John Updike (3/18/1932-1/27/2009), RIP. When he came to Duke University ca. 1988, I was working in Perkins Library as a library assistant, Public Documents and Maps Division. Walked over to the Bryan Center, asked him to sign Trust Me (1987) and a couple other of his books in front of the Gothic Bookstore, and shook his hand. He looked exactly as he does in all the photos, acting with courtesy and a faint halo of the bizarre.
Had seen a number of other interesting characters while working at Duke, too, all of whom had written books: Stanley Fish, Frank Lentricchia, Wallace Fowlie, Robert Dole, George McGovern (a very tall man), Tedd Ropp, Dale Randall spring to mind.
I was thinking about John Updike's Rabbit, Run (1960) the other day while watching Bart Freundlich's World Traveler (2001), starring Billy Crudup, Julianne Moore and David Keith. The movie received mixed reviews when it came out, but seems a lot more poignant now, post 9/11 -- especially the beautiful shots of Manhattan from above. World Traveler is like a cross between Rabbit, Run and the Steve Earle song, "The Week of Living Dangerously (1987)."*
*(Well it was well after dark so I knew my wife and kids were waitin'
And I guess I took a left where I generally take a right
Well I filled her up with gas, checked the oil at the Texaco station
I threw the car seat in the dumpster and headed off into the night . . .)
Either Billy Crudup's character is running away from his young family, or he's running toward something else entirely. An architect in Manhattan, he blows out of town in a Volvo wagon -- a nice quirky touch. During his plausible adventures, he hooks up with the Julianne Moore character. Moore is really interesting and has a memorably different look, with dark hair and a crazy disposition. As for Crudup, he's good at smirking and quietly causing trouble, more irritating when he whines about his father. But hell, he's a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and it's as if he's raiding nearby Duke for entirely personal reasons. And Juliane Moore, originally of Fayetteville, North Carolina? She married Freundlich, the director, in 2003. Let's not forget her turn as Maude Lebowski in The Big Lebwoski (1998).
Today's Rune: Fertility.
4 comments:
*sigh* I am beginning to find more memorable people in the obituaries than the news. Getting older is hell!
At least I won't have to read my own obit...See ya' on the other side J.U.
I actually am not a big fan of Updike's stories, but I do admire the way he uses language.
I've always had a fondness for Julianne Moore and I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's a sense of honesty coming from her facial expressions.
RIP JU.
i have a signed book of updike's - signed plems
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