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Title: Seek My Face by John Updike ISBN: 0-375-41490-8 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 12 November, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.1 (10 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: 101, but in narrative comp or art history?
Comment: John Updike's "Seek My Face" is best thought of as an idealized oral history of America's post-WW II emergence as an aesthetic powerhouse in art world. Here, the primary narrative device is a single day's interview between the now elderly Hope, widow of several famous American artists, and the thirty-something Kathryn, working for her on-line magazine. As the day wears on -- and it does drag somewhat -- and the interior monologues unfold, both women become somewhat neurotically hip voices of their respective generations. Likewise, both come to signify what's changed -- and what has not -- regarding the woman's role in contemporary society.
Hope's narrative musings are their most coherent and informative as the author takes his cues from Lee Miller's actual marriage to Jackson Pollock, rather than with the elements detailing her subsequent marriages. There Updike develops an amalgam of the "uber-modern American artist" by adding dollops of Warhol, Lichtenstein, Thiebaud, etc. together. While this may create a useful survey of the period, the collage nature does not create sharp, compelling characterizations.
The more knowledge of art theory and history one brings to this novel, the greater the reward. It might have been a better read had Updike stayed only with the now-mythic Pollack and his muscular "push-pull" of the elements of composition and media that emerged before he achieved his own self-destruction. The post-Pollack elements are murky in comparison, somewhat like a kindergartener's overworked finger-painting. If only someone had yanked the page away just twenty seconds before.
Rating: 5
Summary: Immediacy vs. Immortality
Comment: The novel explores the contradiction implicit in artists, forced to live and act in the present, trying to create works that transcend time. This theme is returned to repeatedly. The protagonist is 'Hope,' a female painter who's first husband, Zack, pursues pure art in the passion of the present and achieves a place of permanence in the art world. Her second husband, more calculating and commercial, rolls up and down the hills of fame as his work becomes more or less relevant in the ensuing years. Her third husband, a businessman who personifies long-term planning, collects art but creates none himself; his contribution is fathering their children and nurturing her. Thus each husband makes a long-term contribution to the art world in proportion to their focus on the immediate: an irony not lost on the narrator--an artist herself.
Reflecting this dichotomy, the book's written to take place in one day yet covers subject matter from several decades. Mr. Updike writes in that conversational, New Yorker style, yet with much longer sentences than a magazine would allow. The book has no chapters, which sustains the experience of living through one, continuous day. The result is casual prose of thoughts weaving in and out of the present, dipping into past events of interest and re-examining them in today's light.
The writing sparkles with experience of finding meaning in the seeming inconsequences of daily life. Only Updike can make the description of a comfortable chair or plate-glass window breath-taking and thought-provoking. The characters are well fleshed-out, and the relationships and emotional landscape have the complex and irrational stamp of reality. The settings bring you into the art world--both urban and rural--so that you taste the energy and desperation of creative angst.
Although shocked by the unnecessarily vivid sex scenes in this novel, I strongly recommend it for those who enjoy reading literature that primarily reflects on life, relationships, our struggle with mortality and our desire to transcend it. I assume the author chose the name 'Hope' for the main character to underscore her pivotal importance is guiding these tender, unstable personalities towards greatness. Indeed she outlives all her lovers--at least mentally--and can report on which ones succeeded or failed at various turns.
She is a successful, late-career artist who's work has opened a new door for art and, as readers, we suspect that her success was assured. She's a born, true artist; and that's probably why these legendary artists needed her as a soulmate. Hope became their external compass, rewarded or thwarted them as needed, and moved on when they were spent.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Face Worth Seeking
Comment: If you ever wondered what it would have been like to be married to Jackson Pollack and Andy Warhol during the 50's and 60's, all the while trying to raise three children and having an artistic career of your own as a woman in a male dominated art world, well, this book will let you know.
Through multiple layers of dialogue and memories, John Updike unfolds this novel much like the creation of a painting. The masterful strokes of literal paint takes you on a journey through mid twentieth century art history - the beginnings of Modern Art.
The most surprising aspect to this journey is that it takes place in only one day, all within the dialogue between two people in the form of an interview. This is a deeply personal story, full of vibrant life. The dialogue between the main characters, Kathryn and Hope is rich and complex. What unfolds during the interview is the life of a 78-year-old artist looking back on her life, remembering her myriad relationships and how each relationship is a reference point to important moments in modern art history.
As Hope looks back on her life, layers of time unfold the search for real art, real expression and real love coming up against the hard reality of life. Birth, death, fame, money, friendship, infidelity, humility and sacrifice are topics explored in the story of a wife and her husbands, a mother and her daughter, an interviewer and her subject. This is a story glorifying the full circle of life, a life worth living in a book very worth reading.
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Title: The Early Stories : 1953-1975 by John Updike ISBN: 1400040728 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Toward the End of Time by John Updike ISBN: 0449000419 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 25 August, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Poorhouse Fair by John Updike ISBN: 0449212130 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 12 May, 1986 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Self-Consciousness by John Updike ISBN: 044921821X Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 28 May, 1990 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Seven Sisters by Margaret Drabble ISBN: 0156028751 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 13 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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