John Updike, the cruel and compassionate god of the middle class

2020-02-28T00:18:13.807Z

The great American writer narrates in Marry Me, a 1977 novel that is now reissued in Spanish, the adultery of two characters whom he understands, forgives and condemns at the same time

A mystery how posterity will behave with John Updike (Reading, Pennsylvania, 1932 - Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, 2009), but the thing is not to bet in his favor. If he were alive, it is more than likely that many would try to display his white rhino head on its walls and walls. It did not happen, even though, in his last years of life, the ban on him had already opened. The political correctness accused him of almost anything, opting to refuse any new installment of his before destroying it, because his prestige and his competitive determination were still respected. Novels such as The Beauty of Lilies (1996), Gertrudis and Claudio (2000) or compilations of stories such as What is left to live (1994) proved worthy of that respect.

We are referring to one of the Himalayan peaks of the golden age of the American novel of the twentieth century together with Norman Mailer, Philip Roth or Saul Bellow. A piece of the sixties and seventies belongs to him if one considers that, in addition to these fellow travelers, Updike coincided with John Cheever, Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, Flannery O'Connor, Ralph Ellison or Joyce Carol Oates. He knew how to create between those black holes and supernovae a territory of his own, the North American white middle class that controlled alcohol better than adultery, with the red button of the contraceptive pill on the bedside table. Updike, who started wanting to be a graphic artist, fought and managed to be what he thought the American narrative of his time needed: a writer as great as he was popular. Something like Mickey Mouse, Elvis Presley or television. He drew the neighborhoods, residential houses, rooms, toilets and dormitories, divorces, disputes and armisticios, romance, sex and disloyalty of his fellow citizens in a way as ruthless as he was beautiful. I slashed the scalpel with a clean cut that exempted you from both the epic and the last sacraments. His books are narcissistic, and the elapsed time pushes his perfectionism, too many times, towards the snob, but his reading continues to reveal something prodigious. They seem to be books written by a god who understands without judging or intervening. It makes us see ourselves as small and ordinary beings, but not stupid or banal, running towards death, which we try to avoid anchoring in the eternity of the perfect moment at the price - children, ruin, deaths - whatever.

All this is in the rescue that Gatopardo Ediciones de Marry with me , a novel published in 1977 that in Spain would publish the extinct Noguer publishing house, with the same translator, but a different translation. In it, Updike returns back to his favorite territory: the marital problems of the American middle class, after his best seller, Couples (1968), and in the middle of his portentous series with the character of Harry Rabbit Angstrom (a tetralogy and a post mortem closing book by Harry, which will be what will keep reading Updike and here there are bets).

The action is located in 1962, in Greenwood, on the outskirts of Connecticut. Adult American dream: beaches, dinners, children, cocktails at sunset, war games of sexes, own and other people's bedrooms. Jerry and Sally begin an extramarital relationship that they want to lead to their respective divorces and a new wedding. They do not know that their respective partners are also having their own adventure. In five chapters, John Updike distributes game. The cards are marked and vary in value according to the conversations, the characters, the tempo given in the five parts in which the novel is divided. The guilt derived from the apparent possibility of choosing, the religious temple that adultery is tempted to destroy to erect a new, already pagan one, to the greater glory of not being dead in life. All this is in this novel, with the usual style, that third person who is nothing but a first cheater, and the impudent of a human look, deep, eschatological, as cruel as compassionate: understand, forgive and condemn at the same time.

In his career, Marry me is an artisan work, impeccable, yes, it works like a clock, but without capital breath. But that does not detract from anything in the case of Updike, because a little yours is almost too much for many others. And also, as in almost all his books, whether novels or stories, there is a scene that you will end up taking with you. Like, for example, the one in which Jerry and Sally, who have lived an idyllic day on some beaches by plane, a few hours that have reaffirmed their decision to break their respective marriages and be together, arrive at the airport to return Home and a storm suggests that the return flight will be delayed. That will lead to domestic reality, the dog until then tame and trained will bite their hands. The adulterous fantasy bubble explodes by a late airplane. Finally, the magician saves them to condemn them: they will fly in time, each other's alibis will work and the match ball is saved. But, nevertheless, the light has changed and they have seen, they have seen each other, and the same is no longer the same as always. His, last and last, is over. As in those looks of some Antonioni films that say it all and it is bitter and final.