snapshots and Einstein, golf and dinosaurs. He had recently updated his "A Poetics of Book Reviewing," and that short essay should be required reading for anyone who comments on a book.
Higher Gossip ends with a reflection on a subject Updike fearlessly tackled, the biggest subject of all, our deep need to comprehend the incomprehensible. "Even in those many works of mine in which religion plays no overt role, mundane events are considered, I like to think, religiously, as worthy of reverence and detailed evocation."
Thank you, Mr. Updike. Farewell.
Novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, he was also a consummate critic and essayist. His foreword to The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter, included here, is a delight. Some years ago he co-edited The Best American Short Stories of the Century (best North American stories in English, in fact, since English-Canadian writers are represented), and his foreword for that volume is a master class on short fiction. He was interested in everything, it seems. There are essays on Dutch art and Toni Morrison, snapshots and Einstein, golf and dinosaurs. He had recently updated his "A Poetics of Book Reviewing," and that short essay should be required reading for anyone who comments on a book.
Higher Gossip ends with a reflection on a subject Updike fearlessly tackled, the biggest subject of all, our deep need to comprehend the incomprehensible. "Even in those many works of mine in which religion plays no overt role, mundane events are considered, I like to think, religiously, as worthy of reverence and detailed evocation."
Thank you, Mr. Updike. Farewell.
February 27, 2025
Updike has breadth, there is no doubt. And his expertise on art, literature, film, flow out in prose that captures the simplicity of a beautiful thought. I do prefer him as a novelist, but appreciated him turning his keen eye and pen onto the world of the real.
June 18, 2018
mixed bag of articles over decades of work
not one to read start to finish, but maybe to dip into from time to time
not one to read start to finish, but maybe to dip into from time to time
August 19, 2021
I like Updike's writing, but didn't care for a lot of topics in the book.
July 29, 2025
OK, I cruised through this book, choosing which essays to read. I love Updike's fiction, wanted to hear his voice again. Many works that he critiqued, I was not familiar with. Big volume of his work.
July 26, 2016
John Updike's essays are such a pleasure to read because his writing voice masters the combination of eloquence and amiability. When reading his work, I'm at once acutely aware of how elegant and refined the prose is yet also drawn to its effortless sense of approachability.
Higher Gossip is a compilation of Updike's thoughts on various subjects, such as people (ranging from Tiger Woods to Kurt Vonnegut), writing, and art. The book also contains the introductions, forewords, and afterwards that he wrote for numerous books. I did not read every essay, but Higher Gossip has been informative and all-encompassing in terms of covering the scope of his non-fiction.
Most of what this book has done, though, is inspire me a lot.
In "A Poetics of Book Reviewing," Updike gives advice that I wish I had read when I first started this book review blog: https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/05...
In "The Game," Updike once again* shows me how comparisons should be executed by comparing golf to a woman for whom he has an unrequited love: "I fell in love with golf when I was twenty-five. [...] Sometimes I wish she and I had never met. She leads me on, but deep down I suspect--this is my secret--that I'm just not her type." Updike extends the metaphor to describe her "pretty green curves and "snug little sand traps," and the way she lets a long putt rattle in just when "you think she's turned her back on you forever." Golf is an intuitive old girl, a tease, an accountant.
*Fun fact: my favourite simile of all time comes from Updike's Self-Consciousness, in which he captures the intimidating nature of public speaking by describing how the microphone before him was "uptilted like the screened face of a miniature fencer."
Updike continues to inspire in "The End of Authorship," defending the future of books:
"Books traditionally have edges: some are rough-cut, some are smooth-cut, and a few, at least at my extravagant publishing house, are even top-stained. In the electronic anthill, where are the edges? The book revolution, which, from the Renaissance on, taught men and women to cherish and cultivate their individuality, threatens to end in a sparkling cloud of snippets.
So, booksellers, defend your lonely forts. Keep your edges dry. Your edges are our edges. For some of us, books are intrinsic to our sense of personal identity."
All in all, vicariously gossiping with Updike through his numerous essays has indeed been wonderful. Until next time!
Higher Gossip is a compilation of Updike's thoughts on various subjects, such as people (ranging from Tiger Woods to Kurt Vonnegut), writing, and art. The book also contains the introductions, forewords, and afterwards that he wrote for numerous books. I did not read every essay, but Higher Gossip has been informative and all-encompassing in terms of covering the scope of his non-fiction.
Most of what this book has done, though, is inspire me a lot.
In "A Poetics of Book Reviewing," Updike gives advice that I wish I had read when I first started this book review blog: https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/05...
In "The Game," Updike once again* shows me how comparisons should be executed by comparing golf to a woman for whom he has an unrequited love: "I fell in love with golf when I was twenty-five. [...] Sometimes I wish she and I had never met. She leads me on, but deep down I suspect--this is my secret--that I'm just not her type." Updike extends the metaphor to describe her "pretty green curves and "snug little sand traps," and the way she lets a long putt rattle in just when "you think she's turned her back on you forever." Golf is an intuitive old girl, a tease, an accountant.
*Fun fact: my favourite simile of all time comes from Updike's Self-Consciousness, in which he captures the intimidating nature of public speaking by describing how the microphone before him was "uptilted like the screened face of a miniature fencer."
Updike continues to inspire in "The End of Authorship," defending the future of books:
"Books traditionally have edges: some are rough-cut, some are smooth-cut, and a few, at least at my extravagant publishing house, are even top-stained. In the electronic anthill, where are the edges? The book revolution, which, from the Renaissance on, taught men and women to cherish and cultivate their individuality, threatens to end in a sparkling cloud of snippets.
So, booksellers, defend your lonely forts. Keep your edges dry. Your edges are our edges. For some of us, books are intrinsic to our sense of personal identity."
All in all, vicariously gossiping with Updike through his numerous essays has indeed been wonderful. Until next time!
February 26, 2018
This is Updike’s valedictory collection of criticism, essays, introductions, New Yorker-style “casuals” – or as he titled his first nonfiction collection in the 1960’s, Picked-Up Pieces. Wherever found, these pieces are gems.
While Updike is justly celebrated for his sensuous prose, he would be little more than an interesting mannerist writer – a Truman Capote, perhaps, or Paul Auster – if the engine of his prose weren’t coupled to one of the most remarkably incisive and ecumenical literary intelligences of our time. Not to mention a vaulting ambition – his personal diffidence and genuine modesty notwithstanding – to capture the driven, indulged, conflicted, and despairing America of his time.
Here is an example of style and substance, taken from his essay on an exhibition of William Blake at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It would be possible to find equivalent examples almost by opening the book at random:
Blake represents, if we may presume to extrapolate an English view, an innocent religiosity, both ardent and nonsensical; a triumph of eccentricity, the Englishman’s cherished privilege and informal purchase on freedom; a plea and protest on behalf of the bejeweled old England buried beneath the grim of industrialism, “the dark Satanic mills” erected on the rational, mechanical heartless premises symbolized by Newton and Voltaire; and a thrilling voice, like that of his contemporary Robert Burns, from the lower classes, lending proof of the progressive righteousness of England’s curious democracy.
Highlights among the book reviews are two writers Updike knew personally: his New Yorker editor William Maxwell and fellow bard of suburbia and its discontents, John Cheever. He also celebrates the lives and careers of such figures as Kierkegaard, Hemingway, Vonnegut, and my favorite among them, an essay on short story master Raymond Carver.
Updike spent many hours in his later life attending, pondering, and writing about art shows, ranging from old masters like El Greco and Van Gogh to surrealist Rene Magrittte and the “art of the American snapshot.”
One of his densest essays is a 1977 introduction to his first novel, The Poorhouse Fair. If you are curious about how Updike saw his core mission as a writer, this is a good place to start.
All in all, Higher Gossip is a good place to linger and savor the mind and art of one of America’s truly great writers.
While Updike is justly celebrated for his sensuous prose, he would be little more than an interesting mannerist writer – a Truman Capote, perhaps, or Paul Auster – if the engine of his prose weren’t coupled to one of the most remarkably incisive and ecumenical literary intelligences of our time. Not to mention a vaulting ambition – his personal diffidence and genuine modesty notwithstanding – to capture the driven, indulged, conflicted, and despairing America of his time.
Here is an example of style and substance, taken from his essay on an exhibition of William Blake at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It would be possible to find equivalent examples almost by opening the book at random:
Blake represents, if we may presume to extrapolate an English view, an innocent religiosity, both ardent and nonsensical; a triumph of eccentricity, the Englishman’s cherished privilege and informal purchase on freedom; a plea and protest on behalf of the bejeweled old England buried beneath the grim of industrialism, “the dark Satanic mills” erected on the rational, mechanical heartless premises symbolized by Newton and Voltaire; and a thrilling voice, like that of his contemporary Robert Burns, from the lower classes, lending proof of the progressive righteousness of England’s curious democracy.
Highlights among the book reviews are two writers Updike knew personally: his New Yorker editor William Maxwell and fellow bard of suburbia and its discontents, John Cheever. He also celebrates the lives and careers of such figures as Kierkegaard, Hemingway, Vonnegut, and my favorite among them, an essay on short story master Raymond Carver.
Updike spent many hours in his later life attending, pondering, and writing about art shows, ranging from old masters like El Greco and Van Gogh to surrealist Rene Magrittte and the “art of the American snapshot.”
One of his densest essays is a 1977 introduction to his first novel, The Poorhouse Fair. If you are curious about how Updike saw his core mission as a writer, this is a good place to start.
All in all, Higher Gossip is a good place to linger and savor the mind and art of one of America’s truly great writers.
February 7, 2012
This may or may not be the "final" collection of Updike's essays and criticism but it is certainly not the best such collection. It begins strongly, and poignantly, with "The Writer In Winter" but, thereafter, while interesting, the material is not classic Updike. The few book reviews, in particular, were rather ordinary and Updike was no ordinary reviewer of books. Certainly worth reading for any Updike fan but you may be disappointed.
July 5, 2013
I dip into and out of this big collection of essays, for a hit of Updikean prose, so unique. But my interest can flag when his subject is of little consequence (even though the writing is elegant), as if he simply had to jot something down whatever it was...his way of life. But hardly the jolt of a novel.
September 30, 2012
I read this books in parts. Updike direct us readers to the best of literature and music. The entry on Cole Porter's lyrics is witty, casual and intelligent. He easily streams between writing about Kierkegaard, Fitzgerald to Hemingway and Vonnegut.
Want to read
February 19, 2012What an apt title for a collection of non-fiction writing. Delicious, self-mocking, world-mocking, ironic.
June 19, 2012
Part of the book was humorous, part of it so very sad; all of it enlightening.
June 27, 2014
When it's good it is really good. Unfortunately that's about 20 pages.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews