John Dugdale
Too Old To Rebel
The Early Stories 1953-1975
By John Updike
Hamish Hamilton 838pp £25
CONTAINING 103 STORIES, this gigantic collection runs from the tranquillised 1950s to the hectic 1970s, beginning with prepubescent boys nursing crushes on classmates and ending with divorcees adrift in their forties. With the pieces organised so that their heroes become steadily older, rather than in order of composition, the volume traces the seven ages of Updikean man in mid-life (school, college, early marriage, children, adultery, divorce, second bachelorhood), with a final miscellaneous section including more playful offerings.
As Updike writes in his introduction, he and his white, well-off, north-eastern characters belong to a Depression-born generation who were too young to fight in the 1940s and too old to rebel in the 1960s; who were 'pleased by the relaxation of the old sexual morality, without suffering much of
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk