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Updike and Religion, Dickey's Letters

© Robert Powers

John Updike, whose 50th book was published a few months ago, always has been one of those triple-threat writers. Across his long career, the native of Shillington, Pa. has published novels, essays or reviews, and poetry. To those writers who have trouble getting publishing in one genre, the fact that Updike has published so much, and to almost unerring acclaim is nearly enough to make the ordinary scribbler snap all his pencils and apply for a job at McDonald's.

Although Updike has dealt with sexuality in a frankness that caused whispers and head-shaking, the average reader may not have thought about how faith and religion have played an often dominant role in his writing, especially his fiction.

My friend James Yerkes is the editor of a wonderful collection of essays dealing with the topic of faith in a delightfully down-to-earth manner. John Updike and Religion: The Sense of the Sacred and the Motions of Grace (Eerdmans, $24). That longwinded title may scare away Updike admirers who fear wading in the dark waters of academic posturing. They need not worry, for the book is a relatively breezy read, with only a semi-occasional wandering into verbosity. For instance, Yerkes (who teaches religion at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa.) writes about Updike in the light of having watched and enjoyed the Jack Nicholson film, As Good As It Gets. Nothing stuffy here.

James A. Schiff writes that for Updike, "God permeates every aspect of human life so that his presence is felt in and around households. Updike doesn't state his beliefs in so many words, preferring--as most artists--to "suggest that the possibility of there being something greater beneath the physical surface." As Updike wrote in Assorted Prose, "Blankness is not emptiness; we may skate upon an intense radiance we do not see because we see nothing else."

Schiff sees God presence in Updike's writing, although "beneath the surface, pushing through, as well as above the world, providing light and hope." Schiff sees such an ambiguity as clearly attesting "to the artist's artistic achievement since God, in life and in fiction, is never easily or clearly found."

If you share an enthusiasm for Updike, be sure to check out editor Yerkes' excellent Web page called "The Centaurian" devoted to Updike. The URL is www.users.fast.net/~joyerkes.

WORDY JAMES DICKEY

James Dickey became famous by being the author of Deliverance, that terrifying account of a visit into the woods gone horrendously awry. The film revived the wavering career of thespian Burt Reynolds.

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