Novels 1959-1965: The Poorhouse Fair / Rabbit, Run / The Centaur / Of the Farm

by John Updike, Christopher Carduff (Editor)

Twenty-six-year-old John Updike was already well known as a contributor of stories and poems to The New Yorker when, in January 1959, he published The Poorhouse Fair, the first of four novels that mine his early life in small-town Pennsylvania. All four are collected here in this inaugural volume of the Library of America edition of Updike’s novels.

In an act of imaginative daring for such a young writer, Updike took for his protagonist in The Poorhouse Fair a spirited ninety-four-year-old former schoolteacher now resident in a rural poorhouse. Over the course of a single eventful day, John Hook emerges as a philosophical opponent to Stephen Conner, the facility’s officious young administrator, who is convinced he has found in bureaucratic order the sure path to his and others’ happiness.

The racy and provocative Rabbit, Run (1960), one of the 100 best modern novels published in English according to Time magazine, introduces Updike’s most enduring protagonist, Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a onetime high school basketball star who, feeling constrained by his middle-class life, leaves his pregnant wife and two-year-old son. Rabbit’s decision to go “on the road” promises an escape from the countervailing pressures of desire and duty, a chance to recapture some missing magic, but at what price?

The Centaur (1963), winner of the National Book Award for Fiction, is a contrasting companion piece to Rabbit, Run, a study of a good and dutiful family man and the spiritual cost of his self-sacrificing devotion. The novel imagines the story of Chiron―the noblest of the centaurs, who, grievously wounded yet unable to die, gives up his immortality―retold as father-son tragicomedy, unfolding in alternating chapters of present-tense narrative and myth-saturated reminiscence.

The novella Of the Farm (1965) is one of Updike’s loveliest performances, a chamber piece for four voices: Joey Robinson, a thirty-five-year-old Manhattan advertising executive; his second wife, Peggy; her eleven-year-old son, Richard; and Joey’s mother, a widow now living alone on the farm where she was born and where Joey grew up. Over a long autumn weekend at the farm, this quartet confesses, argues, and apologizes, airs old grievances and seeks new alliances. The novel plays variations on the central theme of the works in this volume―the challenge of being at once true to yourself and true to those closest to you.

Rounding out this edition are seven nonfiction pieces—introductions, speeches, and memoirs—that elaborate upon the composition and themes of these four novels.

Genres: Fiction

850 pages, Hardcover

Published November 20, 2018

About the author

John Hoyer Updike was an American writer. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered). Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest both won Pulitzer Prizes for Updike. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike is well known for his careful craftsmanship and prolific writing, having published 22 novels and more than a dozen short story collections as well as poetry, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems have appeared in The New Yorker since the 1950s. His works often explore sex, faith, and death, and their inter-relationships.

He died of lung cancer at age 76.

Reviews

[Martin Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Empiezo mi exploración y descubrimiento de John UPDIKE echando mano del primer tomo de la colección publicada por la Librería de América, que abarca las primeras cuatro obras de este autor. En algún lado leí que a UPDIKE no hay que leerlo por la complejidad de sus tramas, sino por la belleza de su escritura, y así lo pude constatar con estas novelas.
Lo sucedido en The Poorhouse Fair , abarca apenas una tarde, pero la minuciosa descripción de las acciones y pensamientos de los personajes es tan interesante, que parece que el arco temporal de la novela es mucho más largo. En cambio, Rabbit, Run es ágil, y transcurren varios meses en sus poco más de 250 páginas.
Me gustó cómo se describe la relación padre-hijo en The Centaur . Peter estudia en la misma escuela secundaria en la que enseña su padre, a quien adora, pero al mismo tiempo lo considera exasperante. También tiene miedo por su padre porque parece tan vulnerable, tan inepto en las cosas más mundanas, tan perdido en pensamientos que nunca podrá sentirse satisfecho con sus logros. La novela en brillante muchos sentidos, rebosa inteligencia y pensamientos intrincados, ilustrando a la perfección el laberinto de la propia mente de George.
Finalmente, Of the Farm nos presenta nuevamente un argumento simple y poco interesante por sí mismo: un hombre lleva a su nueva esposa e hijastro a visitar a su madre cascarrabias que vive en una granja en Pensilvania. Esta suituación es el pretexto con el que UPDIKE construye un fascinante retrato de la psicología humana, donde disecta la dinámica de conflicto entre hombres y mujeres, maridos y esposas, padres e hijos, hombres y sus madres. Muy interesante!!

[Mike Mikulski · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a re-read of Rabbit Run and the first time I read Updike's other early novels. Updike's description is very good, although sometimes a little verbose. I drew parallels of his pictures of late 50's/early 60's small city life with those of some of the best Bruce Springsteen lyrics. I'm not sure how timeless these early Updike works will be. The environments and conflicts presented seem to be auto-biographical and specific to Updike's time period. They seem to be a social history but not very relevant to the times 60 years later.

[Mills College Library]

Fiction U66n 2018