Wednesday, January 28, 2009

John Updike


John Updike, one the most acclaimed American novelists of the 20th century died yesterday at the age of 76. Updike was a fascinating man. He was a lifelong church member. Having grown up Lutheran, he later became an Episcopalian. It seems to me that Updike was a pretty good embodiment of a Christian engaged in the arts. Most his novels dealt with matters of faith and Christian orthodoxy. What kept many Christians from embracing him was the fact that he wrote very frankly about sex. Nevertheless, when Updike was good, he was great. His Rabbit novels are appropriately considered classics. I also highly recommend "In The Beauty of The Lillies" which is one of my favorite novels.


Check out this excellent article on John Updike and religion.

2 comments:

Somebody said...

Great comments, Todd. FWIW, my Arts+Faith site has a discussion of Updike here.

Todd Pruitt said...

Alan,

I really like the Arts&Faith site. I don't think I've seen that site before. Good stuff.