John Updike: Man with the mighty pen

Pennsylvania, February 1: Jan. 27, 2009 will be remembered as the date of demise of a writer, bard, novelist, columnist and critic - John Hoyer Updike. Picture: Get original file (7KB) Full Article: The 76 year old, a scholarly raconteur of sex and divorce, died of lung cancer. The American icon shall be long remembered for his vigilant and meticulous craftsmanship and his decidedly stylistic writing. Born in Reading, Pennsylvania on March 18, 1932, John has, to his credit, more than twenty-five novels and more than a dozen short story collections. The brilliant man used the power of words to the best possible extent. He was a phenomenal reader, and kept in touch with the world by way of his essays and reviews which were liberal and well thought-out. His 2005 essay "This I Believe" read, "I seem most instinctively to believe in the human value of creative writing, whether in the form of verse or fiction, as a mode of truth-telling, self-expression and homage to the twin miracles of creation and consciousness." The master of fiction, John won the National Book Award in 1964 for his novel The Centaur. The novel revolves around a school teacher down in the dumps and his fretful son in countryside Pennsylvania. His rabbit series; ‘Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered’ have been smashing hits. The series follow a character ‘Rabbit’ and chronicle his rise and fall from stardom, a disturbed wedding, infidelity and kids. ‘Rabbit is Rich’ won him the Pulitzer in 1982, while ‘Rabbit at Rest’ fetched him a Pulitzer in 1991. John, who has umpteen bestsellers to his credit, claimed that he read his first novel when he was 15. Thereafter, there was no looking back. At 22, he published his first short story, ‘Friends from Philadelphia,’ in The New Yorker and five years down the line, rolled out his first novel, ‘The Poorhouse Fair.’