Seek My Face by John Updike

 (Book Review)
John Updike was one of those many authors I encountered briefly in a college literature course, was moderately intrigued by, meant to read more of, and than never did.

This winter however I came across Updike again while reading “On Writing Short Stories”.
In that anthology was an Updike short story “A&P”, which I really enjoyed. (And if you missed it the first time I linked to it, the whole thing is available here on-line).

“A&P” was about a 19 year old kid working at a small town grocery store, and I thought that, not only was it pretty funny, it was pretty insightful as well. Reading it I thought, “Yeah, that’s exactly the kind of thing that would be going through a 19 year old’s head.”

Once I got back to the USA, my first library trip I looked for an Updike book, and found “Seek My Face,” one of his newer ones. This was a little harder to get into for me than “A&P” was.

The novel is the story of an old woman who was a famous artist, and was also married to some famous artists during her life. She is being interviewed by a much younger woman for a magazine article, and during the course of the interview the older woman recalls all the stories of her life.

Obviously this was a lot harder for me to identify with than “A&P” for a number of reasons. And for that matter I wonder how easy it was for Updike to write. I suppose that’s the job of an author, the ability to write from another persons perspective. But (and you can call me sexist if you want) somewhere in my gut I believe that woman can write from a man’s perspective, but men can’t accurately write from a woman’s perspective. I don’t have any logical reason for that, it’s just one of my prejudices. Maybe because I can’t understand women, I assume all men can’t understand women. I’m always suspicious of men writing about the thoughts and feelings of woman characters. I had the same problem with “I am Charlotte Simons”. If there are any women reading this weblog, I’d be interested in your perspective.

As the book moves through the years, there’s a lot of art history mixed in with the fictional story. As someone who knows nothing about art, I had a hard time telling where the fictional world of the novel ended, and where the real art history began. Someone who is into art might get a lot more out of this book than I did.

Because most of this book is just a conversation between two women, the narrative doesn’t feel like it has a lot of forward force. Rather, as the older woman looks back on her life, it’s much more of an introspective book. Nothing good or bad about that, but you should be warned going in. It’s not a gripping page turner by any means.

I say “page-turner” but I actually did this as an audio book. I’m not sure I would have had the patience to stick with this if I had been reading it in print. But then that’s the beauty of audio books: great for taking on those books you wouldn’t otherwise read.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
Tony Blair, and U.S. President James Polk are among famous politicians who have worn mullets.

Link of the Day
This was in my inbox last week:
This was linked to on mediamouse.org . It's pretty much the greatest
thing ever.
The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army of Oakland, California
shuts down a military recruiting station.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/06/1827497.php
This picture's my favorite.
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/14-gettingclowned.jpg

Seek My Face by John Updike: Book Review (Scripted)