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John Updike

ジョン・ホイヤー・アップダイク

John Hoyer Updike

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1932-03-18 （Reading, Pennsylvania, U.S.）
Died
2009-01-27 （Danvers, Massachusetts, U.S.） age 76
Nationality
United States
Languages
English
Religion
Christianity
Residence History
Shillington, Pennsylvania (childhood) → Plowville, Pennsylvania → New York City (early career) → Ipswich / Beverly Farms, Massachusetts (long-term residence)

Career

Occupations
novelist, short-story writer, poet, literary critic, art critic
Active Years
1954-2009
Influenced By
Marcel Proust, Vladimir Nabokov, J. D. Salinger, John Cheever, Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth
Influenced
Richard Ford, Ann Beattie, Colson Whitehead, Various contemporary American fiction writers

Education

Harvard University
Department of English
Degree: BA (summa cum laude)
Period: 1950–1954
Year of Graduation: 1954
Country: United States
Served as president of The Harvard Lampoon
Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford
Art
Period: 1954–1955
Country: United Kingdom
Attended with the ambition of becoming a cartoonist

Awards

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
1982
Work: Rabbit Is Rich
Organization: Columbia University / Pulitzer Prize
Result: 受賞
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
1991
Work: Rabbit at Rest
Organization: Columbia University / Pulitzer Prize
Result: 受賞
National Book Award for Fiction
1964
Work: The Centaur
Organization: National Book Foundation
Result: 受賞
National Book Award for Fiction
1982
Work: Rabbit Is Rich
Category: hardcover
Organization: National Book Foundation
Result: 受賞
National Medal of Arts
1989
Organization: National Endowment for the Arts / National Medal of Arts
Result: 受賞
National Humanities Medal
2003
Organization: National Endowment for the Humanities
Result: 受賞
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
2004
Work: The Early Stories: 1953–1975
Organization: PEN/Faulkner Foundation
Result: 受賞
Rea Award for the Short Story
2006
Organization: Rea Award
Result: 受賞
Man Booker International Prize
2005
Organization: Man Group / Booker Prize Foundation
Result: ノミネート

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Rabbit, Run

1960 Literary realism (novel) 243 pages

Follows Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom's flight from his domestic life and responsibilities, depicting suburban middle-class America and moral conflict.

religionadulterymiddle-class life
Translations
  • Rabbit, Run (Japanese translation)

Rabbit Redux

1971 Novel 322 pages

Set against the social changes of the 1960s, it portrays Rabbit's midlife crisis and tensions with those around him.

social changefamilysexuality

Rabbit Is Rich

1981 Novel 402 pages

Covers Rabbit's later middle age, exploring success, desire, family tensions and religious questions. Winner of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize.

prosperity and decaytheological questionsAmerican affluence

Rabbit at Rest

1990 Novel 517 pages

Final novel in the Rabbit series dealing with mortality, faith and family; winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize.

deathregretfaith

The Centaur

1963 Novel with mythic allegory 256 pages

Links classical myth to small-town America to explore father–son relationships and human suffering. Winner of the National Book Award.

father and sonmyth vs. realitymortality

The Witches of Eastwick

1984 Satirical fantasy novel 370 pages

A humorous and satirical tale of three women in a Rhode Island town and supernatural happenings. Adapted into a film.

witchcraftfemale charactershumor and satire
Adaptations
  • [Film] The Witches of Eastwick (film) / George Miller (1987)

Bibliography

  • Rabbit, Run (1960)
  • The Centaur (1963)
  • Of the Farm (1965)
  • Couples (1968)
  • Rabbit Redux (1971)
  • Rabbit Is Rich (1981)
  • Rabbit at Rest (1990)
  • The Witches of Eastwick (1984)
  • The Early Stories: 1953–1975 (2003)
  • Collected Poems: 1953–1993 (1993)

Adaptations

  • The Witches of Eastwick (film adaptation)
  • Too Far to Go (TV movie, from the Maples stories)

Translations of Works

  • Rabbit, Run (Japanese translation)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
rich vocabulary and precise descriptiondetail-oriented realismfree indirect discourse and skillful shifts of perspective
Recurring Motifs
religion and faithsex and adulterysuburban American middle classdeath and aging

Health

  • lung cancer
    2008–2009
    Died in hospice in 2009 after battling lung cancer

Legacy

A leading chronicler of American middle-class life, multiple major-award winner whose papers are archived at Harvard's Houghton Library; the John Updike Society and ongoing scholarship preserve and promote his work.

Museums

  • John Updike Childhood Home (memorial site) Shillington, Pennsylvania, U.S.

Academic Societies

  • John Updike Society

Archives

  • Houghton Library, Harvard University (John Updike Archive)

In Popular Culture

  • Featured on Time magazine cover (1968, 1982)
  • Cameo as himself on The Simpsons (2000)
  • The protagonist's nickname "Rabbit" in the film 8 Mile has been associated with Rabbit Angstrom
  • Portrayed in the TV series Julia (2022–2023)

Quotes

  • I aim to give the mundane its beautiful due.
    Source: Introduction to The Early Stories; various interviews (2004)
  • All in all this is the happiest fucking country the world has ever seen.
    Source: Rabbit at Rest (line from the novel) (1990)

Trivia

  • One of only a few writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice.
  • Published extensively in The New Yorker from 1954 onward.
  • The Witches of Eastwick was adapted into a film (1987).
  • Papers and manuscripts are held at Harvard University's Houghton Library (John Updike Archive).