Bech at Bay

Zusatztext “Wickedly funny . . . a joy to read . . . John Updike has given us a multitude of memorable characters! but none more lovable than the high-minded! mild-mannered! rather hapless writer Henry Bech.” —Chicago Tribune   “Witty! acute! and surprisingly affecting . . . Updike at his most interesting and engaging . . . Like the other books about Henry Bech! this is modest in size but generous with its rewards.”— The Washington Post Book World   “ Bech at Bay is brilliant.” —The New York Review of Books Informationen zum Autor John Updike Klappentext In this, the final volume in John Updike's mock-heroic trilogy about the Jewish American writer Henry Bech, our hero is older but scarcely wiser. Now in his seventies, he remains competitive, lecherous, and self-absorbed, lost in a brave new literary world where his books are hyped by Swiss-owned conglomerates, showcased in chain stores attached to espresso bars, and returned to warehouses three weeks after publication. In five chapters more startling and surreal than any that have come before, Bech presides over the American literary scene, enacts bloody revenge on his critics, and wins the world's most coveted writing prize. It's not easy being Henry Bech in the post-Gutenbergian world, but somebody has to do it, and he brings to the task his signature mixture of grit, spit, and ennui. Leseprobe        BECH HAD A NEW SIDEKICK. Her monicker was Robin. Rachel           "Robin" Teagarten. Twenty-six, post-Jewish, frizzy big hair, figure on the           short and solid side. She interfaced for him with an IBM PS/1 his           publisher had talked him into buying. She set up the defaults, rearranged           the icons, programmed the style formats, accessed the ANSI character           sets--Bech was a stickler for foreign accents. When he answered a letter,           she typed it for him from dictation. When he took a creative leap, she           deciphered his handwriting and turned it into digitized code. Neither           happened very often. Bech was of the Ernest Hemingway           save-your-juices school. To fill the time, he and Robin slept together. He           was seventy-four, but they worked with that. Seventy-four plus           twenty-six was one hundred; divided by two, that was fifty, the prime of           life. The energy of youth plus the wisdom of age. A team. A duo.               They were in his snug aerie on Crosby Street. He was reading the           Times at breakfast: caffeineless Folgers, calcium-reinforced D'Agostino           orange juice, poppy-seed bagel lightly toasted. The crumbs and poppy           seeds had scattered over the newspaper and into his lap but you don't           get something for nothing, not on this hard planer. Bech announced to           Robin, "Hey, Lucas Mishner is dead."               A creamy satisfaction--the finest quality, made extra easy to spread by           the toasty warmth--thickly covered his heart.               "Who's Lucas Mishner?" Robin asked. She was deep in the D           section--Business Day. She was a practical-minded broad with no           experience of culture prior to 1975.               "Once-powerful critic," Bech told her, biting off his phrases. "Late           Partisan Review school. Used to condescend to appear in the Trib           Book Review, when the Trib was still alive on this side of the Atlantic.           Despised my stuff. Called it `superficially energetic but lacking in the true           American fiber, the grit, the wrestle.' That's him talking, not me. The grit,           the wrestle. Sanctimonious bastard. When The Chosen came out in '63,           he wrote, `Strive and squirm as he will, Bech will never, never be           touched by the American sublime.' The simple, smug, ...

Product details

• Authors: John Updike
• Publisher: Random House USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.10.1999
• EAN: 9780449004043
• ISBN: 978-0-449-00404-3
• No. of pages: 241
• Dimensions: 127 mm x 197 mm x 13 mm
• Series: Quasi-Novels; Bech; Bech
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature