(no subject)

[tree_and_leaf]

RIP John Updike. His books have never appealed much to me, I admit (in fact, embarassingly, I've just realised that I have spent years mixing him up with John Irving, who I don't find appealing either, though the fact that the only one of his I've read, A Prayer for Owen Meaney felt like a cheap knock off of Grass didn't help).

However, I do like Updike's (this definitely is him) Easter poem, which Bishop Alan has just reminded me of:


Seven Stanzas at Easter


Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.


The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.


Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.


The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.


And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.


Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.


... though I admit that I'm not convinced that it is of the substance of the faith that angels wear actual woven linen - I'd be rather surprised if they do, actually - but perhaps I'm just not enough of a Barthian ;)

Comments

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I began Couples years ago, but was bored by it. It seems to be the Rabbit sequence for which Updike is best known; and I have to untangle him from Irving too.

The poem is remarkable, whether or not one shares its faith (but the angel in woven linen might undermine it a little, as you say).

[tree_and_leaf]

The trouble is, I find adultery stories basically quite tedious, unless they're very well done. I am quite shocked to realise how little I know about American literature.

I am, as I say, fond of the poem - the form works, too - but I cannot think what possessed him with the angels stanza...

[azdak.livejournal.com]

A Prayer for Owen Meaney felt like a cheap knock of Grass

An hommage, darling. Irving said so himself. That's why his initials are O.M.

There was a time when I would have defended A Prayer for O.M tooth and nail against such accusations, but I have been so much turned off Irving by his later books that it's rather diminished the love for the earlier ones. But I still think that APfOM is an interesting exploration of the question "What would happen to you if you witnessed what was clearly and incontrovertibly a miracle?" Not up to The Tin Drum, but then the rest of Grass isn't up to The Tin Drum either.

[tree_and_leaf]

Perhaps I should give it another go. I take the point in theory, but...

As far as Grass goes, I must admit to a weakness for Das Treffen in Telgte, but that's probably just my inner History of Language geek coming out.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Life is too short to read books you don't enjoy, let alone re-read them ;-)

[tree_and_leaf]

Very true, though sometimes you do discover you've read books at the wrong time in your life...

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

I'm forced to admit that I've only read one book by Updike, and that was his Hamlet novel, Gertrude and Claudius. Admittedly it was long enough ago that I don't remember it very well, but I recall enjoying it.

[tree_and_leaf]

Well, anything Hamlet related has the potential to be fun, so perhaps I will give that a go.

[dameboudicca.livejournal.com]

in fact, embarassingly, I've just realised that I have spent years mixing him up with John Irving

Actually.... you are not alone. *runs and hides her red face*

[tree_and_leaf]

I'm glad it wasn't just me...

[maeve-rigan.livejournal.com]

You're not the only one (as you can already see). Thanks for the poem, though--it's also one of my favorites.

[tree_and_leaf]

It's a good poem - glad you enjoyed.

Bizarrely, I first encountered it in German (in a church magazine, IIRC). Needless to say, it's better in the original Klingon.