John Updike is Dead

My fellow writers, we lost another one of our own.

He lived 76 years, and that was long enough for him to see the transformation or, as some might say, decline of the literary arts.

May favorite of his was Rabbit is Rich, which I read before my first marriage, and am living now.  Not that I’m rich, but I’m the age of his main character, and facing a lot of those mid-life questions.  But also in RiR is the theme of rediscovering life during an age where you can fully appreciate it.

That’s me, now.  Old enough to appreciate it, young enough to still explore it.

This tenuous link is how I somehow felt connected to Updike, and learning of his death, feel loss.

Ironic that what I have been reading for the past few weeks is a collection of Updike’s short stories called The Afterlife.

He wasn’t the greatest of writers, but especially for his time, he was a frank and bold one, willing to look unflinchingly at life, no matter how mundane, and find the wonder of it.