Book Review: Due Considerations - Essays and Criticism by John Updike

Often book reviewers will call an author “prolific.” But what does that really tell you? It tells you: “my, he’s written a lot of words!” John Updike is not prolific. John Updike is prodigious.

And every now and then John Updike kicks down a piece of worthwhile literary commentary like he has done with Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism. It is a reservoir of Updike’s most recent essays and criticism. In this book, the eyeing Dutchman puts to work famous literary ghosts as Shakespeare, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Updike also annexes fiction and nonfiction from the likes of contemporary authors such as Gabo Marquez, Don Delillo, Salman Rushdie, and Margaret Atwood. In Updike’s criticism and writings, he recreates resplendent Rorschachs of glowing prose with a touch of a psychoanalytical sang-froid. The reader will have difficulty figuring out which part of the duo they like best: the personal reflections are wonderful souvenirs from everyday human tourism, but the reviews are done with un-abbreviated wit and depth.

In a way, Due Considerations is also an autobiography. In the alleys between the wonderful literary architecture of John’s ideas are snap shots of his life. Here, the author shows his love of a familiar parlor game, and ponders the art of human dealings:

Poker is eminently human. Its strategy and parameters are based not merely on cards but on personalities, the tics and habits revealed over years of acquaintance. In my group, the Bad Loser growls and slams down his hand. The Bluffer blithely raises and, when called, fans the cards in good natured surrender, announcing ‘I’ve got ****.’ The Bottom Feeder taciturnly sticks around, hoping to sneak away with a piece of a cheap pot. Mr. By-the-Book, glancing down into a winner, raises and telegraphs his hand and everybody folds, except for the Long Sufferer, who says, ‘Well, its only money,’ and yields up another dollar with a sigh. 

This review would not be complete without a sample of the astute literary appraisals that our novelist/critic/coconspirator provides. Here, John processes the benign dialogue of Haruki Murakami in Kafka on the Shore:

In its last pages, the novel asks that it be taken as a happily ending saga of maturation, of ‘a brand-new world’ for a purged Kafka. But beneath his feverish, symbolically fraught adventures lies a subconscious pull almost equal to the pull of sex and vital growth: that of nothingness, of emptiness, of blissful blankness. Murakami is a tender painter of negative spaces.

Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism creates a new standard of art commentary and expression, but considering the source it is no surprise. Due Considerations is published by the Alfred A. Knopf Division of Random House, and is now available for purchase.

Article Author: James O'Neil

James O'Neil is a book reviewer and blogger. He has been a Blogcritics contributor since 2005.

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