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There is this quality, in things, of the right way seeming wrong at first.

Rabbit is Rich: Rabbit Redux; Rabbit, Run (ed. 1981), John Updike.

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EVERYBODY... KNOWS... 2.

Starts off, and, how to play Beethoven?

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But I’ve read a good dozen of Updike’s novels, and they’ve given me tremendous pleasure. Reading “Rabbit Is Rich” and “Toward the End of Time” (a late, obscure autobiographical book) made my heart sing. I remember reading the latter on a bus and, a couple of times, coming to passages so perfect that I had to close the book and just sit and savor the memory. I once drove five or six hours up to Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, just for the chance to meet and briefly chat with Updike at a lawn party given by a friend’s wealthy mother; and believe me, I’m generally nauseated by that kind of fannish behavior. I would certainly never do that for a rock star.

Simon, comments, on Philip Roth vs. John Updike, Steve Sailor, The Unz, May 11, 2021

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