Ever since the recent death of John Updike on January 27, I have been feeling the loss and wishing I could attend a memorial service in his honour. That of course did not happen but I did get a chance to do some reflection on his passing.
A friend who knows I love John Updike’s writing, put me onto an interview with Adam Gopnik on the Charlie Rose show. Gopnik listed his reasons for admiring this genius. Google Charlie Rose if you are interested.
Gopnik’s final point was that Updike had a great subject for his writing - the loss of faith and its replacement with sex, shallow spirituality, our family and shopping. Updike is sympathetic to this search. He doesn’t scold. But he does observe that these substitutes are inadequate.
Gopnik does not mention that John Updike was a Christian. On Sunday morning he could be found in a Congregational pew in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts. More than that, he served on the church’s building committee.
John Buchanan, in the Christian Century, leaves with us an observation by Updike of taking a walk on one of those sunny days in late autumn.
“Why do we love them, these last days of something like summer, of freedom to move in few clothes, though frost has flattened the morning grass? They tell us we shall live forever. Stretched like a rainbow across day’s end, my shadow makes a path for my feet: I am my path.”
Peter
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