The Alchemist Of The Mundane

摘要

Very few-indeed, few writers-have so incisive an awareness, so frank and unsparing an eye, as did John Updike, who died of lung cancer on Jan. 27. Lyrical and elegant a prose stylist as he was, he never compromised the rigorous precision of his observations; he saw clearly, and described vividly what he saw, from the movement of raindrops down a window ("the window screen, like a sampler half-stitched, or a crossword puzzle invisibly solved, was inlaid erratically with minute, translucent tesserae of rain") to the effects of the '70s energy crisis on the lives of average Americans. His range was astounding, his prolificity legend: from the time his first story was acceptedby The New Yorker, in 1954, until weeks before his death, Updike lived, passionately, the life of the writer: he wrote, and wrote, and wrote.