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My Father’s Tears And Other Stories THIS posthumously published book of short stories catches John Updike in a quiet contemplative mood looking over his shoulders to a life lived and sometimes the looking back is to many years ago — all the way back to childhood and to school days. But it is done from the pedestal of old age and that childhood is looked at the vantage point of the 50th class reunion. My favourite story in the book The Walk with Elizanne is all about a kiss so many years ago, which still has the power to stir more than 50 years after it occurred. It’s a story of immense beauty like a New England winter evening. The detailing of the story is precise and it has the capacity to make one nostalgic about one’s own school days though they might not have been 50 years ago. There is all the poignancy of ageing and the bewildering changes that have occurred in one’s classmates and the sometimes-futile attempt to pretend that nothing important has changed.
In his book of poems End Point and other poems also published posthumously the coming end has an over arching presence and you can almost feel that it had consumed Updike but death and passing is a far more gentle presence in this book a side show though religion (including Hinduism) feature in some of the stories (including losing it). The story The Apparition is about a tour of American tourists around the temples of South India. It begins with them climbing the Hill of Shravanbelgora and it is interesting to see how the tourists react to the heat and dust of India. Of course India is just a backdrop for the story, which is about love and longing. There are exactly 18 stories in this book so that it can be in a sense called Updike’s Last Round of golf though of course he was a much better writer than a golfer. In some of the precise details of his stories as also the observation one can see a life time’s experience. Though many of the stories are nostalgic, it is difficult not to feel sentimental while reading the stories when you realise that you are reading his last book of short stories. There will never be another John Updike and this is Updike’s last hurrah.
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Which brings us to the
question whether John Updike was a better short story writer or a
novelist. Famous for his Rabbit and Bech Books as also Books like Couples,
Updike, especially in his later years, had the ability to churn
out mediocre books like Terrorist or Brazil or his hook
villages. His short stories, on the other hand, have always been quite
consistent. It’s difficult to find fault with too many of them. In
his short story varieties of Religious Experience is a story about a
man losing his religion at the fall of the World Trade Centre
buildings. The story uses the events of 9/11 as a backdrop to show how
it completely transforms the religious beliefs of a person who is
caught up in it. It weaves two or three stories together to make a
powerful statement. It is a much better story than his book Terrorist
which was also a take on terrorism but was very one-dimensional.
So my vote goes to Updike the short story writer and this collection
shows his mastery of the both art and craft of story telling till the
very end.