A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF UPDIKE INTERPRETATION
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Photo: Peter MacDonald, Northfield Mount Hermon School, Winter 2003
SUGGESTED PLACES FOR NEWCOMERS TO START: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA AND A READABLE AND CRITICALLY INSIGHTFUL SURVEY THROUGH 2000--PLUS A VERY VALUABLE WEB LINK
Jack De Bellis' The John Updike Encyclopaedia (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 2000) is a rich treasure-trove of information. It has an extensive "General Bibliography" of Updike criticism (pp. 513-519). It also contains a detailed chronology of Updike's life (pp.xxv-xxxiii) which includes notation of all the major trade publications by date of issue. Finally, it also contains description and discussion of all of Updike's major texts, including some short stories, poems, and essays. There is no peer to this extensive resource.
Donald J. Greiner's "John Updike" article in American Novelists Since World War II (Ed. James R. Giles and Wanda H. Giles. Volume 143. Pp. 250-276. Dictionary of Literary Biography, Third Series. Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1994. ISBN: 0-8103-5557-4) provides a readable survey of Updike's works since 1994. There is also an updated version available with an online subscription from The Gale Group located at the following website: http://www.gale-edit.com.
In addition, a fine resource now readily available from online booksellers is James A. Schiff's survey and critical commentary, John Updike Revisited (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1998). This book is No. 704 in the Twayne United State Authors Series edited by Frank Day. In its brief but readable compass of 228 pages, it is the best overall survey of Updike's work now in print.
Finally, last and by no means not least, check out the material available free and download-able free from The New York Times on the Web. The first link is the one I prefer, though the reviews of Updike's books go only through 1997. Click below for that page:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/06/lifetimes/updike.html
The second link here is organized differently but has more recent reviews and the hyperlink to Updike's 40 minute RealPlayer reading from Licks of Love. Click below for that page:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/19/specials/updike.html
This is a very helpful resource, especially for those just beginning to appreciate Updike's work and for those who do not have ready access to libraries. I have checked out the site and downloaded several of the early reviews of his works, as well as discussions of his work in the NYTimes that have appeared over the years. By a quick count I found about 34 reviews of his now 51 titles, though there are two or three books with two reviews. They cover his corpus from The Poorhouse Fair, his first novel in 1959, to Licks of Love published in 2000.
The reviews written by Updike (E. B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan [1971] and J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey [1961]) are very interesting early pieces and there are two excellent Terry Gross NPR "Fresh Air" audio interviews (17 March 1988 and 19 September 1997), which require the RealAudio player, RealPlayer Basic, dowloadable for free from the site. These audios can be played while you read the reviews and essays gathered there. You can also join forums for discussion, but you must register (for free) with The Times to gain access. Frankly, though, the discussions on this Centaurian page are more current, more weighty, and more interactive. Hmmmm, could we be biased?! Well, see for yourself. At any rate, enjoy this fine resource. Items on the NYTimes LifeTimes page will change from time to time. Kindly enough, they have included a link to this page on their page. We are grateful they value what we are doing here enough to do that.
NOTE: There are "Special Bibliographies" at the end of this section for five of Updike's short stories most requested by students.
The short storiy bibliographies include the much anthologized "A & P." The other short story bibliographies are for "THE LUCID EYE IN SILVER TOWN," "MAN AND DAUGHTER IN THE COLD," "SEPARATING," "TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND SO FORTH,"
To find these two special bibliographies Scroll down or use the combination "Ctrl/End."
Previous bibliographical review listings published here for In the Beauty of the Lilies (1996), Toward the End of Time (1997), Bech at Bay (1998), More Matter (1999), Gertude and Claudius (2000), Licks of Love (2000), The Complete Henry Bech (2001), Americana and Other Poems (2001), Seek My Face (2002), The Early Stories: 1953-1975 (2003), Villages: A Novel (2004), Still Looking: Essays in American Art (2005), and Terrorist (2006) are available upon request at
[Caricature drawing: David Levine '94]
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
De Bellis, Jack. John Updike: A Bibliography, 1967-1993. Foreword by John Updike. Bibliographies and Indexes in American Literature, Number 17. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1994. The most definitive bibliography to date.
Gearhart, Elizabeth A. John Updike: A Comprehensive Bibliography with Selected Annotations. Darby PA: Norwood Editions, 1980. Pp. 128.
Olivas, Michael A. An Annotated Bibliography of John Updike Criticism ,1967-1973, and a Checklist of His Works. New York: Garland, 1975.
Sokoloff, B. A. and David E. Arnason. John Updike: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Folcroft, PA: Folcroft Press, 1971. (Limted to 150 copies). Bibliographies in Contemporary American Fictiohn. B. A. Sokoloff, General Editor.
Taylor, C. Clarke. John Updike: A Bibliography. [1949-1967] Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1968. An early briefly annotated which De Bellis' work extends.
BOOKS
Bailey, Peter J. Rabbit (Un)Redeemed: The Drama of Belief in John Updike's Fiction. Cranbury, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; Associated University Presses. January 31, 2006. Hardcover: 296 pp. ISBN: 0838640532.
Baker, Nicholson. U & I: A True Story. New York: Random House, 1991.
Bawer, Bruce. The Aspect of Eternity: Essays. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1993.
Bloom, Harold, ed. John Updike: Bloom's Major Short Story Writers. New York: Chelsea House, 2000. Pp. 104. Contains Bloom, "Introduction"; "Biography of John Updike," followed by commentary on five Updike short stories:
(1) "A & P": Plot Summary, List of Characters, and Critical Views by Janet Overmeyer on Courtly Love, M. Gilbert Porter on Sammy as a Non-Conformist, Ronald E. McFarland on "Brand-Name Symbolism," Marjorie Hill Goss on Sammy's Moral Development, Paul J. Emmett on Updike's Subtlety in the Story, Alice Hall Petry on Clothing in the Story, Patrick W. Shaw on the Similarities Between "A & P" and "Young Goodman Brown," and Walter Wells on the Similarities Between "A & P" and "Araby."
(2) "Ace in the Hole": Plot Summary, List of Characters, and Critical Views by Donald J. Greiner on Ace's Character, Clinton S. Burhans Jr. on the Similarities of Ace Anderson and Flick Webb, Robert Detweiler on Double Entendre in the Story, Robert M. Luscher on Music and Basketball, Thomas W. Ford on Updike's Use of Puns, and Charlie Reilly on "Ace" as the Source for Rabbit, Run.
(3) "Flight": Plot Summary, List of Characters, and Critical Views by Alice and Kenneth Hamilton on "Flight" Compared to Of the Farm, Donald J. Greiner on Ambiguity in the Story, Mary Allen on the Manipulative Mother, Jay Cantor on Hyperbole in the Story, Robert M. Luscher on the Emotional Action of the Story, John Updike on the Images of Escape and Loss in the Story.
(4) "Pigeon Feathers": Plot Summary, List of Characters, and Critical Views by Larry E. Taylor on the Hebraic-Christian Tradition, Rachel C. Burchard on Christianity's Failure in the Story, Kathleen Verduin on Updike's Male Characters, Arthur Mizener on the Verbal Brilliance of the Story, Robert Detweiler on Individual Faith, Steven M. Chanley on Personal Mythology, and John Updike on the Story's Background.
(5) "Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, A Dying Cat, A Traded Car": Plot Summary, List of Characters, and Critical Views by Alice and Kenneth Hamilton on "Supernatural Mail," Joyce B. Markle on Mother Images in Updike's Fiction, Donald J. Greiner on David Kern's Religious Crisis, Jane Barnes on the Weakness of the Story, John Updike on Family Sayings, and Robert M. Luscher on David Kern.
The book concludes with bibliographies of "Works by John Updike" and "Works about John Updike," followed by an "Index of Themes and Ideas."
________, ed. John Updike: Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. Contains Harold Bloom, "Introduction"; John W. Aldridge, "The Private Vice of John Updike"; Richard H. Rupp, "John Updike: Style in Search of a Center"; David Lodge, "Post-Pill Paradise Lost: John Updike's Couples"; Tony Tanner, "A Compromised Environment"; Joyce Carol Oates, "Updike's American Comedies"; Mary Allen, "John Updike's Love of Dull Bovine Beauty"; James M. Mellard, "The Novel as Lyric Elegy: The Mode of Updike's The Centaur"; Jane Barnes, "John Updike: A Literary Spider"; Cynthia Ozick, "Bech, Passing"; Donald J. Greiner, "The Coup." These essays are followed by a Chronology and Bibliography.
Boswell, James. John Updike's Rabbit Tetralogy: Mastered Irony in Mostion. Columbia, MO, and London: University of Missouri Press, 2001. Pp. 253. Reviewed by James Yerkes, Modern Fiction Studies, Summer 2002 (Vol. 48, No. 2): 505-507.
Broer, Lawrence R., ed. Rabbit Tales: Poetry and Politics in John Updike's Rabbit Novels. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1998. Contains Lawrence R. Broer, "Introduction"; Donald J. Greiner, "No Place to Run: Rabbit Angstrom as Adamic Hero"; Charles Berryman, "Updike Redux: A Series Retrospective"; Jeff H. Campbell, "'Middling, Hidden, Trouble America": John Updike's Rabbit Tetralogy"; Dilvo I. Ristoff, "Appropriating the Scene: The World of Rabbit at Rest"; Edward Vargo, "Corn Chips, Catheters, Toyotas: The Making of History in Rabbit at Rest"; Matthew Wilson, "The Rabbit Tetralogy: From Solidtude to Society to Solitude Again"; Joseph J. Waldmeir, "Rabbit Redux Reduced: Rededicated? Redeemed?"; Ralph C. Wood, "Rabbit Angstrom: John Updike's Ambiguous Pilgrim"; Paula R. Buck, "The Mother Load: A Look at Rabbit's Oedipus Complex"; Jack B. Moore, Sports, Basketball and Fortunate Failure in the Rabbit Tetralogy"; Judie Newman, "Rabbit at Rest: The Return of the Work Ethic"; James Plath, "Verbal Vermeer" Updike's Middle-Class Portraiture."
Burchard, Rachael C. John Updike: Yea Sayings. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971.
Campbell, John H. Updike's Novels: Thorns Spell a Word. Wichita Falls, TX: Midwestern State University Press, 1987.
De Bellis, Jack. The John Updike Encyclopedia. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press. October 2000. Pp.xxxiii-545.
________, ed. John Updike: The Critical Responses to the "Rabbit" Saga. Wesport, CN: Praeger Press, 2005. Pp. xxvi-298.
Detweiler, Robert. Breaking the Fall: Religious Readings of Contemporary Fiction. 2nd. ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995.
________. John Updike. Revised ed. Boston: Twayne, 1984.
Falsey, Elizabeth. The Art of Adding and the Art of Taking Away: Selections from John Updike's Manuscripts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard College, 1987.
Gado, Frank, ed. First Person: Conversations on Writers and Writing. Schenectady, NY: Union College Press, 1973.
Galloway, David. The Aburd Hero in American Fiction: Updike, Styron, Bellow, Salinger. 2nd rev. ed. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1981.
Greiner, Donald J. Adultery in the American Novel: Updike, James, and Hawthorne. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.
________. John Updike's Novels. Athens: The Ohio University Press, 1984.
________. The Other John Updike: Poems/ Short Stories/ Prose/Play. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1981.
Gullette, Margaret Morganroth. Safe at Last in the Middle Years: The Invention of the Midlife Progress Novel: Saul Bellow, Margaret Drabble, Anne Tyler, and John Updike. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Critical commentary on Rabbit Is Rich.
Hamilton, Alice and Kenneth. The Elements of John Updike. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1970.
Harper, Howard M. Desperate Faith: A Study of Bellow, Salinger, Mailer, Baldwin, and Updike. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1967. Section on Updike is pp.162-190.
Hunt, George, S. J. John Updike and the Three Great Secret Things: Sex, Religion, and Art. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1980. Special theological consideration of Barth, Kierkegaard, and Jung.
Keener, Brian. John Updike's Human Comedy: Comic Morality in The Centaur and the Rabbit Novels. No. 43 in Modern American Literature: New Approaches. Gen. Ed.: Yoshinobu Hakutani. New York: Peter, 2005. Pp. 148. ISBN 0-8204-7090-2.
Kort, Wesley A. Shriven Selves: Religious Problems in Recent American Fiction. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972. Updike is discussed in Chapter 3, "The Centaur and the Problem of Vocation," pp. 64-89.
Levin, Martin, ed. Five Boyhoods. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962. This book contains essays by Howard Lindsay, Harry Golden, Walt Kelly, William K. Zinsser, and John Updike, each representing from a family and cultural perspective one decade, starting with the1900's and extending to the 1940's, which was Updike's assignment (pp. 155-198). On the cover it is advertised, "An orginal book by five Americans who came of age in the twentieth century." Updike's essay, now titled "The Dogwood Tree: A Boyhood," is reprinted in Assorted Prose, pp. 151-187.
Luscher, Robert M. John Updike: A Study of the Short Fiction. Twayne Studies in Short Fiction, 43. New York: Twayne, 1993.
Macnaughton, William R. Critical Essays on John Updike. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982 . See especially Macnaughton's excellent historical Introduction. A survery of criticism, with reviews and essays containing William A. Macnaughton, "Introduction: A Survey of John Updike Scholarship in English"; Whitney Balliet, "Writer's Writer"; Granville Hicks, "A Little Good in Evil"; Arthur Mizener, "Behind the Dazzle Is a Knowing Eye"; Renata Adler, "Arcadia, Pa."; Jonathan Miller, "Off-Centaur"; Anthony Burgess, "Language, Myth and Mr. Updike"; Michael Novak, "Son of the Group"; Jonathan Raban, "Talking Head"; Charles Samuels, "Updike on the Present"; William T. Stafford, from "The 'Curious Greased Grace' of John Updike"; Tony Tanner, "The Sorrow of Some Central Hollowness"; D. Keith Mano, "Doughty Middleness"; Gilbert Sorrentino, "Never on Sunday"; Alfred Kazin, from "Alfred Kazin on Fiction"; Joyce Carol Oates, "The Coup by John Updike"; Paul Theroux, "A Marriage of Mixed Blessings"; Gerry Brenner, "Rabbit, Run: John Updike's of the 'Return to Nature'"; Alice and Kenneth Hamilton, "Metamorphosis through Art: John Updike's Bech: A Book"; Robert Detweiler, "Updike's Couples: Eros Demythologized"; Larry Taylor, "The Wide-hipped Wife and the Painted Landscape: Pastoral Ideals in Of the Farm"; Clinton S. Burhans, Jr., "Things Fall Apart: Structure and Theme in Rabbit, Run"; Suzanne Henning Uphaus, "The Centaur: Updike's Mock-Epic"; Victor Strandberg, "John Updike and the Changing of the Gods"; Bernard A. Schopen, "Faith, Morality and the Novels of John Updike"; George W. Hunt, "Reality, Imagination and Art: The Significance of Updike's 'Best' Story"; James M. Mellard, "The Novel as Lyric Elegy: The Modes of Updike's The Centaur"; George J. Searles, "The Poorhouse Fair: Updike's Thesis Statement"; George E. Slethhaug, "Rabbit Redux: 'Freedom Is Made of Brambles'"; Kathleen Verduin, "Fatherly Presences: John Updike's Place in a Protestant Tradition"; Gary Waller, "Stylus Dei or the Open-Endedness of Debate? Success and Failure in A Month of Sundays"; and Joyce Markle, "The Coup: Illusions and Insubstantial Impressions." Brenner's article is reprinted from John Updike: A Collection of Critical Essays (Ed. David Thorburn and Howard Eiland [Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1979]) and Mellard's article is reprinted in John Updike: Modern Critical Views (Ed. Harold Bloom [New York: Chelsea House, 1987]).
Markle, Joyce B. Fighters and Lovers: Theme in the Novels of John Updike. New York: New York University Press, 1973.
Miller, D. Quentin. John Updike and the Cold War: Drawing the Iron Curtain. Columbia, MO, and London: University of Missouri Press, 2001. Pp. 192. Bibliography pp. 183-189. Reviewed by James Schiff, Modern Fiction Studies, Summer 2002 (Vol. 48, No. 2): 508-510.
Morey, Ann-Janine. Religion and Sexuality in American Literature. Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture, 57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Neary, John. Something and Nothingness: The Fiction of John Updike and John Fowles. Carbondale. Southern Illinois University Press, 1992.
Newman, Judie. John Updike. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988.
O'Connell, Mary. Updike and the Patriarchal Dilemma: Masculinity in the Rabbit Novels. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996. First commentary on the new Everyman's Library Rabbit Angstrom.
Olster, Stacey, ed. The Cambridge Companion to John Updike. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. vii-214. Cambridge Companions to Literature Series.
Perkins, Wendy, ed. "A & P." New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998.
Plath, James, ed. Conversations with John Updike. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1994.
Pritchard, William. Updike: America's Man of Letters. South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 2000. 326 pages. ISBN: I-58642-002-x.
Ristoff, Dilvo I. John Updike's Rabbit at Rest: Appropriating History. New York: Peter Lang: 1998. Pp. xvii-209. Modern American Literature: New Approaches, Yoshinobu Hakutani, General Editor. Volume 18.
________. Updike's America: The Presence of Contemporary American History in John Updike's Rabbit Trilogy. American University Studies, Series 24: American Literature, Vol. 2. New York: P. Lang, 1988.
Samuels, Charles Thomas. John Updike. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969.
Schiff, James A. John Updike Revisited . New York: Twayne Publishers, 1998. Contents: Chapter One: Introduction: America's Bourgeois Artist. Chapter Two: Pennsylvania Novels: Memorializing; Family and Community--The Poorhouse Fair, The Centaur. Chapter Three: Rabbit Angstrom: American Icon, American Epic--Rabbit, Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich, Rabbit at Rest. Chapter Four: The Marriage Novels--Couples, The Witches of Eastwick. Chapter Five: Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter--A Month of Sundays, Roger's Version, S.. Chapter Six: Master of the Small Canvas: A Selection of Short Stories--"A&P," "The Bulgarian Poetess," "Separating." Chapter Seven: Recreating American History: Buchanan, the Movies, and the Updikes--Buchanan Dying, Memories of the Ford Administration, In the Beauty of the Lilies. Chapter Eight: The Quest for Identity on Foreign Shores--The Coup, Brazil. Chapter Nine: Updike Ignored: The Contemporary Independent Critic. Chapter Ten: Conclusion: Updike's Place in American Literature. Notes and References. Selected Bibliography.
________. Updike's Version: Rewriting The Scarlet Letter. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992.
________, ed. Updike in Cincinnati: A Literary Performance. Photographs by Jon Hughes. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2007. Pp. ix-129.
Searles, George. The Fiction of Philip Roth and John Updike. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985.
Smith, Kent D. Faith: Reflections on Experience, Theology, and Fiction. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.
Tallent, Elizabeth. Married Men and Magic Tricks: John Updike's Erotic Heroes. Berkeley: Creative Arts, 1982.
Tanner, Tony. City of Words: American Fiction 1950-1970. London: Jonathan Cape, 1971.
________. Adultery in the Novel: Contract and Transgression. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979.
Taylor, Larry E. Pastoral and Anti-Pastoral Patterns in John Updike's Fiction. Preface by Harry E. Moore. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971. xiii, 159.
Thorburn, David and Howard Eiland, eds. John Updike: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1979. Contains David Thorburn, "Introduction" 'Alive in a Place and Time'"; Richard Gilman, "An Image of Precarious Life"; Dean Doner, "Rabbit Angstrom's Unseen World"; Richard Locke, "Rabbit's Progress"; Robert Alter, "Updike, Malamud and the Fire This Time"; Joyce Carol Oates, "Updike's American Comedies"; Howard Eiland, "Play in Couples"; David Lodge, "Post-Pill Paradise Lost:: Couples"; George Steiner, "A Month of Sundays: Scarlet Letters"; Josephine Hendin, "Updike as Matchmaker: Marry Me"; Joyce Markle, "The Poorhouse Fair: A Fragile Vision of Specialness"; Larry E. Taylor, "The Centaur: Epic Paean and Pastoral Lament"; Martin Price, "A Note on Character in The Centaur"; Edward P. Vargo, "Shrine and Sanctuary: Of the Farm"; Charles Thomas Samuels, "Family Quarrels in Of the Farm"; Robert Towers, "Updike in Africa"; Deborah McGill, "Boy's Life"; Robert Detweiler, "The Same Door: Unexpected Gifts"; Arthur Mizener, "Memory in Pigeon Feathers"; Michael Novak, "Updike's Search for Liturgy"; Charles Thomas Samuels, "The Music School: A Place of Resonance"; Jack Richardson, "Keeping Up with Updike: Bech: A Book"; Rosemary Dinnage, "At the Flashpoint: Museums and Women"; Richard Todd, "Disengagement in Museums and Women." Also "A Chronology" and "Selected Bibliography." The Oates and Lodge articles were reprinted in John Updike: Modern Critical Views (Ed. Harold Bloom; New York: Chelsea House, 1987).
Trachtenberg, Stanley. New Essays on Rabbit, Run. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Contains Emory Elliott, "Preface"; Stanley Trachtenberg, "Introduction"; Philip Stevick, "The Full Range of Updike's Prose"; Sanford Pinsker, "Restlessness in the 1950's: What Made Rabbit Run?"; Erik Kielland-Lund, "The Americanness of Rabbit, Run: A Transatlantic View"; Stacey Olster, "'Unadorned Woman, Beauty's Home Image': Updike's Rabbit, Run"; and Selected Bibliography.
Uphaus, Suzanne Henning. John Updike. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1980.
Vargo, Edward P. Rainstorms and Fire: Ritual in the Novels of John Updike. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1973.
Vaughan, Philip H. John Updike's Images of America. Reseda, CA: Mojave, 1981.
Wood, James. The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief. New York: Random House, 1999. Contains one short chapter on Updike titled, "John Updike's Complacent God," pp. 192-199.
Wood, Ralph. The Comedy of Redemption: Christian Faith and Comic Vision in Four American Novelists. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988. Discusses O'Connor, Percy, Updike and DeVries.
Yerkes, James, ed. John Updike and Religion: The Sense of the Sacred and the Motions of Grace. Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999. Pp. vii-301. ISBN 0-8028-3873-1. Current bibliography of Updike Criticism: pp. 269-278. Contains fifteen original essays in three sections: John Updike and the Religious Dimension, John Updike and the Christian Religion, John Updike and American Religion, plus an introductory essay by John Updike and his poem "Earthworm." Contains Yerkes, "Preface"; John Updike, "Remarks upon Receiving the Campion Award"; James Yerkes, "As Good as It Gets: The Religious Consciousness in John Updike's Literary Vision"; Avis Hewitt, "The Obligation to Live: Duty and Desire in John Updike's Self-Consciousness"; James Schiff, "The Pocket Nothing Else Will Fill: Updike's Domestic God"; Dilvo Ristoff, "When Earth Speaks of Heaven: The Future of Race and Faith in Updike's Brazil"; David Malone, "Updike 2020: Fantasy, Mythology and Faith in Toward the End of Time"; Kyle A. Pasewark, "An Umbrella Blowing Inside Out: Paradoxical Theology and American Culture in the Novels of John Updike"; Darrell Jodock, "What Is Goodness?: The Influence of Updike's Lutheran Roots"; Stephen H. Webb, "Writing as a Reader of Karl Barth: What Kind of Religious Writer Is John Updike Not?"; Marshall Boswell, "The World and the Void: Creatio ex Nihilo and Homoeroticism in Updike's Rabbit Is Rich"; Wesley A. Kort, "Learning to Die: Work as Religious Discipline in Updike's Fiction"; Charles Berryman, "Faith or Fiction: Updike and the American Renaissance"; James Plath, "Giving the Devil His Due: Leeching and Edification of Spirit in The Scarlet Letter and The Witches of Eastwick"; Judie Newman, "Guru Industries, Inc.: Red-Letter Religion in Updike's S."; George S. Diamond, "Chaos and Society: Religion and the Idea of Civil Order in Updike's Memories of the Ford Administration"; and Donald Greiner, "The World as Host: John Updike and the Cultural Affirmation of Faith."
SPECIAL ISSUES
Modern Fiction Studies 20 (Spring 1974). "John Updike Special Issue," edited by William T. Sanford, consisting of articles on Updike, reviews of Updike criticism, and a checklist of Updike criticism. Essays by Robert McCoy, "John Updike's Literary Apprenticeship on The Harvard Lampoon"; Joseph Waldemir, ""It's the Going That's Important, Not the Getting There: Rabbit's Questing Non-Quest"; John B. Vickery, "The Centaur: Myth, History, and Narrative"; Paula Backschneider and Nick Backschneider, "Updike's Couples: Squeak in the Night"; Alan T. McKenzie, "'A Craftsman Intimate Satisfactions': The Parlor Games in Couples"; Wayne Falk, "Rabbit Redux: Time/Order/God"; Robert Alton Regan, ""Updike's Symbol of the Center"; Robert S. Gingher, "Has John Updike Anything to Say?"; Alfred F. Rosa, "The Psycholinguistics of Updike's 'Museums and Women'"; Albert J. Griffith, ""Updike's Artist Dilemma: 'Should the Wizard Hit Mommy?'"; William T. Stafford, "Updike FourFiveSix, 'Just Like That'"; Arlin G. Meyer and Michael A. Olivas, "Criticism of John Updike: A Selected Checklist". The checklist was reprinted in Michael A. Olivas, An Annotated Bibliography of John Updike Criticism, 1967-1973, and a Checklist of his Works (New York: Garland, 1975).
Modern Fiction Studies 37 (Spring 1991). "John Updike Special Issue," consisting of articles and extensive checklist of Updike criticism by Jack De Bellis: Matthew Wilson, "The Rabbit Tetralogy: From Solitude to Society to Solitude Again"; Basem Ra'ad, "Updike's New Versions of Myth in America": Derek Wright, "Mapless Motion: Form and Space in Updike's Rabbit, Run"; Stacey Olster, "Rabbit Rerun: Updike's Replay of Popular Culture in Rabbit at Rest"; Barbara Leckie, "'The Adulterous Society': John Updike's Marry Me"; John N. Duvall, "The Pleasure of Textual/Sexual Wrestling: Pornography and Heresy in Roger's Version"; Sanford Pinsker, "John Updike and the Distractions of Henry Bech, Professional Writer and Amateur American Jew"; Jack De Bellis, "Updike: A Selected Checklist, 1974-1990").
Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation. Special Issue: Religion and Twentieth-Century American Novels 6: 1 (Winter 1996).
ARTICLES AND ESSAYS
It can hardly be overstressed that the richest resource for reviews of all Updike books from 1967 to 1993 is to be found in Jack De Bellis' excellent bibliography noted above. Generally, we aim only to supplement that from the period after 1993. In a few cases we note especially good reviews before that closing date.
Under Development
Aldridge, John W. "The Private Voice of John Updike" in Time to Murder and Create:The Contemporary Novel in Crisis (New York: David McKay, 1966), _____.
Alley, Alvin D. "The Centaur: Transcendental Imagination and Metaphoric Death," English Journal, 56 (1967): 982-985.
Bell, Millicent. "Updike's Shakespeare." Partisan Review, Spring 2001, 68:2. pp. 345-49.
Berryman, Charles. "Updike and Contemporary Witchcraft," South Atlantic Quarterly, 85:1 (1986): 1-9. Review essay on The Witches of Eastwick.
Birkerts, Sven. "Roth, [Updike], Mailer, Bellow Running Out of Gas." The New York Observer, 13 October, 1997. For some reason Birkerts does not put Updike's name in the title, but he comments in detail why Updike is included in this critique. The basic charge is that all are narcissistic in their pursuit of the self's identity and troubles: "The self, however, gradiose, is finite; the wells do dry up." It is time "to turn the gaze of the reader back upon the larger world."
Brenner, Gerry. "Rabbit Run: John Updike's Criticism of the 'Return to Nature'," Twentieth Century Literature 12 (April 1966), 3-14.
Buchanan, Mark. "Rabbit Trails to God. " Christianity Today, 47:7, July 2003: 42-44, with the subtitle, "John Updike has made a career of writing the most theological novels in America."
Cameron, Dee Birch." "The Unitarian Wife and the One-Eyed Man: Updike's Marry Me and "Sunday Teasing," Ball State University Forum, 21:iii (1980): 54-64.
Campbell, Jeff H. "'Middling, Hidden, Troubled America': John Updike's Rabbit Tetralogy," Jounal of the American Studies Association of Texas, 24 (1993): 26-45.
Carnes, Mark C. "Fictions and Fantasies of Early Twentieth-Century Manhood," Reviews in American History 24:3 (1996): 448-453. Also available on-line to subscribing institutions at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/reviews_in_american_history/v024/24.3carnes.html . A critical appraisal of In the Beauty of the Lilies and Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 by Gail Bederman. Carnes does not address Updike's work in much depth, but does locate it in the context of recent historical work on male gender roles in the progressive era. [Thanks to George Jarrett for this reference.]
Chukwu, Augustine. "The Dreamer as Leader: Ellellou in John Updike's The Coup," Literary Half-Yearly, 23:1 (1982): 61-69
Cooper, Rand Richards. "Rabbit Loses the Race," Commonweal, 7 October 1990: 315-321.
Crews, Frederick. "Mr. Updike's Planet," New York Review of Books (4 December 1986): 7-14. Major review of Roger's Version within the larger literary context of Updike's moral and religious vision.
De Bellis, Jack. "The Group and John Updike," Sewanee Review, 72 (Summer 1964): 531-536.
Detweiler, Robert. "John Updike and the Indictment of Culture-Protestantism" in Four Spiritual Crises in Mid-Century American Fiction (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1964): 14-24.
________. "Updike's A Month of Sundays and the Language of the Unconscious," Journal of the American Academy of Religion, XLVII: 4 (1979): 609-625.
Disch, Thomas. "Rabbit's Run," The Nation, 3 December 1990: 690-694.
Doner, Dean. "Rabbit Angstrom's Unseen World," New World Writing 20 (1962), 58-75.
Doody, Terrence A. "Updike's Idea of Reification," Contemporary Literature, 20 (1979): 204-220.
Dougary, Ginny. "Up Close and Personal," The London Times Magazine, Saturday 20 April 2002: 16-19; 20-21. Interview.
Doyle, Paul A. "Updike's Fiction: Motifs and Techniques," Catholic World 199 (September 1964), 356-362.
Duncan, Graham H. "The Thing Itself in Rabbit, Run," English Record 13 (April 1963), 36-37.
Edwards, Thomas R. "Updike's Rabbit Trilogy," The Atlantic, October 1981: 94-101.
Eiland, Howard. "Updike's Womanly Man," Centennial Review 26:4 (1982): 312-323.
Finklestein, Sidney. "Acceptance of Alienation: John Updike and James Purdy" in Existentialism and Alienation in American Literature (New York: International Publishers, 1965): 243-252.
Flower, Dean. "John Updike" in American Writers Retrospective Supplement. Pages 339–358, The Gale Group. An essay taken from The Scribner's Writers Series (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998).
Galloway, David. "The Absurd Man as Saint: The Novels of John Updike," Modern Fiction Studies 11 (Summer 1964): 111-127.
Geismar, Maxwell. "The American Short Story Today," Studies on the Left 4 (Spring 1964): 21-27.
Gingher, Robert S. "Has John Updike Anything to Say?" Modern Fiction Studies, 20.1 (1974): 97-105.
Greiner, Donald J. "Body and Soul: John Updike and The Scarlet Letter," Journal of Modern Literature 15 (Spring 1989): 475-495.
__________. "Contextualizing John Updike," Contemporary Literature, XLIII, No. 1(Spring 2002): 194-202. A review essay of Quentin Miller's John Updike and the Cold War and Marshall Boswell's John Updike's Rabbit Tetralogy.
__________. "Don DeLillo, John Updike, and the Sustaining Power of Myth" in Underworlds: Perspectives on Don DeLillo's Underworld, ed. by Josephy Dewey, Steven G. Kellman, and Irving Malin (Newark, NJ: University of Delaware Press, 2003), pp. 103-113. He specifically compares Updike's essay, "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," with DeLillo's "Pafko at the Wall," but deals also more broadly with mythic underworld themes in both.
__________. "John Updike" in American Novelists Since World War II, ed. James R. Giles and Wanda H. Giles. Volume 143. Pp. 250-276. Dictionary of Literary Biography, Third Series. Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1994. ISBN: 0-8103-5557-4.
Hallissy, Margaret. "Marriage, Morality and Maturity in Updike's Marry Me," Renascence, XXXVII: 2 (1985): 96-107.
Hamilton, Edith. "The Validation of Religious Faith," Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 5 (1975-76): 280-285.
Hamilton, Alice. "Between Innocence and Experience: From Joyce to Updike," Dalhousie Review 49 (Spring 1969): 102-109.
Hamilton, Alice and Kenneth. "Theme and Technique in John Updike's Midpoint," Mosaic 4 (Fall 1970): 78-106.
Hardwick, Elizabeth. "Citizen Updike," New York Review of Books, 18 May 1989: 3, 4, 6, 8.
Harper, Howard M. Desperate Faith: A Study of Bellow, Salinger, Mailer, Baldwin, and Updike, [Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1967], pp. 162-190.
Hicks, Granville. "Generations of the Fifties: Malamud, gold, and Updike" in The Creative Present, ed. Norma Balakian and Charles Simmons (New York: Doubleday, 1963): 217-237.
________. "Mysteries of the Commonplace," The Saturday Review of Literature 45 (17 March 1962): 21.
Horvath, Brooke. "The Failure of Erotic Questing in John Updike's Rabbit Novels," Denver Quarterly, 23.2 (1988): 70-89.
Howard, Jane. "Can a Nice Novelist Finish First?" Life (4 November 1966): 74-82.
Johnson, Robert K. "John Updike’s Theological World," The Christian Century, 16 November 1977: 1061. This article may be read online by clicking this web address: http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showarticle?item_id=1195.
Lauer, Quentin. "Deeper Blues, or the Posthuman Prometheus: Cybernetic Renewal and the Late-Twentieth-Century American Novel," American Literature, vol. 77, no. 2 (June 2005): 379-407. In addition to Roger’s Version, the essay analyzes Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers and Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. The context is “posthumanism,” the ability of humans to effectively cooperate with and accept the presence of computers in our daily lives.
La Course, Guerin. "The Innocence of John Updike," Commonweal 77 (8 February 1963), 512-514.
Lathrop, Kathleen. "The Coup: John Updike's Modernist Masterpiece," Modern Fiction Studies, 31:2 (1985): 249-262.
Leckie, Barbara. "'The Adulterous Society': John Updike's Marry Me," Modern Fiction Studies 37 (Spring 1991): 61-79.
Leigh, David. "Ironic Apocalypse in John Updike's Toward the End of Time,"Religion and Literature 34, no. 1 (2002 Spring): pp. 51-65.
Lodge, David. "Bye-Bye Bech," New York Review of Books, 19 November 1998: 8-10. Review of Bech at Bay.
Lopate, Leonard. "Interview: The Writing Life and Times of John Updike." The Writer, 114, No. 7 (July 2001): 31-37.
Lyons, Eugene. "John Updike: The Beginning and the End," Critique 14 (1982): 44-59.
Martin, John Stephen. "Rabbit's Faith: Grace and the Transformation of the Heart," Pacific Coast Philology 17:1-2 (November 1982): 103-111.
Matthews, John T. "The Word as Scandal: Updike's A Month of Sundays," Arizona Quarterly 39:4 (1983): 351-180.
Mazurek, Raymond A. "'Bringing the Corners Forward': Ideology and Representation in Updike's Rabbit Trilogy" in Politics and the Muse: Studies in the Politics of Recent American Literature. Ed. Adam J. Sorkin. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1989. Pp.142-160.
McTavish, John. "Myth, Gospel, and John Updike's Centaur", Theology Today, January 2003 (Vol. 59, No. 4): 596-606.
Miller, D. Quentin. "Updike's Rabbit Novels and the Tragedy of Parenthood" in Family Matters in the British and American Novel. Ed. Andrea O'Reilly Herrera, Elizabeth Mahn Nollen, and Sheila Reitzel Foor. Bowling Green, OH: Popular Press, 1997. Pp.195-216.
Mizener, Arthur. "The American Hero as High-School Boy" in The Sense of Life in the Modern Novel (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1964):247-260.
Moore, Jack B. "Africa Under Western Eyes: Updike's The Coup and Other Fantasies," African Literature Today, 14 (1984): 60-67.
Murphy, Richard W. "In Print: John Updike," Horizon 4 (March 1962): 82.
Myers, David. "The Questing Fear: Chhristian Allegory in John Updike's The Centaur," Twentieth Century Literature, 17 (1971): 73-82.
Newman, Judie. "Updike's Golden Oldies: Rabbit as Spectacular Man," Literature and the Visual Media. Ed. David Seed. In The English Association, Essays and Studies 2005. Athenaeum Press, 2005. Pp. 123-141.
Nickell, Kelly. "WD Interview: John Updike," Writer's Digest 82, No. 1(January 2002): 34-35.
Novak, Michael. "Updike's Quest for Liturgy," Commonweal 78 (10 May 1963), 192-195.
Oates, Joyce Carol. "Updike's American Comedies," Modern Fiction Studies 21 (Fall 1975): 459-472.
O'Connor, William Van. "John Updike and William Styron: The Burden of Talent" in Contemporary American Novelists (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1964): _____.
Olster, Stacey. "Rabbit Is Redundant: Updike's End of an American Epoch" in Neo-Realism in Contemporary American Fiction. Ed. Kristiaan Versluys. Postmodern Studies 5. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1992. Pp. 111-129.
________. "Rabbit Rerun: Updike's Replay of Popular Culture in Rabbit at Rest," Modern Fiction Studies 37 (1991): 45-59.
________. "'Unadorned Woman, Beauty's Home Image': Woman in Rabbit, Run." New Essays on Rabbit, Run. Ed. Stanley Trachtenberg. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. 95-117.
Pasewark, Kyle. "The Troubles with Harry: Freedom, America, and God in John Updike's Rabbit Novels." Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 6:1 (Winter 1996): 1-33.
"Perennial Promises Kept. " Time (18 October 1982): 72-81. The notation for the Updike cover-story reads, "Going Great at 50."
Plagman, Linda M. "Eros and Agape: The Opposition in Updike's Couples," Renascence, 28 (1976): 83-93.
Podhoretz, Norman. "A Dissent on Updike" in Doings and Undoings: The Fifties and After in American Writing (New York: Farrar,Straus, 1964): 251-257.
Pritchard, William H. “Updike’s Way.” New England Review 21 (Sum. 2000): 55-63. Collected in part in Pritchard’s “Introduction” to Updike. South Royalton, Vermont: Steerforth Press: 2000.
Pritchett, V. S. "Updike," The New Yorker, 9 November 1981: 201-206.
Prosser, Jay. "Under the Skin of John Updike: Self-Consciousness and the Racial Unconscious," (PLMA) Publication of the Modern Language Association, 116.3 (2001): 579-593.
Reilly, Charles. "An Interview with JU," Contemporary Literature, 43:2 (2002): 217-248.
Rupp, Richard H. "John Updike's Style in Search of a Center," Sewanee Review, 75 (1967): 693-709.
Samuels, Charles Thomas. "The Art of Fiction XLIII: John Updik," Paris Review 12 (Winter 1968): 85-117.
Schiff, James A. "A Conversation with John Updike," The Southern Review, Spring 2002 (Vol. 38, No.2): 420-442. Interview.
________, with John Updike. "The Short Fiction of John Updike," Boulevard Magazine,17:3 (Spring 2002): 22-40.
________, "Updike Ignored: The Contemporary Independent Critic," American Literature 67 (September 1995): 531-552.
Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr. "The Historical Mind and the Literary Imagination." Atlantic 233 (June 1974): 54-59. A fine article which includes substational critical interpretation of Updike's Buchanan Dying and Gore Vidal's Burr. Reprinted in Dictionary of Literary Biography: Documentary Series: An Illustrated Chronicle. Vol. 3. Ed. Mary Bruccolli. Detroit: Gale, 1983: 294-298.
Schopen, Bernard A. "Faith, Morality, and the Novels of John Updike," Twentieth-Century Literature 24.4 (1978): 523-535.
Singh, Sukhbir. "Rewriting the American Wasteland: John Updike's The Centaur," Andover Newton Quarterly, Winter 2005, Vol. 18, Issue 1:60-64.
Stubbs, John C. "The Search for Perfection in Rabbit, Run," Critique, 10:2 (1968): 94-101.
Strandberg, Victor. "John Updike and the Changing of the Gods," Mosaic 12 (1978): 157-175.
Suderman, Elmer F. "The Right Way and the Good Way in Rabbit, Run," Critique 10 (1968): 94-101.
Tate, M. Judith. "Of Rabbits and Centaurs." Critic 22 (February-March 1964): 44-47. "View from the Catacombs." Time (26 April 1968): 66-75. The cover-story review of Couples and his work as writer. Cover label reads, "The Adulterous Society, Author John Updike."
Trendel, Aristi. "John Updike et Soren Kierkergaard : Miettes Littéraires et Philosophiques" RANAM, N° 37, Strasbourg, Presses Universitaires de Marc Bloch, 2004, 259-269.
__________. "La vision métaphysique de John Updike," Foi et Vie [Faith and Life], April 2002,Volume CI No. 2: 1-17.
__________. "Mourning and Melancholia in John Updike's Short Story 'His Mother Inside Him'," in the Journal of the Short Story in English Les Cahiers de la Nouvelle (Presses de l'Université d'Angers), Autumn 2002, No. 39: 73-80.
Updike, John. "Why Rabbit Had to Go," The New York Times Book Review, 8 August 1990: 1, 24-25.
__________. "Updike on Updike," The New York Times Book Review, 27 September 1981: 1, 34-35.
Waldmeir, Joseph. "It's the Going That's Important, Not the Getting There: Rabbit's Questing Non-Quest," Modern Fiction Studies, 20 (Spring 1974): 13-27.
Waller, Gary. "Updike's Couples: A Barthian Parable," Research Studies, 40 (1972): 10-21.
Ward, John A. "John Updike's Fiction," Critique 5 (Spring-Summer 1962), 27-41.
Wells, Walter. "John Updike's 'A&P': A Return Visit to Araby," Studies in Short Fiction 30.2 (Spring 1993): 127-135. For a special bibliography of other critical studies of "A&P" see the last section of this bibliography.
Wilson III, Raymond. "Roger's Version: Updike's Negative-Solid Model of The Scarlet Letter." Modern Fiction Studies 35 (1989): 241-250.
Wood, James. "John Updike's Complacent God" in The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief (New York: Random House, 1999): pp. 192-199.
Wood, Michael. "God's Country," New York Review of Books, 29 February 1996: 5-6. Review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.
Wood, Ralph C. "Into the Void: Updike's Sloth and America's Religion," The Christian Century (24 April 1996): 452-457. Major review of In the Beauty of the Lilies within the literary context of Updike's moral and religious vision.
_________. "John Updike's Rabbit 'Saga'." The Christian Century (20 January 1982: 50 ff. Review of Rabbit Is Rich.
Yancey Philip, "A Conversation with John Updike". Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, 21 (1998) 43-57.
Zylstra, S. A. "John Updike and the Parabolic Nature of the World," Soundings 56 (1973): 323-327.
CRITICAL
REVIEWS
Under Development
Atwood, Margaret. "Wondering What It's Like to Be a Woman." New York Times Book Review, 13 May 1984. Review of The Witches of Eastwick.
Broyard, Anatole. "Letters from the Ashram." New York Times Book Review (13 March 1988): 7. Review of S.
Crews, Frederick. "Mr. Updike's Planet." New York Review of Books (4 December 1986): 7-14. Review of Roger's Version within the larger literary context of Updike's moral and religious vision.
DeMott, Benjamin. "Mod Masses, Empty Pews." Saturday Review (8 March 1975): 20-21. Review of A Month of Sundays.
Dinnage, Rosemary. "Lusting for God." Times Literary Supplement (4 July 1975): 713. Review of A Month of Sundays.
Donoghue, Denis. "'I Have Preened, I Have Lived." New York Times Book Review (5 March 1989): 7. Review of Self-Consciousness.
Edwards, Thomas R. "Busy Minister." New York Review of Books (3 April 1975): 18. Review of A Month of Sundays.
Falke, Wayne. "America Strikes Out: Updike's Rabbit Redux," American Examiner, 3.3 (1974): 18-21.
Gass, William H. "Cock-a-Doodle-Doo," New York Review of Books, 11 April 1968: 3. Review of Couples.
Gilman, Richard. "The Witches of Updike." New Republic (20 June 1988): 39-41. Review of S.
________. "The Youth of an Author." New Republic 148 (13 April 1963) : _____. Review of The Centaur.
Kakutani, Michiko. Review of Roger's Version. New York Times, 27 August 1986, C27.
________. "Updike's Struggle to Portray Women." New York Times, 5 May 1988, C29. Review of S.
________. "Just 30 Years Later, Updike Has a Quartet." New York Times, 25 September 1990, C13+. Review of Rabbit at Rest.
________. "Tristan and Iseult as Latin Lovers," New York Times, 25 Janaury 1994: C 19. Review of Brazil.
Lanchester, John. "Be a Lamp unto Yourself." London Review of Books (5 May 1988): 20-21. Review of S.
Leckie, Barbara. "'The Adulterous Society': John Updike's Marry Me." Modern Fiction Studies 37 (Spring 1991): 61-79.
Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. "In John Updike's Latest, The Woman Called S." New York Times, 7 March 1988, C16. Review of S.
Lodge, David. "Chasing after God and Sex." New York Times Book Review, 31 August 1986, 7:1,15. Review of Roger's Version.
Lurie, Alison. "The Woman Who Rode Away." New York Review of Books (12 May 1988): 3-4. Review of Trust Me and S.
Matthews, John T. "The Word as Scandal: Updike's A Month of Sundays." Arizona Quarterly 39 (1983): 351-180.
Morey, Ann-Janine. "Updike's Sexual Language for God." The Christian Century (19 November 1986): 1036-1037. Review of Roger's Version.
Oates, Joyce Carol. "So Young!" New York Times Book Review (30 September 1990): F1, 43. Review of Rabbit at Rest.
________. New Republic 180 (6 January 1979): 32-35. Review of The Coup.
Pott, Jon. "Eros Revisted." The Reformed Journal. October 1975: 22-24. Review of A Month of Sundays.
Pritchard, William H. and George Hunsinger. "Updike's Version." New York Review of Books (12 February 1987): 41. Review of Roger's Version.
Pritchett, V. S. "Updike." The New Yorker (9 November 1981): 201-206. Review of Rabbit Is Rich.
Raban, Jonathan. "Rabbit's Last Run." Washington Post Book World (30 September 1990): 1,15. Review of Rabbit at Rest.
Rowland, Stanley J., Jr. "The Limits of Littleness." The Christian Century (4 July 1962) 79: 840. Review of Pigeon Feathers.
Sage, Lorna. "Narrator-Creator Data." Times Literary Supplement (24 October 1986): 1189. Review of Roger's Version.
Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr. "The Historical Mind and the Literary Imagination." Atlantic (June 1958): 58f. A fine article which includes substational critical interpretation of Updike's Buchanan Dying and Gore Vidal's Burr.
Spice, Nicholas. "Underparts." London Review of Books (6 November 1986): 8-9. Review of Roger's Version.
Stade, George. "The Resurrection of Reverend Marshfield." New York Times Book Review (23 February 1975): 4. Review of A Month of Sundays.
Steiner, George. "Scarlet Letters." The New Yorker (10 March 1975): 116-118. Review of A Month of Sundays.
Tate, M. Judith. "Of Rabbits and Centaurs." Critic 22 (February-March 1964): 44-47. Review of Rabbit, Run and The Centaur.
Theroux, Paul. "A Marriage of Mixed Blessings." New York Times Book Review, 8 April 1979: 7. Review of Too Far to Go.
________. Review of Rabbit Redux. Washington Post Book World (14 November 1971): 3.
Trueheart, Charles. "Sex, God and John Updike." Washington Post, 28 October 1990, F1, 4. Review of Rabbit at Rest.
Updike, John. "Why Rabbit Had to Go," The New York Times Book Review, 8 August 1990: I, pp. 24-25.
"View from the Catacombs." Time (26 April 1968): 66-75. Review of Couples and his work as writer.
Wolcott, James. "Running on Empty: Can John Updike's Rabbit Find Happiness As a Car Dealer?" Esquire (October 1981): 20-23. Review of Rabbit Is Rich.
SPECIAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES (Note: this is a list only, not a link to the sources themselves.)
UPDIKE'S
"A&P" This story first appeared
in The New Yorker: 37 (22 July 1961): 22-24. It then
was included in Pigeon Feathers and
![[Image]](pict36.jpg)
Other Stories
(New York: Knopf, 1962), pp.187-96. It
has been frequently anthologized, the last two of which appear to be
Fictions, ed. Trimmer and Jennings, 2nd edition (New York:
Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1989) and The Situation of the
Story, ed. Diana Young (Lavelette, NJ: St. Martin's,
1992. An earlier Updike manuscript version of the story, with
a longer ending concerning Sammy after leaving the parking lot, may be found
at the Houghton Library, Harvard University, call number *86M-3 (32).
By far the best places to secure information and criticism of this story are the following books, noted above in the general bibliography but especially important here since so many students seek assistance in its interpretation. There are no better sources for consideration of this famous Updike story:
Bloom, Harold, ed. John Updike: Bloom's Major Short Story Writers. New York: Chelsea House, 2000. Pp. 104. Contains Bloom, "Introduction"; "Biography of John Updike," followed by commentary on five Updike short stories, the first of which is "A & P":
"A & P": Plot Summary, List of Characters, and Critical Views by Janet Overmeyer on Courtly Love, M. Gilbert Porter on Sammy as a Non-Conformist, Ronald E. McFarland on "Brand-Name Symbolism," Marjorie Hill Goss on Sammy's Moral Development, Paul J. Emmett on Updike's Subtlety in the Story, Alice Hall Petry on Clothing in the Story, Patrick W. Shaw on the Similarities Between "A & P" and "Young Goodman Brown," and Walter Wells on the Similarities Between "A & P" and "Araby."
Perkins, Wendy, ed. "A & P." New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998.
This little book sizes in at 108 pages with a list price of about $11.50. I say "about," because I found a lot of sources and the price range was from $13.50 to $9.50, sans shipping charges, of course, which vary greatly.
The book is wonderfully useful. It notes its goal as follows: "To facilitate research--and to facilitate instructor supervision of that research--each Casebook contains all the resources students need to produce a domumented research paper on a particular work of literature." It contains 1) a comprehensive introduction to the work, providing social, historical, and political background; 2) a headnote, with full data about the life and key publications of the author; 3) the most widely accepted version of the literary work itself; 4) discussion questions; 5) research assignments; 6) a diverse selection of secondary sources--excerpts or short articles; 7) an annotated model student research paper; 8) a comprehensive bibliography of electronic resources related to the writing; 9) and a concise guide to MLA documentation. Pretty complete little resource.
The Centaurian is listed as an electronic resource (p. 97), but unfortunately it gives the former site address and begins it with "sss." rather than "www."! I have written to the publisher to suggest a change for the next printing.
Here are additional sources of critical commentary for "A & P," parts of which Harold Bloom has included in his book on Updike's short stories just noted above.
Chanley, Steven M. "Quest for Order in 'Pigeon Feathers': Updike's Use of Christian Mythology." Arizona Quarterly 43 (Autumn 1987): 251-263.
Dessner, Lawrence Jay. "Irony and Innocence in John Updike's 'A & P.'" Studies in Short Fiction 25 (1988): 315-317.
Detweiler, Robert. John Updike. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1984.
Emmett, Paul J. "A Slip That Shows: Updike's 'A & P.'" Notes on Contemporary Literature 15.2 (March 1985): 9-11.
Goss, Marjorie Hill. "Widening Perceptions in Updike's 'A & P.'" Notes on Contemporary Literature 14.5 (November 1984): 8.
Hamilton, Alice and Kenneth. The Elements of John Updike. n.p.: William B. Eerdmans, 1970.
Hurley, C. Harold. "Updike's 'A & P': An 'Initial' Response." Notes on Contemporary Literature 20 (May 1990): 12.
Klinkowitz, Jerome. Literary Subversions: New American Fiction and the Practiced of Criticism. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985, 62-63.
McFarland, Ronald E. "Updike and the Critics: Reflections on 'A & P'." Studies in Short Fiction 20, Nos. 2-3 (Spring-Summer 1998): 95-100.
Mizener, Arthur. "Behind the Dazzle is a Knowing Eye." Review of Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories, by John Updike. New York Times Book Review (18 March 1962): 1, 29.
Overmyer, Janet. "Courtly Love in the A & P." Notes on Contemporary Literature 2, No. 3 (May1972): 4-5.
Perisho, Steve. "Irony in John Updike's 'Pigeon Feathers." Notes on Contemporary Literature 21 (May 1991): 7-11.
Perkins, Wendy. Contributing Editor. "A & P" by John Updike. The Harcourt Brace Casebook Series in Literature, 1998. Paperback. Pp. 108. Included are reprint reviews by Lawrence Jay Dessner (1988), Robert Luscher (1993), Ronald E. McFarland (1983), Arthur Mizener (1962), M. Gilbert Porter (1972), George Steiner (1996), Walter Wells (1993). A really comprehensive book on "A & P" and "Lifeguard." (from Phil Burger)
Perry, Alice H. "The Dress Code in Updike's 'A & P'." Notes on Contemporary Literature 16 , No. 1 (1986): 8-10.
Porter, M. Gilbert. "John Updike's 'A & P': The Establishment and an Emersonian Cashier." English Journal 61 (November 1972): 1155-1158.
Schiff, James A. "Updike's Scarlet Letter Trilogy: Recasting an American Myth." Studies in American Fiction 20 (1992): 17-32.
_______. John Updike Revisited . New York: Twayne Publishers, 1998. See Chapter Six, "Master of the Small Canvas: A Selection of Short Stories, pp. 114-117.
Searles, George J. "The Mouths of Babes: Childhood, Epiphany in Roth's 'Conversion of the Jews' and Updike's 'Pigeon Feathers'." Studies in Short Fiction 24 (Winter 1987): 59-62.
Shaw, Patrick W. "Checking Out Faith and Lust: Hawthorne's 'Young Goodman Brown' and Updike's 'A & P'." Studies in Short Fiction 23 (1986): 321-323.
Stone, Harry. "'Araby' and the Writings of James Joyce." Antioch Review 25 (1965): 375-410.
Strandberg, Victor. "John Updike and the Changing of the Gods." Mosaic: A Journal for the Comparative Study of Literature and Ideas, 12 (1978): 157-75.
Updike, John. "Questions Concerning Giacomo." The New Yorker (6 April 1968): 167-68,171-74.
Yates, Norris W. "The Doubt and Faith of John Updike." College English 26 (1965): 469-74.
Wells, Walter. "John Updike’s ‘A&P’: A Return to Araby." Studies in Short Fiction 30, No. 2 (Spring 1993): 127-135.
UPDIKE'S "THE LUCID EYE IN SILVER TOWN"
This story first appeared in Saturday Evening Post 237 (23 May 1964): 54-55. Later it was included in Assorted Prose (Knopf, 1965), pp. 188-199. It was also reprinted in 50 Great American Short Stories, ed. by Milton Crane (New York: Bantam, 1986), pp. 487-496.
UPDIKE'S "MAN AND DAUGHTER IN THE COLD"
This story first appeared in The New Yorker 44 (9 March 1968): 98-107. It was reprinted in Museums and Women and Other Stories (New York: Knopf, 1972), pp. 26-40.
Hamilton, Alice and Kenneth. "John Updike's Museums and Women and Other Stories." Thought: A Review of Culture and Ideas, 1974, 49:56-71.
UPDIKE'S "SEPARATING"
This story first appeared in The New Yorker 51 (23 June 1975): 36-41 and has been much anthologized (See De Bellis, John Updike: A Bibliography, A 353, page 38).
Many persons write for sources for critical commentary on this story. The only source online is available at the following web address: www.hmco.com/college/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/updike.html . This is prepared by George J. Searles as part of a syllabus project for college students. I know of no separate article of criticism devoted to this very popular story .
UPDIKE'S "TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND SO FORTH"
This story first appeared in The New Yorker 31 (30 April 1955): 80, and was republished in The Same Door (Knopf, 1959), pp. 27-40.
Ruben Friedman. "An Interpretation of John Updike's 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and So Forth." English Journal 61 (November 1972): 1159-1162.
Jeff R. Banks. "The Uses of Weather in 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and So Forth." Notes on Contemporary Literature 3 (1973): 8-9.
W. Herget. "John Updike: 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and So Forth'." In Die Amerikanische Short Story der Gegenwart. Ed. P. Freese. Berlin: Schmit, 1976:160.
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