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Bech #1
El libro de Bech
Tras una novela de éxito, la carrera de Henry Bech, escritor norteamericano entrado en la cuarentena, comienza a languidecer. Ahora, mediada la atribulada década de los años sesenta, para huir de la parálisis creativa, acepta participar en unos «intercambios culturales» promovidos por el Departamento de Estado que lo llevarán a Rusia, Rumania o Bulgaria, cuando el Telón todavía era de acero. Pero ni las bondades del deshielo soviético ni la sucesión de esperpénticos encuentros –un choque de civilizaciones avant la lettre, con hilarantes confusiones por problemas de traducción o equívocos en los flirteos– consiguen sacarlo de su embotamiento. Como tampoco le ayudarán mucho los incidentes que salpican su vida de vuelta a Occidente: desde una visita al Londres más chic de la década prodigiosa a unas conferencias en una universidad femenina del profundo Sur o los vaivenes sentimentales en su amada Nueva York.
195 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
33 people are currently reading
574 people want to read
About the author
John Updike
861 books2,425 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 - 30 of 89 reviews
March 27, 2012
Bech is an old-school American writer (i.e. sexist and racist) whose books have secured him a place in the pantheon of the greats. Ah, the days when we had pantheons! When writers had stature and respect and tabloid headlines, when adoring fans tore their knickers off over a potent metaphor or sly Greek allusion. Gone are the days! He travels the world being droll and patronising the locals for not speaking English, and looks at ladies’ ankles, thighs and calves a great deal before he sleeps with them. Oh, the writer’s life! Such toil and torment! Attached to these thin travelogues and anecdotal scenes are the usual lyrical gushings that made Updike such a honey in the New York scene—those long descriptive sentences that make critics say “master of the language” a great deal, but that in themselves don’t really say very much in particular. Still, Updike could have written a better sentence than the one I wrote there. And there. So he wins. Except I’m not dead. So maybe I win?
October 19, 2016
Actually, I think Bech is a form of Bellow, successful enough to win a cultural exchange to Eastern Europe, where there's a hilarious conversation weighted and delayed by translators, or the absence of them. Rumania, Bulgaria.
The Rumanian cab driver is a hoot. Going through a village, the "driver would speed up, and intensify the mutter of his honking; cluster of peasants and geese exploded in disbelief…As they ascended into the mountains, the driver demonstrated his technique with curves: he approached each like an enemy, accelerating…In the jerking and swaying Petrescu [the cultural officer] grew pale…Bech said to him, 'This driver should be locked up. He is sick and dangerous."(31). After a long evening's entertainment, Bech worries, "My God, don't you Communists ever get tired of having fun?"
His Rumanian odyssey culminates in meeting the famous national writer, "on the cobbled pavement, as if on opposite sides of a transparent wall, one side lacquered with Scotch and the other with Vodka.
Bech asked him, 'What do you write about?'
The wife, struggling not to cough, translated the question, and the answer, which was brief. 'Peasants,' she told Bech. 'He wants to know, what do you write about'
Bech spoke to him directly, 'La bourgeoisie,' he said, and that completed the cultural exchange"(45).
When I read this at the beginning of my career, which would later involve me in cultural exchange in the UK and Italy (not to include the 8 or 10 other countries where my books are on library shelves), I thought it hilarious. And I still find it very amusing.
The Rumanian cab driver is a hoot. Going through a village, the "driver would speed up, and intensify the mutter of his honking; cluster of peasants and geese exploded in disbelief…As they ascended into the mountains, the driver demonstrated his technique with curves: he approached each like an enemy, accelerating…In the jerking and swaying Petrescu [the cultural officer] grew pale…Bech said to him, 'This driver should be locked up. He is sick and dangerous."(31). After a long evening's entertainment, Bech worries, "My God, don't you Communists ever get tired of having fun?"
His Rumanian odyssey culminates in meeting the famous national writer, "on the cobbled pavement, as if on opposite sides of a transparent wall, one side lacquered with Scotch and the other with Vodka.
Bech asked him, 'What do you write about?'
The wife, struggling not to cough, translated the question, and the answer, which was brief. 'Peasants,' she told Bech. 'He wants to know, what do you write about'
Bech spoke to him directly, 'La bourgeoisie,' he said, and that completed the cultural exchange"(45).
When I read this at the beginning of my career, which would later involve me in cultural exchange in the UK and Italy (not to include the 8 or 10 other countries where my books are on library shelves), I thought it hilarious. And I still find it very amusing.
January 12, 2022
This is a very entertaining book and extremely well written. John Updike must have been ever so pleased with himself after writing this book about such a smug, clever, and witty writer!
Henry Bech isn't a sympathetic character. I don't like him. He can't say anything without trying to be clever in that insufferable way some people have who want to always show how intelligent they are. He also seems to be a magnet for the ladies. But, this is fiction isn't it? Bech's sword is mightier than his pen.
The book is about Bech visiting an Eastern Europe still behind the Iron Curtain, taking drugs with his girlfriend / mistress and then sleeping with her sister, visiting a girl's academy in West Virginia, spending a few days in London and meeting a gossip columnist, and finally being inducted into a literary society.
This is a writer's testament as to what it was like to be a writer in America in the 1960s.
Henry Bech isn't a sympathetic character. I don't like him. He can't say anything without trying to be clever in that insufferable way some people have who want to always show how intelligent they are. He also seems to be a magnet for the ladies. But, this is fiction isn't it? Bech's sword is mightier than his pen.
The book is about Bech visiting an Eastern Europe still behind the Iron Curtain, taking drugs with his girlfriend / mistress and then sleeping with her sister, visiting a girl's academy in West Virginia, spending a few days in London and meeting a gossip columnist, and finally being inducted into a literary society.
This is a writer's testament as to what it was like to be a writer in America in the 1960s.
July 30, 2020
Чудесни разкази от един майстор в жанра.
July 27, 2015
Back in the Roaring Twenties, someone was talking about Warren G. Harding, or it might have been Shoeless Joe Jackson, and they said, "he was the ultimate example of just how far a man might go without brains."
John Updike's life was a similar American miracle, except for "brains" you would have to substitute "character," or "moral courage," or "integrity," or something like that.
Updike was prodigiously gifted, enormously talented, and blessed with seemingly inexhaustible reserves of energy and intellect. He wrote thousands of essays, hundreds of short stories, dozens of novels. He was always witty and entertaining. He never failed to make a profit.
What was always missing was a sense of purpose, a set of principles. Updike loved writing, and he loved the rewards. He was not about to jeopardize that by saying anything that might disturb anyone in power. Updike hated controversy and he could imagine no greater good than supporting the status quo. You can write some very good stories upholding the existing order, but you can't write great ones.
Bech is a glaring example this problem because Updike seems to be taking on a moral challenge. He seems to be taking on the voice of a man who is also a writer, but who is tougher, more ethnic, more urban, less prone to cringe and fawn and flatter the bigwigs.
There's a lot of casual sex in this book, and a lot of casual rudeness towards women and minorities and the poor. But in the end, no-one is challenged and no forbidden words are said. Bech is no Norman Mailer. He's just John Updike. Again.
John Updike's life was a similar American miracle, except for "brains" you would have to substitute "character," or "moral courage," or "integrity," or something like that.
Updike was prodigiously gifted, enormously talented, and blessed with seemingly inexhaustible reserves of energy and intellect. He wrote thousands of essays, hundreds of short stories, dozens of novels. He was always witty and entertaining. He never failed to make a profit.
What was always missing was a sense of purpose, a set of principles. Updike loved writing, and he loved the rewards. He was not about to jeopardize that by saying anything that might disturb anyone in power. Updike hated controversy and he could imagine no greater good than supporting the status quo. You can write some very good stories upholding the existing order, but you can't write great ones.
Bech is a glaring example this problem because Updike seems to be taking on a moral challenge. He seems to be taking on the voice of a man who is also a writer, but who is tougher, more ethnic, more urban, less prone to cringe and fawn and flatter the bigwigs.
There's a lot of casual sex in this book, and a lot of casual rudeness towards women and minorities and the poor. But in the end, no-one is challenged and no forbidden words are said. Bech is no Norman Mailer. He's just John Updike. Again.
February 16, 2009
i love updike. i’d like to felch his three week old corpse. amidst a great comic novella he throws out BRAIN-EXPLODINGLY GREAT STUFF like this:
He saw that even in this age of science and unbelief our ideas are dreams, styles, superstitions, mere animal noises intended to repel or attract. He looked around the ring of munching females and saw their bodies as a Martian or a mollusc might see them, as pulpy stalks of bundled nerves oddly pinched to a bud of concentration in the head, a hairy bone knob holding some pounds of jelly in which a trillion circuits, mostly dead, kept records, coded motor operations, and generated an excess of electricity that pressed into the hairless side of the head and leaked through the orifices, in the form of pained, hopeful noises and a simian dance of wrinkles. Impossible mirage! A blot on nothingness. And to think that all the efforts of life – his preening, his lovemaking, his typing – boiled down to the attempt to displace a few sparks, to bias a few circuits, within some random other scoops of jelly that would, in less time than in takes the Andreas Fault to shrug or the tail-tip of Scorpio to crawl an inch across the map of Heaven, be utterly disolved. The widest fame and the most enduring excellence shrank to nothing in perspective. As Bech ate, mechanically offering votive bits of dead lamb to the terror enthroned within him, he saw that the void should have been left unvexed, should have been spared this trouble of matter, of life, and, worst, of consciousness.
and while staring at the stars with his sci-fi translating russian guide:
“It is strange,” she said, “of the books I translate, how much there is to do with supernature. Immaterial creatures like angels, ideal societies composed of spirits, speeds that exceed that of light, reversals of time – all impossible, and perhaps not. In a way it is terrible, to look up at the sky, on one of our clear nights of burning cold, at the sky of stars, and think of creatures alive in it.”
“Like termites in the ceiling.” Falling so short of the grandeur Kate might have had a right to expect from him, his simile went unanswered.
lovely and terrifying.
He saw that even in this age of science and unbelief our ideas are dreams, styles, superstitions, mere animal noises intended to repel or attract. He looked around the ring of munching females and saw their bodies as a Martian or a mollusc might see them, as pulpy stalks of bundled nerves oddly pinched to a bud of concentration in the head, a hairy bone knob holding some pounds of jelly in which a trillion circuits, mostly dead, kept records, coded motor operations, and generated an excess of electricity that pressed into the hairless side of the head and leaked through the orifices, in the form of pained, hopeful noises and a simian dance of wrinkles. Impossible mirage! A blot on nothingness. And to think that all the efforts of life – his preening, his lovemaking, his typing – boiled down to the attempt to displace a few sparks, to bias a few circuits, within some random other scoops of jelly that would, in less time than in takes the Andreas Fault to shrug or the tail-tip of Scorpio to crawl an inch across the map of Heaven, be utterly disolved. The widest fame and the most enduring excellence shrank to nothing in perspective. As Bech ate, mechanically offering votive bits of dead lamb to the terror enthroned within him, he saw that the void should have been left unvexed, should have been spared this trouble of matter, of life, and, worst, of consciousness.
and while staring at the stars with his sci-fi translating russian guide:
“It is strange,” she said, “of the books I translate, how much there is to do with supernature. Immaterial creatures like angels, ideal societies composed of spirits, speeds that exceed that of light, reversals of time – all impossible, and perhaps not. In a way it is terrible, to look up at the sky, on one of our clear nights of burning cold, at the sky of stars, and think of creatures alive in it.”
“Like termites in the ceiling.” Falling so short of the grandeur Kate might have had a right to expect from him, his simile went unanswered.
lovely and terrifying.
October 31, 2009
Revisiting this work after more than a decade since my first unsatisfying time through, I have reassessed it. I previously rejected it as dull, uninteresting stories about a character about whom I could care less. This time through I found it a pleasant if mostly uninspiring read, a nice period piece.
I think the fundamental problem with the character of Henry Bech is two-fold. First, to some extent Bech represents the Henry Jekyll of Updike's split personality, the opposite of Harold ("Rabbit") Angstrom's Edward Hyde. Much more intellectual and better-mannered (though ironically, more frequently promiscuous) than Rabbit, Bech sounds off in elegant terms of literature and culture and the attractions of the many women he pursues. Rabbit speaks in more direct, earthier terms, and we always know what he's thinking about, which frequently involves functional body parts. Rabbit's perceptions are almost always interesting because we feel they are authentic. Bech's seem contrived, an outlet for thoughts that Updike chose not to set forth in his innumerable essays.
Second, although it is repeatedly emphasized that Bech is a Jew, and a child of New York in the Thirties, he doesn't to me sound ethnic in any way. The sentiments that come out of his mind and mouth seem Waspish, New England-ish. This too has made it very hard to think of Bech as real, to care much what happens to him.
I can't say that I "really liked" Bech: A Book, but I liked it. It was literate, thoughtful, amusing, a nice look back at the late 60's culture (though, to be superfluous, it was no "Rabbit Redux"). Having thought more about literature in the last few years than for some time (and having seen too many younger readers gobbling up silly fantasies and other easy page-turners at the expense of good literature), it was surprisingly pleasant to absorb the musings of a real literary mind, even if they did not stir my soul. I liked this enough that I will next tackle Bech is Back, whose pages previously proved an Everest I did not have the patience or will to climb.
I think the fundamental problem with the character of Henry Bech is two-fold. First, to some extent Bech represents the Henry Jekyll of Updike's split personality, the opposite of Harold ("Rabbit") Angstrom's Edward Hyde. Much more intellectual and better-mannered (though ironically, more frequently promiscuous) than Rabbit, Bech sounds off in elegant terms of literature and culture and the attractions of the many women he pursues. Rabbit speaks in more direct, earthier terms, and we always know what he's thinking about, which frequently involves functional body parts. Rabbit's perceptions are almost always interesting because we feel they are authentic. Bech's seem contrived, an outlet for thoughts that Updike chose not to set forth in his innumerable essays.
Second, although it is repeatedly emphasized that Bech is a Jew, and a child of New York in the Thirties, he doesn't to me sound ethnic in any way. The sentiments that come out of his mind and mouth seem Waspish, New England-ish. This too has made it very hard to think of Bech as real, to care much what happens to him.
I can't say that I "really liked" Bech: A Book, but I liked it. It was literate, thoughtful, amusing, a nice look back at the late 60's culture (though, to be superfluous, it was no "Rabbit Redux"). Having thought more about literature in the last few years than for some time (and having seen too many younger readers gobbling up silly fantasies and other easy page-turners at the expense of good literature), it was surprisingly pleasant to absorb the musings of a real literary mind, even if they did not stir my soul. I liked this enough that I will next tackle Bech is Back, whose pages previously proved an Everest I did not have the patience or will to climb.
July 19, 2024
ХЕНРИ БЕК В БЪЛГАРИЯ в Изумен
Неопределена комбинация от роман, сборник с разкази и пътепис. Така определят критиците „Книгата на Бек“ на Джон Ъпдайк – автор, ангажирал голяма част от кариерата си със семейните несполуки в американските предградия от средата на миналия век. Героят му, писателят Бек (който ще се появи в още два сборника), е очевидно алтер его на самия автор след пътуване на Ъпдайк като посланик на изкуството в Източния блок през 60-те. По-интересна е именно тази първа част на книгата, в която той описва пътуването си през Русия, Кавказ, Румъния и България.
Посещението в Русия е кратко. От него Бек научава, че всички руснаци още от детските си години са шпиони и че това не е срамно, а напротив – срамно е, че тайните, които разкриват, са незначителни. Добра подготовка за предстоящата обиколка из сателитните социалистически страни, в които героят ще се натъкне на същото подозрително шушукане и лицемерни погледи. В Румъния го посрещат с екзотична вечер в нощен бар, където китайки и африканци правят фокуси, въртят обръчи и пеят вариации на Франк Синатра.
„О, Боже – възкликва Бек, – това нещо никога ли няма да свърши? На вас, комунистите, никога ли не ви омръзва да се забавлявате?“
Любопитно за българския читател в настоящия сборник без съмнение е разказът, посветен на срещата му с българската поетеса Блага Димитрова.
Ъпдайк е очарован от нея, още повече на фона на господата, които са в стаята. Там е председателят на Съюза на българските писатели, заобиколен от „високопоставени в партийната йерархия литературни чиновници“, чиято роля е да вдигат тостове за международното разбирателство. Присъстват и отегчени български поети, както и университетски проф��сор, чийто английски е от времето на Марк Твен и Синклер Луис. Всичките лъхат на тютюн, чесън, сирене и алкохол.
Блага Димитрова е най-хубавото, което Ъпдайк си спомня от България. Съдейки по любовния живот на Ъпдайк, дори да се бяха разбудили взаимни чувства, едва ли щяха да прераснат в дълготраен романтичен живот. Въпреки това за сбогом той ще ѝ напише: „Най-искрено съжалявам, че на нас двамата ни се налага да живеем в противоположни краища на света“.
С това приключва по-интересната част от „Книгата на Бек“. Би било чудесно, ако сборникът се концентрираше изцяло върху пътешествията на Ъпдайк, тъй като новите места и хора вдъхват живот на образите и отвличат вниманието от меланхоличната мелодия на самотата, която преобладава във втората му половина.
Главите, в които героят пътува до южните щати, Лондон и неназован симпозиум на именити американски творци, изобилстват от нарцистичните тенденции, за които Ъпдайк понася критики в по-късната си кариера. Тук се забелязват наченки именно на този вид солипсизъм, обзел отегчения бял мъж, който се лута в самооплакващо се отчаяние.
Ангажиран, както отбелязва американският романист и есеист Дейвид Фостър Уолъс, преди всичко с темите за секса и смъртта (не задължително в тази последователност), Ъпдайк може би пропилява титаничния си художествен талант именно поради това уморяващо „взиране в пъпа“, което се наблюдава във всичките му книги. Героите в тях (Заека, Мейпъл, Ханема и Хенри Бек) са един и същи самотен и/или недоволен от семейния живот мъж от средната класа, изправен пред неизбежната сенилност, пуснала корен в късната есен на живота му.
В края на книгата остава въпросът: „И сега какво?“. Той е зададен непосредствено след финалния успех и големите награди. Заключен в „действителността, която представлява постоянно изхабяване на възможностите“, алтер егото на автора е поредният разочарован романтик на следвоенната американска литература.
Макар и на пръв поглед съмнителен, подборът на снимката за задната корица е подходящ – Ъпдайк в края на жизнения си път и десетилетия след публикуването на книгата. Книга, която този уморен и изпълнен със съжаления мъж лесно би могъл да напише.
Неопределена комбинация от роман, сборник с разкази и пътепис. Така определят критиците „Книгата на Бек“ на Джон Ъпдайк – автор, ангажирал голяма част от кариерата си със семейните несполуки в американските предградия от средата на миналия век. Героят му, писателят Бек (който ще се появи в още два сборника), е очевидно алтер его на самия автор след пътуване на Ъпдайк като посланик на изкуството в Източния блок през 60-те. По-интересна е именно тази първа част на книгата, в която той описва пътуването си през Русия, Кавказ, Румъния и България.
Посещението в Русия е кратко. От него Бек научава, че всички руснаци още от детските си години са шпиони и че това не е срамно, а напротив – срамно е, че тайните, които разкриват, са незначителни. Добра подготовка за предстоящата обиколка из сателитните социалистически страни, в които героят ще се натъкне на същото подозрително шушукане и лицемерни погледи. В Румъния го посрещат с екзотична вечер в нощен бар, където китайки и африканци правят фокуси, въртят обръчи и пеят вариации на Франк Синатра.
„О, Боже – възкликва Бек, – това нещо никога ли няма да свърши? На вас, комунистите, никога ли не ви омръзва да се забавлявате?“
Любопитно за българския читател в настоящия сборник без съмнение е разказът, посветен на срещата му с българската поетеса Блага Димитрова.
Ъпдайк е очарован от нея, още повече на фона на господата, които са в стаята. Там е председателят на Съюза на българските писатели, заобиколен от „високопоставени в партийната йерархия литературни чиновници“, чиято роля е да вдигат тостове за международното разбирателство. Присъстват и отегчени български поети, както и университетски проф��сор, чийто английски е от времето на Марк Твен и Синклер Луис. Всичките лъхат на тютюн, чесън, сирене и алкохол.
Блага Димитрова е най-хубавото, което Ъпдайк си спомня от България. Съдейки по любовния живот на Ъпдайк, дори да се бяха разбудили взаимни чувства, едва ли щяха да прераснат в дълготраен романтичен живот. Въпреки това за сбогом той ще ѝ напише: „Най-искрено съжалявам, че на нас двамата ни се налага да живеем в противоположни краища на света“.
С това приключва по-интересната част от „Книгата на Бек“. Би било чудесно, ако сборникът се концентрираше изцяло върху пътешествията на Ъпдайк, тъй като новите места и хора вдъхват живот на образите и отвличат вниманието от меланхоличната мелодия на самотата, която преобладава във втората му половина.
Главите, в които героят пътува до южните щати, Лондон и неназован симпозиум на именити американски творци, изобилстват от нарцистичните тенденции, за които Ъпдайк понася критики в по-късната си кариера. Тук се забелязват наченки именно на този вид солипсизъм, обзел отегчения бял мъж, който се лута в самооплакващо се отчаяние.
Ангажиран, както отбелязва американският романист и есеист Дейвид Фостър Уолъс, преди всичко с темите за секса и смъртта (не задължително в тази последователност), Ъпдайк може би пропилява титаничния си художествен талант именно поради това уморяващо „взиране в пъпа“, което се наблюдава във всичките му книги. Героите в тях (Заека, Мейпъл, Ханема и Хенри Бек) са един и същи самотен и/или недоволен от семейния живот мъж от средната класа, изправен пред неизбежната сенилност, пуснала корен в късната есен на живота му.
В края на книгата остава въпросът: „И сега какво?“. Той е зададен непосредствено след финалния успех и големите награди. Заключен в „действителността, която представлява постоянно изхабяване на възможностите“, алтер егото на автора е поредният разочарован романтик на следвоенната американска литература.
Макар и на пръв поглед съмнителен, подборът на снимката за задната корица е подходящ – Ъпдайк в края на жизнения си път и десетилетия след публикуването на книгата. Книга, която този уморен и изпълнен със съжаления мъж лесно би могъл да напише.
June 15, 2020
Купих книгата, след като прочетох, че включва посещения в страни от Източния блок и разказ за срещата на Ъпдайк в България с Блага Димитрова. И наистина - тази среща беше най-интересният и миловиден разказ в иначе ироничния тон на сборника, макар на човек да му става мъчно за това какво е представлявала България и как я е видял авторът.
Интересно ми беше как фокусът е върху втория план на събитията, нещата които забелязваш в периферията, с интуицията, интерпретация вместо фактология. Това прави книгата близка, като продължение на личните ти мисли.
Интересно четиво, препоръчвам.
Интересно ми беше как фокусът е върху втория план на събитията, нещата които забелязваш в периферията, с интуицията, интерпретация вместо фактология. Това прави книгата близка, като продължение на личните ти мисли.
Интересно четиво, препоръчвам.
February 9, 2021
“Книгата на Бек”, първата от трилогията на Джон Ъпдайк, (изд. Кръг, 2020), която следва едноименния му герой Хенри Бек, е разкошно литературно пиршество. Книгата е пълна с интелектуален заряд и сардоничен хумор, остроумни до фарс описания и изобретателни сравнения, очарователни езикови детайли и куп културни препратки, които ни въвеждат в американската литературна атмосфера от времето на писателя.
Ограничаващо и дори провинциално е обаче този сборник със свързани разкази, или своеобразен роман, да се рекламира единствено чрез българската нишка в него (най-вече чрез поетесата Блага Димитрова, скрита зад героинята Вера Главанакова). Некоректно е и разказите вътре, които проследяват алтер-егото на Ъпдайк по време на пътешествията, които самият той действително е извършил с цел “културен обмен” през 60-те години в СССР, Румъния и България, да се разбират като документални пътеписи и да изчерпват съдържанието на книгата в представянето й. Въпреки че самата тя подсилва илюзията за документалност заради вниманието, с което писателят фиксира точните дати и места от пътуванията на Бек, неговите “епизоди”, романтични връзки, лекции и срещи.
Хенри Бек, гетото за един-единствен човек
В “Книгата на Бек” Джон Ъпдайк, класическият БАСП-писател (бял, англосаксонец, протестант) от втората половина на XX век, експериментира с алтер-его, което е почти негов “негатив”. Героят му Хенри Бек е евреин, снабден със стереотипи като облака къдрава коса и огромния нос, киселото чувство за хумор и промискуитета. За разлика от Ъпдайк, Бек е автор само на един дебютен бестселър и няколко последващи творби, неспособни да повторят първоначалния му успех. Той е неженен и има поредица от провалени любовни връзки (Ъпдайк пише, че “се е доказал в отношенията си с всички жени от майка си насам като един лесно уязвим, капризен, глезен, лукав и с просташки маниери, хладнокръвен неблагодарник”). И вместо да реди блестящи словосъчетания като създателя си, общува тромаво и неизразително, като изпитва ужас да води сериозен разговор, без да прибягва в крайна сметка до удобни мисловни клишета.
Образът на Хенри Бек е сготвен (както посочва и самият герой в предговора към създателя си) от плеада успешни еврейски новелисти: Норман Мейлър, Сол Белоу, Бърнард Маламъд, Хенри и Филип Рот, Дж. Д. Селинджър, Даниел Фукс. В известния литературен анализ на романа на Синтия Озик героят Бек е наречен карикатура на евреин, или още “неутрален евреин”, за което напомняло и името му - празна becher (“чаша” на идиш). Според Озик, която също е еврейка, героят има много по-общо с литературните, отколкото с американските евреи (и вероятно е по-подходящ за филмите на Уди Алън с типичните за неговите герои нефункционални характери, творчески блокаж, криза на средната възраст, сексуални затруднения, хапливи забележки и пелтечене).
Продължете да четете това ревю тук: https://bit.ly/3cVE9a5
Ограничаващо и дори провинциално е обаче този сборник със свързани разкази, или своеобразен роман, да се рекламира единствено чрез българската нишка в него (най-вече чрез поетесата Блага Димитрова, скрита зад героинята Вера Главанакова). Некоректно е и разказите вътре, които проследяват алтер-егото на Ъпдайк по време на пътешествията, които самият той действително е извършил с цел “културен обмен” през 60-те години в СССР, Румъния и България, да се разбират като документални пътеписи и да изчерпват съдържанието на книгата в представянето й. Въпреки че самата тя подсилва илюзията за документалност заради вниманието, с което писателят фиксира точните дати и места от пътуванията на Бек, неговите “епизоди”, романтични връзки, лекции и срещи.
Хенри Бек, гетото за един-единствен човек
В “Книгата на Бек” Джон Ъпдайк, класическият БАСП-писател (бял, англосаксонец, протестант) от втората половина на XX век, експериментира с алтер-его, което е почти негов “негатив”. Героят му Хенри Бек е евреин, снабден със стереотипи като облака къдрава коса и огромния нос, киселото чувство за хумор и промискуитета. За разлика от Ъпдайк, Бек е автор само на един дебютен бестселър и няколко последващи творби, неспособни да повторят първоначалния му успех. Той е неженен и има поредица от провалени любовни връзки (Ъпдайк пише, че “се е доказал в отношенията си с всички жени от майка си насам като един лесно уязвим, капризен, глезен, лукав и с просташки маниери, хладнокръвен неблагодарник”). И вместо да реди блестящи словосъчетания като създателя си, общува тромаво и неизразително, като изпитва ужас да води сериозен разговор, без да прибягва в крайна сметка до удобни мисловни клишета.
Образът на Хенри Бек е сготвен (както посочва и самият герой в предговора към създателя си) от плеада успешни еврейски новелисти: Норман Мейлър, Сол Белоу, Бърнард Маламъд, Хенри и Филип Рот, Дж. Д. Селинджър, Даниел Фукс. В известния литературен анализ на романа на Синтия Озик героят Бек е наречен карикатура на евреин, или още “неутрален евреин”, за което напомняло и името му - празна becher (“чаша” на идиш). Според Озик, която също е еврейка, героят има много по-общо с литературните, отколкото с американските евреи (и вероятно е по-подходящ за филмите на Уди Алън с типичните за неговите герои нефункционални характери, творчески блокаж, криза на средната възраст, сексуални затруднения, хапливи забележки и пелтечене).
Продължете да четете това ревю тук: https://bit.ly/3cVE9a5
October 23, 2023
От този автор съм чела "Кентавърът" и там бях очарована от стила му. В тази книга, обаче, ми остави неприятен послевкус. Да, имаше интересни моменти, като разказът за Блага Димитрова, който е един светъл лъч в сравнение с останалите, но начинът, по който е написано повествованието, ми е неприятен. Използвани са изрази и сравнения, които лично мен ме отблъскват.
Жанрово може да се определи като фикция, алтер его на самия автор. Ъпдайк е бил в комунистическите страни през 60-те година на 20-ти век на културен обмен. Това е представено в книгата, като там той е грозноват евреин, който се държи подигравателно и пародийно. В ума ми изникна образът на Бай Ганьо, но това усещане остана само в първите три разказа. Всъщност разказите следват една сюжетна линия и книгата може да се определи и като роман.
За да четеш Ъпдайк, трябва да си поне малко циник и да не ти правят впечатление грубите изразни средства, употребени в тази книга. Възможно е и да съм се пренаситила на цинизмите и грубостите, които ни заобикалят и вече да ми е трудно да ги приема дори и като част от литературата.
Жанрово може да се определи като фикция, алтер его на самия автор. Ъпдайк е бил в комунистическите страни през 60-те година на 20-ти век на културен обмен. Това е представено в книгата, като там той е грозноват евреин, който се държи подигравателно и пародийно. В ума ми изникна образът на Бай Ганьо, но това усещане остана само в първите три разказа. Всъщност разказите следват една сюжетна линия и книгата може да се определи и като роман.
За да четеш Ъпдайк, трябва да си поне малко циник и да не ти правят впечатление грубите изразни средства, употребени в тази книга. Възможно е и да съм се пренаситила на цинизмите и грубостите, които ни заобикалят и вече да ми е трудно да ги приема дори и като част от литературата.
May 25, 2022
I'm sure this book would have been funnier to me if I were more familiar with the leading literary figures of the 1950s and 1960s. This book seems like a collection of short stories featuring the author Henry Bech, who enjoyed his greatest success with an early novel. The book is something of a travel log, with Bech venturing out of his Manhattan apartment to tour the Soviet bloc, to summer at the beach, to promote a "best of" volume in London, to accept a speaking engagement, etc. Along the way, Bech seeks Inspiration from a number of younger muses. The stories don't always center on their relationships (however fleeting), but they almost always figure into the narrative.
Henry Bech reminded me a bit of Austin Powers, an aging man near the top of his profession trying to exploit the sexual revolution of the 1960s for his personal gratification.
Henry Bech reminded me a bit of Austin Powers, an aging man near the top of his profession trying to exploit the sexual revolution of the 1960s for his personal gratification.
January 30, 2015
I've read more Updike novels than short stories, and I'm amazed at how dense these short stories on the life of author Beck are. Updike often strings together two or three quite pithy descriptive phrases in a sentence that really describe the people inhabiting these stories. These stories, besides the last one, find Beck travelling to portray the famous author in foreign countries, at a college, and even on vacation (where he starts a trip of a different kind). My favorite is "Beck Swings?", where Beck has been called to London to be interviewed, misquoted, and have the expected fling. Ah, the life of a famous blocked author. I'm looking forward to more.
August 10, 2020
Много хубава книга. Не беше "уау", но е добре напи��ана, на доста моменти ставаше интересно. Симпатично ми напомня на Филип Рот, но разбира се като класа е доста по-ниско от него. Не съжалявам, че я прочетох, но едва ли ще си я спомням след месец. И като цяло ми е безразлично да чета друго от Ъпдайк.
С други думи - не беше уау, но не беше и зле.
С други думи - не беше уау, но не беше и зле.
March 11, 2008
Unforgettable characters always in Updike's books.
March 16, 2017
I have to admit, I didnt enjoy the book. I was waiting for it to end the whole time I was reading it.
May 5, 2020
Наслада за читателя над 50 г., който си спомня всичко около Ъпдайк... Блага Димитрова е тази, която от социалистическия лагер впечатлява Ъпдайк.
Прекрасен превод, благодаря и на преводача!
Прекрасен превод, благодаря и на преводача!
May 30, 2020
Много изприказвани приказки, малко казани неща.
July 6, 2018
After Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, Henry Bech is John Updike's most famous creation. And decidedly different from Rabbit in every way.
The short stories are partly based upon Updike's time abroad in the Communist world (Updike was not shy about and was very skilled at using his own life as muse for his writing). The stories are short, the book is as well, but Updike shows his mastery at writing the long descriptive sentence.
As always, he shows off his considerable vocabulary. Occasionally he falls in love with a word; he used the word "coruscation" twice within four pages, and used "quixotic" at least three times in the first four stories.
A good read overall.
The short stories are partly based upon Updike's time abroad in the Communist world (Updike was not shy about and was very skilled at using his own life as muse for his writing). The stories are short, the book is as well, but Updike shows his mastery at writing the long descriptive sentence.
As always, he shows off his considerable vocabulary. Occasionally he falls in love with a word; he used the word "coruscation" twice within four pages, and used "quixotic" at least three times in the first four stories.
A good read overall.
April 13, 2023
unmemorable
October 9, 2017
Bech: A Book by John Updike is the first literary experience featuring antihero Henry Bech, a Jewish American writer, but given Updike's nonstop ability to write it wouldn't be his last foray into the mind of his alter ego. Bech is in his early forties and has never been married nor has he had any children allowing him free reign to accept invitations to Communist countries and take part in cultural exchanges, to bed random women, and make himself his only responsibility. Updike is writing about another writer very different than himself but I feel the narrative provides a little insight into his mind and sheds some light on some things about life that irk him in a way. Bech feels like an uncommon hero in an oppressed profession with spiteful people littering his field. He's the author of one good book and three others so he's not a rich man but lives comfortably and whatever he lacks in cash reserves he more than makes up for in worldly experiences. Although he has reached moderate national success with his debut novel Travel Light, he hasn't reached the level of fame that his contemporaries have but at least he has foreign officials requesting his presence.
In Russia Bech can see that an oppressed state is searching to find its footing in the cultural landscape of the advanced world through ingratiating themselves with an American guest, offering gifts, and a female translator. It doesn't take long for the reader to figure out that they made a mistake in their choice in who to curry favour with as Henry Bech is a man only worried about one thing, himself. Oblivious to pretty much everything around him, he misses a chance for a quick romance, and rather than observe the current state of Soviet ruled Russia, Henry concerns himself with a place to be a consumer and an American first rather than consider anything else. On his next sojourn in Bucharest, Bech is dressed in traditional Russian wardrobe and is unrecognizable to the Romanian hosts anxiously awaiting his arrival at the airport. Once found, Bech is rather bored by the country and finds his only entertainment in the form of a maniacal chauffeur who instills fear over the course of four days. Bech is kept to a strict itinerary and is not allotted much time for meeting people of the opposite sex which is a wrench in the plan wherever Bech finds himself.
In Bulgaria, Bech assumes the role as the ambassador of the arts where he becomes entranced by a local poetess. She's not the typical woman that he typically crosses paths with; she seems complete all by herself, she is independent while presenting a relatively calm and at ease appearance. She gives off the perception to Bech that he offers nothing she wants, which makes his attraction that much stronger and their dealings that much more interesting. Back in America, Bech's in the northeast and is vacationing at his getaway spot when he is reunited with a student of his during his regrettable stint as a teacher. This is a very "Un-Bech" situation as he finds himself somewhat responsible for others and navigates life with his partner Norma as well as her sister Beatrice and her two children, which takes a lot of his peace of mind. There's something missing in Norma's life that Bech can't provide and since Bech simply likes the idea of Norma being around he's not going to work to satisfy her yearning. Norma wishes he was more like his literary voice, a sensitive man who would leap through the pages but still remained a kept secret in life form. To Norma, Bech is one of, if not the safest men in America, and during a time of free love and hallucinations Norma's looking for a life-altering experience and finds it in a young twenty-something that's achieved more in life than Bech could only dream of.
Bech's back home in Manhattan and he's feeling panicked, his partner's children are beginning to infiltrate every moment of his waking day and have now begun imposing themselves within the sanctity of the bedroom. He is internationally famous for God's sake, he has no business playing house with his glorified suburban mistress. He is also suffering from writer's block so there is no escaping into the world of words that he's so used to, and he is at odds with his manhood's deficiencies so there is no chance for a distraction. Now would be the best time to get out of dodge, his only out was a speaking engagement at a college in the deep south, weighing the lesser of two evils, off he went to Virginia.
In London Bech is hoping that a search for short term love will help with creativity and the completion of his long awaited book. While hoping to procure a more stable future Bech can't help but discuss his past successes in an interview with a local London rag where he's obviously misquoted and digs himself a little deeper of a hole; but at least there are woman on every street corner. In a heartfelt moment Bech is elected to become a new member of an exclusive group; Mama Bech would be so proud. As a youngster little Henry loved school and was a terrific student, so much so that he skipped a few grades, but with that came moments of ridicule. One of his fondest memories of childhood was his mother taking him to a ceremony where gifted figures became immortalized forever. It became an inspiration for him much like Yankee Stadium would be for other athletically-inclined youngsters. A few decades later he reached a pinnacle of sorts and got the call, but if you understand anything about what you have read up to this point, let's just hope they get his name right over the loudspeaker.
Bech : A Book is a writer writing about what it's like to be a writer in America and having a whole lot of fun doing it. There are plenty of differences between Bech and his creator Updike but there's a feeling that he was using Bech as a proverbial playground and also as a way to voice grievances of his profession, relationships, the writing process, public relations, growing old and even mortality. For the most part Bech is an unlikable fellow, but there a moments where descriptions of situations make him more redeemable in the eyes of the reader. What more fun could be had with a midlife, overweight Jewish writer in the 1960's who finds himself traveling different parts of the globe doing things he hates doing only to avoid doing other things he hates while hopefully ending up in the bed of a wanting partner. Was an okay read in my book.
In Russia Bech can see that an oppressed state is searching to find its footing in the cultural landscape of the advanced world through ingratiating themselves with an American guest, offering gifts, and a female translator. It doesn't take long for the reader to figure out that they made a mistake in their choice in who to curry favour with as Henry Bech is a man only worried about one thing, himself. Oblivious to pretty much everything around him, he misses a chance for a quick romance, and rather than observe the current state of Soviet ruled Russia, Henry concerns himself with a place to be a consumer and an American first rather than consider anything else. On his next sojourn in Bucharest, Bech is dressed in traditional Russian wardrobe and is unrecognizable to the Romanian hosts anxiously awaiting his arrival at the airport. Once found, Bech is rather bored by the country and finds his only entertainment in the form of a maniacal chauffeur who instills fear over the course of four days. Bech is kept to a strict itinerary and is not allotted much time for meeting people of the opposite sex which is a wrench in the plan wherever Bech finds himself.
" 'In New York, you have women for friends?...' 'Yes. I have only women for friends...' 'I have often argued with Bobochka, he says authors should be poor for the suffering, it is how capitalist countries do it; and now I see he is right.' Astounded by this tirade, delivered with a switching head so that her mole now and then darted into translucence - for they had reached Moscow's outskirts, and street lamps - Bech could only say 'Kate, you've never read my books. They're all about women.' 'Yes,' she said, 'but coldly observed. As if extraterrestrial life.' "
In Bulgaria, Bech assumes the role as the ambassador of the arts where he becomes entranced by a local poetess. She's not the typical woman that he typically crosses paths with; she seems complete all by herself, she is independent while presenting a relatively calm and at ease appearance. She gives off the perception to Bech that he offers nothing she wants, which makes his attraction that much stronger and their dealings that much more interesting. Back in America, Bech's in the northeast and is vacationing at his getaway spot when he is reunited with a student of his during his regrettable stint as a teacher. This is a very "Un-Bech" situation as he finds himself somewhat responsible for others and navigates life with his partner Norma as well as her sister Beatrice and her two children, which takes a lot of his peace of mind. There's something missing in Norma's life that Bech can't provide and since Bech simply likes the idea of Norma being around he's not going to work to satisfy her yearning. Norma wishes he was more like his literary voice, a sensitive man who would leap through the pages but still remained a kept secret in life form. To Norma, Bech is one of, if not the safest men in America, and during a time of free love and hallucinations Norma's looking for a life-altering experience and finds it in a young twenty-something that's achieved more in life than Bech could only dream of.
"How strange, really, his condition was! As absorbing as pain, yet painless. As world-transforming as drunkenness, yet with no horizon of sobriety. As debilitating, inwardly, as a severed spine yet permitting him, outwardly, a convincing version of his usual performance. Which demonstrated if demonstration were needed, how much of a performance it was. "
Bech's back home in Manhattan and he's feeling panicked, his partner's children are beginning to infiltrate every moment of his waking day and have now begun imposing themselves within the sanctity of the bedroom. He is internationally famous for God's sake, he has no business playing house with his glorified suburban mistress. He is also suffering from writer's block so there is no escaping into the world of words that he's so used to, and he is at odds with his manhood's deficiencies so there is no chance for a distraction. Now would be the best time to get out of dodge, his only out was a speaking engagement at a college in the deep south, weighing the lesser of two evils, off he went to Virginia.
" 'You won't speak at Columbia when it's two subway stops away and full of people on your own wavelength, but you'll fly a thousand miles to some third rate finishing school on the remote chance you can sack out with Scarlett O'Hara. You are sick, Henry. You are weak, and sick.' 'Actually,' Bech told Bea, 'I'll be there two nights. So I can sack out with Melanie too.' "
In London Bech is hoping that a search for short term love will help with creativity and the completion of his long awaited book. While hoping to procure a more stable future Bech can't help but discuss his past successes in an interview with a local London rag where he's obviously misquoted and digs himself a little deeper of a hole; but at least there are woman on every street corner. In a heartfelt moment Bech is elected to become a new member of an exclusive group; Mama Bech would be so proud. As a youngster little Henry loved school and was a terrific student, so much so that he skipped a few grades, but with that came moments of ridicule. One of his fondest memories of childhood was his mother taking him to a ceremony where gifted figures became immortalized forever. It became an inspiration for him much like Yankee Stadium would be for other athletically-inclined youngsters. A few decades later he reached a pinnacle of sorts and got the call, but if you understand anything about what you have read up to this point, let's just hope they get his name right over the loudspeaker.
Bech : A Book is a writer writing about what it's like to be a writer in America and having a whole lot of fun doing it. There are plenty of differences between Bech and his creator Updike but there's a feeling that he was using Bech as a proverbial playground and also as a way to voice grievances of his profession, relationships, the writing process, public relations, growing old and even mortality. For the most part Bech is an unlikable fellow, but there a moments where descriptions of situations make him more redeemable in the eyes of the reader. What more fun could be had with a midlife, overweight Jewish writer in the 1960's who finds himself traveling different parts of the globe doing things he hates doing only to avoid doing other things he hates while hopefully ending up in the bed of a wanting partner. Was an okay read in my book.
"Who was he? A Jew, a modern man, a writer, a bachelor, a loner, a loss. A con artist in the days of academic modernism undergoing a Victorian shudder. A white monkey hung far out on a spindly heaventree of stars. A fleck of dust condemned to know it is a fleck of dust. A mouse in a furnace. A smothered scream."
February 4, 2009
I read the first three (of seven) stories last year and quickly put this aside. Henry Bech seemed very facilely cobbled together out of American Jewish Writer tropes, and the Eastern European settings, while not quite ringing false, insinuated the idea of an immediate, obligatory, journalistic deployment of impressions Updike gathered while, like Bech, touring the Eastern Bloc on a State Department goodwill cultural jaunt. I should have pushed on through then, because Bech does become somewhat addictive. The remaining stories may just be comic sketches, but the gruff humor of Bech himself and the particularizing earthiness of the prose mean that I will have to devour 'Bech is Back.'
September 14, 2019
I have read most of Updike's novels, and this is one of his best. Autobiographical in the sense that the main character is a writer from New England that objectifies women and is confused about how to live his life right. However, Bech is Jewish and seems to be what you'd get if you mashed up Updike and Bellow or Updike and Roth. The book is written in entries that feel like short stories but is in fact a novel with chronological chapters all centered around Bech. I hadn't read any classic Updike fiction in awhile, mainly reading his memoirs and most recent novels, and this was a much needed treat to remind me why I loved Updike in the first place.
February 17, 2013
shit. it's been years since I read this. just remember it was good. 4/5
John Updike does this quintesential new yorker thing of being a privileged son of connecticut imitating the over-sexed, verbally-frantic extremely jewish Bech. people don't read this this much these days, it's too bad. woody allen before woody allen after all.
John Updike does this quintesential new yorker thing of being a privileged son of connecticut imitating the over-sexed, verbally-frantic extremely jewish Bech. people don't read this this much these days, it's too bad. woody allen before woody allen after all.
January 1, 2017
An amusing read, rather than an outright comedy. Updike's satirical description of Bech's experiences behind the Iron Curtain is brilliant. Starts brilliantly, but drags on from the midpoint. 4 stars because this is my first Updike book and I found it interesting.
May 27, 2016
Amusing, which, I think, was the intention of the writer. A bit in the style of Roth but not as good.
May 23, 2020
Many writers go deep, many writers write well. John Updike could do both, which makes his books, to me, always worth reading.
Bech: A Book came with some confusion. Was it or was it not a sequel? It turns out it's a compendium of short pieces Updike had published before and it stands on its own as a novel.
Elmore Leonard once had ten rules for writers. They are:
It turns out Leonard broke the one about exclamation points himself, but I like the rules anyway. I mention this because I'd add one that sort of goes with the second, "Avoid prologues," which would be not to have an appendix for fictional works. Updike added one to the first section of Beck: A Book and it makes reading that section awful. No matter how good the appendix may be, fumbling with turning pages back and forth takes you out of the story and makes you feel like you're studying something. You wonder if you could do without reading the appendix or read it later, but then you have doubts about whether or not you're going to miss something so you read it. There're just two of them and I guess they might add something to it if you're big on knowing everything about the literary world of the sixties and seventies, but I hated them and it soured my attitude toward the rest of the book more than it should have. You might be an exception to this.
Here's a part where Bech, a writer in his forties, is eating with students at an all women's college in the South where he's been a guest speaker for a few days:
Bech: A Book came with some confusion. Was it or was it not a sequel? It turns out it's a compendium of short pieces Updike had published before and it stands on its own as a novel.
Elmore Leonard once had ten rules for writers. They are:
1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said"…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
It turns out Leonard broke the one about exclamation points himself, but I like the rules anyway. I mention this because I'd add one that sort of goes with the second, "Avoid prologues," which would be not to have an appendix for fictional works. Updike added one to the first section of Beck: A Book and it makes reading that section awful. No matter how good the appendix may be, fumbling with turning pages back and forth takes you out of the story and makes you feel like you're studying something. You wonder if you could do without reading the appendix or read it later, but then you have doubts about whether or not you're going to miss something so you read it. There're just two of them and I guess they might add something to it if you're big on knowing everything about the literary world of the sixties and seventies, but I hated them and it soured my attitude toward the rest of the book more than it should have. You might be an exception to this.
Here's a part where Bech, a writer in his forties, is eating with students at an all women's college in the South where he's been a guest speaker for a few days:
He looked around the ring of munching females and saw their bodies as a Martian or a mollusc might see them, as pulpy stalks of bundled nerves oddly pinched to a bud of concentration in the head, a hairy bone knob holding some pounds of jelly in which a trillion circuits, mostly dead, kept records, coded motor operations, and generated an excess of electricity that pressed into the hairless side of the head and leaked through the orifices, in the form of pained, hopeful noises and a simian dance of wrinkles. Impossible mirage! A blot on nothingness. And to think that all the efforts of his life—boiled down to the attempt to displace a few sparks, to bias a few circuits, within some random other scoops of jelly that would, in less time than it takes the Andreas Fault to shrug or the tail-tip star of Scorpio to crawl an inch across the map of Heaven, be utterly dissolved. The widest fame and most enduring excellence shrank to nothing in this perspective.
October 27, 2023
Henry Bech is an amalgam of Updike and a clutch of his rivals. He's like his creator in his care for the non-narrative elements of his writing (the chain of figures that snap onto each other, resembling in their connectedness the chemical or physical knit of matter), but in his 'eclectic sexuality and bravura narcissism' more like Mailer (as the faux-foreword points out), and in his Brooklyn Jewish antecedents, inspiring / pushy mother and Upper East Side domicile, twenty blocks from his birthplace, like Malamud or Roth. His first novel was successful, the three he has published since more mixed in their reception, perhaps a fizzle of failures. Bech jokes he types slowly. The stories reflect on the fate of the celebrity author to be lionised ('I'd rather be lambified'), rather than attended to in the grain of his aesthetic choices. They reprise a comedy of indignity, and the writer's standing on his essential dignity (sometimes as a moral person), across a variety of settings, to which Bech is sent as an envoy (Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, London, a women's college in Virginia, something like the American Academy of Arts and Letters).
The blocked Bech becomes one of his own characters, as his every act is 'harassed' by its anticipated fictionalisation. In Bulgaria he comes into passing contact with a poetess with a broad face but good legs who, like him, is an adept and celebrant of love; her presumably folk-y verses are, as she responds to his query, 'difficult to write'. His Romanian translator, who spends an hour shaving a day and dons a succession of sunglasses, is a hidden lover of literature (of barely tolerated American classics licensing a freedom of thought), who, conversing of Melville, performs for Bech the service of reminding him that reading is the best part of life. In London Bech is taken up by Merissa, the daughter of a Tory aristocrat, who married at nineteen and now in her late 20s has an eight year-old boy cared for by a Spanish nanny in a handsome flat between Regent's Park and Maryleborne. She turns out to be a gossip columnist; but her impression of Bech, unlike that of a teetotal transatlantic American who fawns during three interview sessions, is discreet and affectionate.
Updike as a writer in his still early 30s (though culturally older, more classical and reserved) has to take the measure of the counterculture, which he grants is a happening as momentous as the stirrings of Christianity in the pagan Roman Empire. When his girlfriend (a highly-wrought woman, 36 to his 43, who at bottom wants marriage) wants to try hash with a WASP-y former creative writing student of his, his guarded response is that their relaxation (the young man is studiedly deferential, neutral in manner and alienatingly omni-talented) will lead to their having sex. Norma feels nothing at all. Bech gracelessly calls Wendell a manque, stereotypically wonders what women feel in sex and in the end switches mistresses to her sister.
The blocked Bech becomes one of his own characters, as his every act is 'harassed' by its anticipated fictionalisation. In Bulgaria he comes into passing contact with a poetess with a broad face but good legs who, like him, is an adept and celebrant of love; her presumably folk-y verses are, as she responds to his query, 'difficult to write'. His Romanian translator, who spends an hour shaving a day and dons a succession of sunglasses, is a hidden lover of literature (of barely tolerated American classics licensing a freedom of thought), who, conversing of Melville, performs for Bech the service of reminding him that reading is the best part of life. In London Bech is taken up by Merissa, the daughter of a Tory aristocrat, who married at nineteen and now in her late 20s has an eight year-old boy cared for by a Spanish nanny in a handsome flat between Regent's Park and Maryleborne. She turns out to be a gossip columnist; but her impression of Bech, unlike that of a teetotal transatlantic American who fawns during three interview sessions, is discreet and affectionate.
Updike as a writer in his still early 30s (though culturally older, more classical and reserved) has to take the measure of the counterculture, which he grants is a happening as momentous as the stirrings of Christianity in the pagan Roman Empire. When his girlfriend (a highly-wrought woman, 36 to his 43, who at bottom wants marriage) wants to try hash with a WASP-y former creative writing student of his, his guarded response is that their relaxation (the young man is studiedly deferential, neutral in manner and alienatingly omni-talented) will lead to their having sex. Norma feels nothing at all. Bech gracelessly calls Wendell a manque, stereotypically wonders what women feel in sex and in the end switches mistresses to her sister.
September 30, 2024
Henry Bech is what is left of a writer when you subtract the writing. He produced a small, free-wheeling masterpiece in his youth and has ridden out his career on the reputation of that slim text. Now in his forties, fading and paunchy, he takes part in readings, invitations to lecture, interviews, cultural jaunts, cheap beachside holidays, and all manner of other distractions while waiting for enough inspiration to produce a new work. All the while bearing up under the worry that he might have lost the drive that made him a writer in the first place.
Updike is probably the canonical writer I’ve been the least interested in reading more of. At university, I suppose, I pottered my way through Rabbit, Run without much enduring interest. If anything, it just reinforced my impression of him, mostly based on hearsay from other students, that he was a sort of boring waspy post-war writer who was gifted at description but had nothing of real worth to say. I read Couples too a bit later and this only reinforced it.
Bech sidesteps this issue by proudly being about nothing serious. In the best tradition of comic writing, most of the stories in this collection feature Bech himself being dumped into situations which he doesn’t really understand and is unequipped to deal with, and then following with neurotic impulses the way his interests lead him. Bech is nebbish, sardonic, self-obsessed, idle, brash, and, honestly, quite an asshole. And he bumbles through all manner of scenarios with stakes so low that we might wonder even why we’re bothering to read about them. What makes them worthwhile is Updike’s wonderful prose — in short works like these, you get to relish in the wonder and joy of his descriptive work without it getting mired down in ponderous moralising or overworking a point. These are pure comic routines and they land pretty well.
The stories I enjoyed most were those at the start of the collection, which featured Bech invited behind the Iron Curtain on a series of cultural exchanges that the state department tries to subvert. Seeing him stuck in rigid schedules of sightseeing and handshaking and chaffing at his expected role is a fine, funny recipe that Updike draws well on. It’s when he returns to America that it loses some steam and Updike returns to some tired old obsessions — sexual dynamics, generational conflict, adultery, the confines of domestically — that sort of thing. It means the book ends with a bit of a limp.
Updike, throughout his career, was never not professional. A book a year, like clockwork, and he always seemed to make sure that his readers got their money’s worth. I guess this is the sort of work you sometimes get as a result. A fun, competent, well-written read that won’t resonate too long once you’re done. Still, it’s much better than Couples.
Updike is probably the canonical writer I’ve been the least interested in reading more of. At university, I suppose, I pottered my way through Rabbit, Run without much enduring interest. If anything, it just reinforced my impression of him, mostly based on hearsay from other students, that he was a sort of boring waspy post-war writer who was gifted at description but had nothing of real worth to say. I read Couples too a bit later and this only reinforced it.
Bech sidesteps this issue by proudly being about nothing serious. In the best tradition of comic writing, most of the stories in this collection feature Bech himself being dumped into situations which he doesn’t really understand and is unequipped to deal with, and then following with neurotic impulses the way his interests lead him. Bech is nebbish, sardonic, self-obsessed, idle, brash, and, honestly, quite an asshole. And he bumbles through all manner of scenarios with stakes so low that we might wonder even why we’re bothering to read about them. What makes them worthwhile is Updike’s wonderful prose — in short works like these, you get to relish in the wonder and joy of his descriptive work without it getting mired down in ponderous moralising or overworking a point. These are pure comic routines and they land pretty well.
The stories I enjoyed most were those at the start of the collection, which featured Bech invited behind the Iron Curtain on a series of cultural exchanges that the state department tries to subvert. Seeing him stuck in rigid schedules of sightseeing and handshaking and chaffing at his expected role is a fine, funny recipe that Updike draws well on. It’s when he returns to America that it loses some steam and Updike returns to some tired old obsessions — sexual dynamics, generational conflict, adultery, the confines of domestically — that sort of thing. It means the book ends with a bit of a limp.
Updike, throughout his career, was never not professional. A book a year, like clockwork, and he always seemed to make sure that his readers got their money’s worth. I guess this is the sort of work you sometimes get as a result. A fun, competent, well-written read that won’t resonate too long once you’re done. Still, it’s much better than Couples.
January 14, 2025
Enjoyable spin on a well-worn trope, the novelist writing about a writer. But this time, Updike's savvy enough to imagine, as too few authors do in this sub-genre beloved of mid-career or late-stage, tired scribes, not himself but a still-forty-something New Yorker, naturally, of Jewish upbringing, on tours in first the Warsaw Pact bloc during the days of the Iron Curtain's firm fittings, and then in Virginia, at a girl's college, and finally in Swinging London at the end of the Sixties, and then his home turf. Updike skillfully shows us the dramatic shifts in social mores without obvious cues to particular trends in slang, sexual expression, or political and cultural fads.
Updike characterizes Henry Bech, who cleverly isn't ever dated as to the moment that it's 1969 except in subtle dating he sneaks in quietly, as already--unlike the blessedly long-lived Updike, who produced prolifically and nimbly much quality throughout his long life--past Bech's brief prime of his first novel. I mentally substituted "Augie March" for "Travel Light," for instance, as the Bellow-esque allusions seemed most fitting. Not sure what "Brother Pig" might align with. Maybe "The Victim" or "Seize the Day"? Although in "real life," Saul Bellow had in '69 yet to publish Mr Sammler let alone Humboldt after Herzog. Anyhow, Updike affectionately ushers us into the aging libido, being Updike channeling Bellow, as well as Roth's post-war send-ups of heartland sensibilities where the "goyim" are analyzed by the earnest, erudite, erotically enamored observer.
This can't be left without the nod to its appendices. The notes from the diary flesh out a bit the backstory on the Soviet Grand Tour taken by the Famous Writer From Amerika, as the novel opens in medias res within the grim post-Stalinist itineraries endured in the duller days of the Space Race. I can't pinpoint why Updike chose this academic apparatus, rather than integrating this content into the narrative proper. I get a hint of Nabokov and his playful references and intellectual jibes.
But the best part comes next, a bibliography of fake reviews, occasional pieces, and stories, where Updike hones his critical chops as a fellow insider into the NYC publishing grind. He intersperses the factual literati with (I assume, as I lack his breadth or acumen), invented scholars and rivals.
If Borges made a mark with imaginary books never written, so does Updike for Bech. There's insider jokes, I am sure, that some diligent grad student or aspiring tenured grind has explicated. Suffice to say for the rest of us, that this tribute to more than one of Updike's comrades runs merrily along.
Updike characterizes Henry Bech, who cleverly isn't ever dated as to the moment that it's 1969 except in subtle dating he sneaks in quietly, as already--unlike the blessedly long-lived Updike, who produced prolifically and nimbly much quality throughout his long life--past Bech's brief prime of his first novel. I mentally substituted "Augie March" for "Travel Light," for instance, as the Bellow-esque allusions seemed most fitting. Not sure what "Brother Pig" might align with. Maybe "The Victim" or "Seize the Day"? Although in "real life," Saul Bellow had in '69 yet to publish Mr Sammler let alone Humboldt after Herzog. Anyhow, Updike affectionately ushers us into the aging libido, being Updike channeling Bellow, as well as Roth's post-war send-ups of heartland sensibilities where the "goyim" are analyzed by the earnest, erudite, erotically enamored observer.
This can't be left without the nod to its appendices. The notes from the diary flesh out a bit the backstory on the Soviet Grand Tour taken by the Famous Writer From Amerika, as the novel opens in medias res within the grim post-Stalinist itineraries endured in the duller days of the Space Race. I can't pinpoint why Updike chose this academic apparatus, rather than integrating this content into the narrative proper. I get a hint of Nabokov and his playful references and intellectual jibes.
But the best part comes next, a bibliography of fake reviews, occasional pieces, and stories, where Updike hones his critical chops as a fellow insider into the NYC publishing grind. He intersperses the factual literati with (I assume, as I lack his breadth or acumen), invented scholars and rivals.
If Borges made a mark with imaginary books never written, so does Updike for Bech. There's insider jokes, I am sure, that some diligent grad student or aspiring tenured grind has explicated. Suffice to say for the rest of us, that this tribute to more than one of Updike's comrades runs merrily along.
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