{"product_id":"understanding-john-updike-frederic-svoboda-9781643360966","title":"Understanding John Updike","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA close look at the extraordinary literary achievements of a popular and prolific American author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe winner of every major American literary prize, John Updike (1932-2009) was one of the most popular and prolific novelists of his time and a major cultural figure who traced the high point and fall of midcentury American self-confidence and energy. A superb stylist with sixty books to his credit, he brilliantly rendered the physical surfaces of the nation's life even as he revealed the intense longings beneath those surfaces. In\u003ci\u003e Understanding John Updike\u003c\/i\u003e, Frederic Svoboda elucidates the author's deep insights into the second half of the twentieth century as seen through the lives of ordinary men and women. He offers extended close readings of Updike's most significant works of fiction, templates through which his entire oeuvre may be understood.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA small-town Pennsylvanian whose prodigious talent took him to Harvard, a staff position at the \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, and ultimately a life in suburban Massachusetts, where the pace of his literary output never slowed, Updike was very much in the American cultural tradition. His series of Rabbit Angstrom novels strongly echo Sinclair Lewis's earlier explorations of middle America, while \u003ci\u003eThe Witches of Eastwick \u003c\/i\u003eand related novels are variations on Nathaniel Hawthorne's nineteenth-century classic \u003ci\u003eThe Scarlet Letter\u003c\/i\u003e. His number-one best seller \u003ci\u003eCouples\u003c\/i\u003e examines what \u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e magazine called \"the adulterous society\" in the last year of the Kennedy administration, following the nation's fall from idealism into self-centeredness. \u003ci\u003eUnderstanding John Updike\u003c\/i\u003e will give both new readers and those already familiar with the author a firm grasp of his literary achievement. This outline of Updike's professional career highlights his importance in the life of the nation--not only as a novelist but also as a gifted essayist, reviewer, cultural critic, and poet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Frederic Svoboda\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1643360965\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781643360966\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of South Carolina Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/16\/2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 136\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.45lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.60d","brand":"Frederic Svoboda","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44072496759039,"sku":"9781643360966","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_5f85af63-d573-4f4e-847e-add173fc863a.jpg?v=1685442321","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/understanding-john-updike-frederic-svoboda-9781643360966","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}