John Updike Has Left The Building

A man of words and culture has passed on. As a reader with a wide range, I haven't focused on his novels but was often entertained when I encountered his short stuff on golf, manners, and everyday life. I posted a short excerpt back in July which I will repost here in his honor and add a link to a thought provoking sort of short story from the New Yorker ... Worth a read if you like short fiction ...

His way of looking and writing about everyday life is a skill I admire and his often thoughtful critcisms of art and literature as well as his precise and wordy sense of humor are usually worth a read if you bump into them.

Here's the golf story ... click to enlarge it for better reading ...

And from yesterday's Times.... a more eloquent summary

Golf

Just so you know .... My life is not all woodworking and writing this blog. I read, a lot, actually, and mostly not about woodworking. And play tennis, and, this summer, play golf. Mostly I play with the previously mentioned Bill LaBerge at the local Lake Saint Catherine Country Club where we literally 'tear up the course' as often as not. Today is Bill's birthday and we plan to head out after lunch. Since I have previously loaned him Carl Hiiasen's 'Downhil Lie; A Hacker's return to a Ruinous Sport'. I thought a birthday golf post would be just the thing for him. It's from John Updike's 'Golf Dreams', quoted without permission, but with the intention of encouraging you to buy the book or get it from your local library where I got my copy. Golf writing, in the right hands, can be extremely entertaining; more so, at times, then the game.
Click on the entry below so you can read it ....