John Updike's Bech at Bay - A Review

"Mishner dead put another inch on his prick." This is from "Bech Noir," the fourth of the five short stories in Bech at Bay. This is the theme of both Bech at Bay and of Henry Bech's life: Eradication of anyone who criticizes Bech and glorification of Bech's prick. Lucas Mishner was a critic who panned one of Bech's books in 1963. In 1997 Bech reads of Mishner's death while sitting at the breakfast table with his 26-year-old lover, Robin, and gloats. Bech is like that: competitive and unforgiving. He's always been like that.

It's been a long time since John Updike's last Bech book. Sixteen years. Time passes. Henry Bech ages but he does not change. He is still the same self-absorbed, horny, and competitive man he always was.

In "Bech in Czech," Henry visits Czechoslovakia in 1986 where underground books are works of art and Bech is adored for his writing, except for The Chosen, which he considers his most ambitious effort and which his hosts claim is "too special" for translation and distribution in Czechoslovakia. "Too Jewish," is Bech's interpretation and in that moment he realizes that Europe with its beauty and mystery and past frightens him.

"Bech Presides" is an amusing account of Henry's stint as president of The Forty, a society of artists whose number slips further and further below the forty of its title. The main purpose of the two meetings a year of the society seems to be to find new members. Brilliantly amusing, "Bech Presides" gives the reader a glimpse of the possible reality of literary fame in the United States. At one point, Bech is reviewing the literary competition around him in the world and considers "the Johns" - Irving, Fowles, Hawkes, Barth, O'Hara, Hersey, Cheever, Updike "[s]uburbanites all living safely while art's inner city disintegrated."

"Bech Pleads Guilty" revisits 1972, where Bech is sued for calling a Hollywood agent an "arch-gouger." The writing in this story is paler, with less passion than the others in this book. "Bech Noir" compensates. It is full of passion. So affected by Mishner's death, Bech goes on a spree of killing other critics who have offended him.

All's well that ends well, and Bech at Bay ends with "Bech and the Bounty of Sweden," wherein Bech receives Nobel Prize. He has also fathered a daughter, Golda, by Robin.

One wonders if this is the last Bech book. Where else is there for Bech to go, what left for him to do?

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