Hi Simon,
Where to start with Couples? I’m really annoyed that I missed this one because I genuinely had no clue what people were going to think or say. It seemed to be to be both redeeming and frustrating. Couples was my first dip into Updike’s 20th century (spanning) canon and because of its effect on me, I can no longer write anything without accidentally letting slip sexual double entendres i.e Updike’s canon. I just can’t help it anymore. Cheers John.
David Foster Wallace wrote a very famous essay (here) that referred to Updike as one of the “great white narcissists” of literature. I get it now. Updike is the reason that no one writes about sex anymore, there’s too much literary flourish – too many “creamy breasts tipped into the soft limelight,” allusions to genitalia as things like “sacred several-lipped gateway,” “swollen member,” “shallow taut cones tipped with honeysuckle-berry nipples.” In fact, there seems to be a lot of words that you might otherwise find in descriptions of gourmet food transported into the description of sex. This leads me to a very conscious clash of Marks and Spencer’s food adverts and John Updike’s language – “This isn’t just a purple, swollen member…. this is a ….” You get the idea.
The strength of Couples is how it can often makes things that are very familiar and that would otherwise be dull – unfamiliar and interesting. We’re used to Suburbia and the American middle classes being synonyms for conformity and banality – and they’re really the roots into which Updike plants his novel. I guess that if you were to walk into a room in a Travelodge with the aim of writing something about said room that made it interesting or unique then you’d struggle. Unless you were willing to imagine and glorify all the nasty things that the former incumbents of the room had said and done, and to imagine what the sheets would look like if they’d never been washed, then you get a little closer to Updike’s lens when he was writing.
Apparently, Updike only writes about himself as age during the time of writing. When I get round to reading another of his books i’ll probably read Rabbit at Rest because I feel that it’s more contemporary to read about a flaccid and dejected sexual tyrannosaur than one in its prime. Couples itself, feels like it was written during the prime of Updike’s life, but, unfortunately I find the prime of his life a tad repellant (with the advantage of hindsight that is). The book, the prose style and very idea of Updike as a ‘great’ anything in literature has dated a little. I guess he was like the opposite of all those authors and artists who didn’t enjoy fame during their own lifetime. Updike had too much notoriety and now he’s became an obvious hate figure because of what now appears to be a entire body of work that uses casual misogyny as a literary device.
However, definitely worth reading to see how American writing has changed. The guy was a massive part of establishment and a big influence on a lot of American writers today. I found the book a little frustrating because it has dated enough to feel ‘old’ but it isn’t old enough to resemble an oddity or an antiquated piece of writing from an unfamiliar era. Couples is set in a world we recognise but one that – I at least – couldn’t relate to. If i lived in that place at that point of time - i’d just stay in and read a book. (or watch Sherlock on the bbc)
See you next month,
David
