2024 the best american short stories of the century john updike review
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“Marvelously moving . . . These tales evoke a certain peace and a definite wonder at what an astonishingly graceful writer Updike is.”—USA Today
To the hero of the title story of this collection, all of England has the glow of an afterlife: “A miraculous lacquer lay upon everything, beading each roadside twig . . . each reed of thatch, each tiny daisy trembling in the grass.” All of these stories, each in its own way, partake of this glow, as life beyond middle age is explored and found to have its own exquisite dearness. As death approaches, existence takes on, for some of Updike’s aging characters, a translucence, a magical fragility; vivid memory and casual misperception lend the mundane an antic texture, and the backward view, lengthening, acquires a certain grandeur. Here is a world where wonder stubbornly persists, and fresh beginnings almost outnumber losses.
ASIN : B002SVQD1Y
Publisher : Random House (October 14, 2009)
Publication date : October 14, 2009
Language : English
File size : 3481 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 338 pages
Page numbers source ISBN : 0449912019
Reviewer: N. E. Body
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Audio version read by Updike
Review: I got the audio book of this because I used to have it on cassette years ago and I love it. If you're a fan of the late John Updike, you have to hear these stories read by him.
Reviewer: D. A. Reynolds
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Only the printed editions are unabridged
Review: Note that you only get 5 of the 23 stories in the Audio edition.
Reviewer: dfjord
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: It's been almost ten years...
Review: It's been almost ten years since Updike died and I still mourn for him as if I lost a friend. It's weird. I've never felt that way about any other great writer or famous person.
Reviewer: 2theD
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Languid plots of humanistic nature
Review: A lengthy collection with wonderfully loquacious language and plots with lethargic unfolding, in Afterlife can be found a salt-of-the-earth kind of stories. Most of the stories revolve around middle-aged individuals, the experience of dealing with death, revisiting one's memories in its place of origin or just the seemingly simple act of falling in love. What makes the stories great is their humanistic nature but what kills the collection of that essential one extra star is the overused foci stated above. A few stories truly set themselves apart from the rest, but most are comfortably languid with their likeness.And this being my first introduction to the literature of Updike, I'm happy to have found a writer who challenges perspective, timelessness and even the genre of fiction itself. My horizons have been broadened.Afterlife - 4/5 - A somewhat near-death experience allows a man to enjoy some of the subtle things in life while on vacation in England. 17 pagesWildlife - 4/5 - A man revisits a rural town and enjoys the rustic charms it still maintains, including his son. 9 pagesBrother Grasshopper - 5/5 A gangly teen is befriended by stronger coed through college and through life, during which time they share vacations and experience memories which will last for longer than intended. 15 pagesConjunction - 5/5 - Revisiting a prior love of astronomy through life, a man finds an acquaintance amidst the conjunction of Venus and Mars, a synergy of passion and brevity. 8 pagesThe Journey to the Dead - 4/5 - A dying women needs the assistance from an old college friend, his pain exacerbated by his loneliness, juxtaposed by her own terminal illness. 20 pagesThe Man Who Became a Soprano - 4/5 - A small group of recorder players experiences the effect of long-term group dynamics, shoulder rubbing and idiosyncratic flaws. 17 pagesShort Easter - 4/5 A man experiences the subtle transition between life's autumn years and the dreary winter years to come. 11 pagesA Sandstone Farmhouse - 5/5 - A man revisits his home of his youth and deals with the fact of his late mother's death; an uncomfortable contrast to the women he remembers from his youth. 33 pagesThe Other Side of the Street - 5/5 - Revisiting the neighborhood of his youth, a man enjoys the intricate difference and similarities of the landscape, memories and people. 12 pagesTristan and Iseult - 5/5 - An inexplicable puppy love develops between a dentist's patient and the unwitting doctor. 6 pagesGeorge and Vivian: Aperto, Chiuso - 4/5 - Amidst the perfectly bucolic landscape of Italy, George and his 20-year junior wife experience a contrast of his openness to Italy's bounties and Vivian's myopic tendencies. 18 pagesGeorge and Vivian: Bluebeard in Ireland - 3/5 - A continually whiny Vivian drags her 20-year senior husband through panic attacks and lulls of apathy while driving and walking the majestic nothingness of Ireland's coast. 18 pagesFarrell's Caddie - 3/5 - A seemingly omniscient caddie instructs his player on how to run his game on the course and off the course. 10 pagesThe Rumor - 4/5 - Homosexual rumors of an art gallery owner spurs suppressed memories of prior male physique idolatry all the while assuring his wife it's all a rumor. 15 pagesFalling Asleep Up North - 4/5 - Loquaciously written but for all the right reasons, Updike reflects on the precarious, sometimes precipitous, barrier of wakefulness and the state of dreaming. 10 pagesThe Brown Chest - 3/5 - Childhood memories of an heirloom chest in the family's attic are brought back when a man's son comes to look at the furniture with his bride-to-be. 9 pagesThe Mother Inside Him - 4/5 - When approaching sixty years of age, a man becomes more and more like his mother at thirty years of age, filtering the bad from good. 8 pagesBaby's First Step - 5/5 - As refreshing as walking again after three months, there's nothing quite like getting the extra-marital zing back in your life for a man in the seemingly mundane Bureau of Weights and Measures. 8 pagesPlaying with Dynamite - 5/5 - An elderly man learns that often daily routines are merely rehearsals for death and he reflects upon how to live. 11 pagesThe Black Room - 3/5 - Revisiting a childhood home, a man and his mother reminisce about the house layout, changes to the neighborhood and what each room used to hold, physically and emotionally. 10 pagesCruise - 2/5 - In a fantasy curve ball thrown by Updike, a lecturer is seduced by the spirit of Calypso while aboard a Mediterranean cruise and island tour. 15 pagesGrandparenting - 4/5 - The divorced and separately remarried parents of a birthing mother are forced into a tepid game of taming the flame of reminiscence and keeping the relationship frosty at best. 18 pages
Reviewer: Dai-keag-ity
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Updike At His Most Sage
Review: This anthology was my introduction to a man who was one of my favorite authors back in the 1990's. The play on words in the title refers not to the literal afterlife of cosmology, but that period of human life when one is past a certain age, and all is done but one still lives, children raised, career finished, premature death no longer a possibility. The tales Updike tells work out like spokes from the hub of this theme. From a set of old married couples vacationing in England during a rare hurricane, to a twenty-something husband from Cincinnati whose wife informs him he is the victim of a mildly-funny but disturbing rumor that he is a homosexual, these stories are well-worth the few days it takes to read through them.
Reviewer: Anonymous
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Not sure
Review: I liked the way the author was able to get inside the psyche of multiple different characters in the chapters.
Reviewer: Michael
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Tired, Worn-Out
Review: If you don't like John Updike's books, The Afterlife is the one for you. Every doubt you have about his work, every aspect of his personality you don't care for, and every bit of his superior attitude you've always hated will be reinforced in spades.If you DO like Updike's work, this is also the book for you. It will force some recognition and reconciliation with his weaknesses both as writer and as man. That latter because, of course, his principal subject was always himself, so you are stuck with the psychology task along with the attempt to suspend your disbelief and read this as fiction.I have been an Updike fan even with some views on his limitations and his literary flaws. So I have read an awful lot of the books, most but not all. I couldn't get through the artist one that also came out late in his career, it was so un-vital in story-telling and character. Maybe because it wasn't directly about himself.These stories are the work of a tired-out, grumpy old man who is sick of the world and most of the people in it, even (occasionally) himself. It is a little shocking to do the arithmetic and see it came out when he was only 62. But the best days in his life were long gone, and maybe some of that was his own doing, he suggests once or twice. There are a few exceptions that show more of the younger Updike verve, including a couple of stories involving his mother.Read this one at your own risk. The author's bad moods can infect your own.
Reviewer: algo41
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Surprisingly readable
Review: Almost all stories have a male protagonist. Often there is also a 2nd wife. In a number of other stories there is his mother, either in person or in his thoughts after she has passed away. Like the protagonist, the character of the mother is relatively unvarying, though she was quite different as a younger person. Generally, the stories would be better if the last sentence were omitted, as they tend to be gimmicky; in the very first story a minor character reflects in the last sentence that seniors are less concerned about auto accidents because they have shorter remaining life spans; this sentence does not seem intended to flesh out character. There is one single story in which a child plays any role. Having said all this, the collection is surprisingly readable thanks to Updikeâs talents. In my favorite story a man, his ex-wife and her current husband are all visiting a hospital where his daughter is giving birth. As he interacts with his ex, and reflects back, you uniquely, in this collection, are given an appreciation of their original relationship.
Reviewer: æ°ããã太é
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
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Reviewer: Anthony Marinelli
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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Review: "The birds in the trees, the sunflower at the edge of the orchard,the clumsily pasted up valentine received years ago from a distant grandchild, all have a worth which might at any moment be called into account. It was a way of advertising that one's life was infinitely precious" so updike writes in the SANDSTONE FARMHOUSE. THese short stories complement the early short stories and the essays updke wrote on the james brothers henry and William as well as the scarlet letter and highlight the religious sensitivity of updike. The god consciousness of the writer is apparent on every page as he also writes some short stories on Hinduism and Jainism highlighting the worthiness of everything that exists and goes beyond Christendom. The worthiness of all people and all things is highlighted in this collection and the collection complements the essays updike wrote and which can be easily obtained detailing the various religious ideas which updike professed over the years and I encourage the reader to peruse the essays and early short fiction which show updike at his best.Updike has been accused of being a misogynist and that can be gleaned from the stories where the hero travels to a foreign country as in this collection with his 3rd or 4th wife and they are at each other's throats. The writing in these stories is not very good and shows that updike was not always at his best when detailing the interrelationships between men and women and sometimes the banter between men and women becomes unglued andcan never be happy with any women only with the absolute or is this what updike is getting at in these stories. The stories where the hero travels to Italy and Ireland are especially redolent of this aspect of misogyny and the stories suffer as a result but the collection as a whole is recommended as detailing the god consciousness of updike in his short stories and essays and reviews the novels also show these attributes.