ERIC'S BIT or UPDIKE AND ME
It's been many years since I tried my hand at writing any sort of fiction except mysteries, but my reading remains eclectic as ever.
Even in my teens, when I gorged on science fiction and fantasy, I found time to read the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle, John Steinbeck, and John Updike. Not much of the latter, to be honest. The collection Pigeon Feathers defeated me immediately.
Decades later, no longer a teenager, I've been reading Updike again: his first novel, The Poorhouse Fair; Self-Consciousness: Memoirs; his early short stories set in a fictional town in Pennsylvania, the state I'm from. My reaction has been much more positive.
It may be his perfect descriptions of familiar landscapes that appeal to my sympathies and make me see similarities -- probably erroneously -- between the two of us, the bestselling author and the author who is...well, let's be kind...not bestselling. He describes the brown Pennsylvania countryside (and it is brown for much more of the year than it is green) of empty fields and weathered barns with the detailed exactitude of fellow Pennsylvanian Andrew Wyeth. I grew up with that stark and subdued image of my environment. My attempts at watercolor were all burnt umber and burnt sienna beneath skies awash in Payne's gray. Until I left home I insisted on somber clothes, dull earthen colors, gray, nothing brighter than dark blue. My tastes reflected my state of mind and perhaps too a subliminal desire to blend in with my surroundings, to avoid drawing attention.
I was shy, awkward, obsessed with books and writing, all characteristics I shared with the young Updike, to hear him tell it in his memoirs. Both our fathers taught school so we both knew the borderline poverty, as it seemed in that affluent era, that accompanied the teaching profession up until the late sixties. There is, in The Centaur, a chapter recounting a winter-morning drive that captures so perfectly the tribulations of navigating hilly, snow-covered Pennsylvania secondary highways in an old and unreliable vehicle, it might have been downloaded straight from my own brain. Presuming that my brain had actually stored the detailed memories
Updike's had.
Unfortunately I am no John Updike. Despite our similar disabilities he was writing for the New Yorker by his early twenties, whereas by my early twenties -- years later -- I was reading essays by his Talk of the Town predecessor E.B.White (who hired Updike) and writing a column for the local weekly newspaper.
After that the gap between Updike and me widened.
It did occur to me, as it must have to him, that a fine crop of writing could be grown in the compost of one's childhood. But inspired by the great New Yorker essayists, I used that material for essays of the kind you see here in the Orphan Scrivener. Had I possessed Updike's talent and insight I might have transmuted my experiences into fiction instead.
What irks me about my teenaged obtuseness is that it deprived me of following Updike's output, year by year, story by story, book by book. He's gone now and his oeuvre is finished. There will be nothing new to look forward to or be surprised (or disappointed) by.
I haven't reached his mid-sixties writing yet, when his settings and themes took a major turn. Maybe I will continue on with my reading or maybe I will just leave him back when we were both young.
AND FINALLY
Bertrand Russell advised people not to feel certain of anything. One thing we may be certain about, however, is there won't be much revelry on April 15th. For it's not only Income Tax Return Day in the US but also Return of Orphan Scrivener Day, when the next issue will swoop in at lamplighter speed to darken your email in-box.
See you then!
Mary R and Eric
who invite you to visit their home page, to be found hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the Web at http://home.earthlink.net/~maywrite/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, our bibliography, the Doom Cat interactive game written by Eric, and our growing libraries of links to free e-texts of classic and Golden Age mysteries, ghost stories, and tales of the supernatural. There's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Intrepid subscribers may also wish to visit Eric's blog at http://www.journalscape.com/ericmayer/ or perhaps pop over to our shadow identity M. E. Mayer's blog (largely devoted to reviews of Golden Age mysteries) at http://memayer.blogspot.com/ And just for the heck of it, we'll also mention our noms des Twitter are @marymaywrite and @groggytales Drop in some time!
