Quote:
|
Originally Posted by evollove
My local library has a very respectable used book sale every single month, and I've been able to amass most of Updike's stuff for very little money. In fact, I have duplicates of quite a few of his novels and three versions of Couples for no reason at all. But I splurged on the Everyman's Library version of the Complete Henry Bech. A really nice printing of some of his best stuff. Getting away from his WASPY-y background really fired his engines.
---
Did you already know Updike's first wife was Nabokov's student at Cornell?
---
Rabbit Angstrom really is a piece of shit and I've always wondered why those books were so popular.
|
LOL, at your last! My sisters are quick to point that out to me."We have issues with his treatment of women," they tell me. I try to explain to them that really nice people don't make interesting characters in novels. Their eyes glaze over. But isn't it because we Americans--at least, the smart, self-aware ones--see at least a little of ourselves in him? (I also try to explain to my sisters that a character is not the author. Rabbit is not Updike. Again, the eyes glaze over.)
No, did not know that about his first wife. A kind of Nabokovian coincidence, no!?
I would love to have just a cheap copy of the first Bech paperback, where the cover art shows the breasts in Beck's hair, I believe? I would love a copy of that. On the prowl!