RUDIMENTS 1161.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,161

(that train kept a'rolling, zelda)

Shovels to Ipswitch? I had

always known something

about place. John Updike

lived there, until his death,

Ipswitch; the one here, in

the USA. Massachusetts. He

was actually born in Reading,

PA, and grew up, tenderly,

in Shillington PA, where

they've kept the little white

house well preserved and

marked. I don't know how

large of a 'tourist' attraction

it is, but it probably is, a

little. He wrote an early

book, called 'Of The Farm.'

I vaguely recall it, something

about his Father, a failing

farm, that father as a country

school-teacher of some sort,

and an early model, speeding

car. Another one was titled,

'The Poorhouse Fair.' It's

pretty much a descriptive

title for exactly what the

tale is about. Both are now

considered 'early' work, and

the preponderance of the

reputation he's left with

comes from his later works,

of which there were many;

considered some, even as

risque, sexy, and very 'modern'

in a way that only the 1960's

and 1970's could put across

as 'modern.' Something of,

or akin to, the 'Loud Family'

TV series that was once on.

-

I never stayed with it all. The

Rabbit Angstrom books came

later, and established greatly

his curious fame - a sort of,

but very short-reached, novelist

of the USA of its day. I don't

want to call it 'fluff,' but it

did always seem to lack the,

say, 'Gravitas' of serious

fiction. In the same way that

'sex on the run' lacks, as a

quickie, the depth of serious

and slow lovemaking. Or in

the same way that a Honda is

not a Harley. These sorts of

books, after the Rabbit series,

('Rabbit Run'; 'Rabbit Redux';

'Rabbit Is Rich'), went from

pleasant home scenes of

wealthy, situated families,

through adulteries, cheating,

detailed and precise sex scenes,

characters on the edge, and

any of those complex and

twisted ways that suburban

and wealth-driven Americans

have of finding their own

anxieties, angsts (Note thusly

the name of Updike's most

defining character, Rabbit

ANGSTROM), and disreputable

causes and complacencies. I

will say, facetiously, that for

anyone seeking the most

graphic descriptions of nipples,

breasts, vaginas, intercourse,

and orgasms, anything, for

instance, from the book titled

'The Maples' would suffice.

And others too.

-

All through the '60's and '70's

and '80's this sort of stuff

sufficed, to be seen as a soft

American, literary, pornography.

Certainly, it was, but it was NOT

in any way literature based on

the historic Euro-body of deep

and legacy-based writing. No

deep philosophy, no discursive

rambles onto side studies, issues,

or diversions. In that way, it

all was lightweight. Not in any

way discursive; and any adventure,

within the story line, never strayed

from the story line - in some

rigid idea of advancing only the

constructed plot, and cast, of

imagined characters. At the

same time, at any point Updike

was apt to ramble off into deep

discussions of coitus, sweat,

physicality, semen, coming,

moaning, resting and the

post-coital twisting and

turnings of reverie imagined.

John Updike never received

any of the big literary prizes,

and, hell, even Bob Dylan

and Peter Handke beat him

to that horse-trough of honor,

the Nobel Prize for Literature,

as diminished now as it might

be. (Those people are obviously

either very confused these days,

or on some sort of hallucinogenic,

literary drug). Suburban reveries

over cheating sex and adultery

only go so far. Perhaps, in an

oddly American way, that has

always been the tight basis of

the twisted society: Seeing what

one could 'fit it' to the appointed

crevice, so to speak, and then

writing about it - all these half

drunk and jealous cocktail party

jerks disrobing. Giving an entire

and new meaning to the 1960's

craze for 'the twist.' I love your

flip-top lids!

-

I forget when Updike died, maybe

about 2009, in his 70's, I think.

It was that period of time (years)

when I daily rode the Metuchen

to Princeton train. I also (dammit

all) forget the name of the guy I

used to ride with; it was a simple

name, and one that sounded like

something else, like an everyday

product, though I can't remember

it or find it. He was a research

scholar writing a book on Zelda

Fitzgerald. John Updike's dying,

which happened in the middle of

all this, struck him as (for some

reason) a major, American, literary

loss. 'We lost him way too soon,' he

said. I went along while he swooned

over the lost literary lion. The funny

this, as well, was that, among the

titles authored by Updike, was

one called 'Buchanan Dying.' It

was about the romantic life, and

the pining notions of President

Buchanan - some girl in the

hometown her could never get.

Updike dying. Buchanan dying.

It seemed a fitting title, and was

one Updike book I really liked.

Buchanan was the 'pre' Civil War

president - the one who turned

it all over to Lincoln in 1860, whose

dithering inaction, Buchanan's,

allowed the growth of the issues

which became the Civil War to

fester, grow, and break out.

-

This author guy was researching

Zelda, daily, for months on end,

by going through all her papers,

as they were stored and arranged

in the Princeton University collection,

and archived for use by writers and

researchers. He was coming in from

NYC daily. His point was that her

bizarre breakout of insanity and

perplexing behavior had to do

with a conditional abuse too, by

her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald,

but more importantly, he claimed

- and he claimed the back-up

evidences and testimonies to show

it - the series of abortions and a

hysterectomy which were imposed

on her (in those days a woman's

'hysteria' was thought to be sexual

weirdness; thus 'eliminating' the

source of that problem was seen

to also 'solve' it). It didn't work.

Her crazed promiscuity, and her

own failed writerly efforts (a book or

two of her own that went nowhere),

drove the wild southern girl crazy.

Instead of being 'treated' and listened

to, she was stuffed away into a series

of nut-houses and sanitariums, which,

somewhere down south in Georgia

or close, she died in a fire which

also burnt down the sanitarium.

-

Man oh man, thought I, how fitting

was any of this! Fitzgerald; Updike;

Zelda: [even 'The Life and Loves of

Dobie Gillis,' an old TV show, whose

main, female character was, fittingly,

'Zelda.']. That train kept a'rolling,

day after day.