John Updike ("Watership Down" author) passes away @ 76

[Saddle Bronc 124]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7854554.stm

US novelist Updike dies of cancer

Updike chronicled the passions and anxieties of his age

Renowned US novelist John Updike has died at the age of 76, his publisher has announced. He had been suffering from lung cancer.

Updike won many top literary prizes, including Pulitzers for two volumes of his famous Rabbit series.

In about 50 books over half-a-century, he chronicled sex, divorce and other aspects of life in post-war America.

He once told an interviewer that his subject was "the American small town, Protestant middle class".

Prominent Updike Novels

• Rabbit, Run, 1960
• Couples, 1968
• Rabbit Redux, 1971
• The Witches of Eastwick, 1984
• Memories of the Ford Administration, 1992

The son of a schoolmaster, Updike was born in Pennsylvania in 1932 and, after attending Harvard, spent a year as an art student in Oxford in the UK.

Later he joined the staff of the New Yorker magazine, to which he contributed numerous poems, essays and short stories.

Updike's first novel, The Poorhouse Fair, was published in 1959. The following year, though, saw the publication of the book which established him as one of the greatest novelists of his age, Rabbit, Run.

It marked the debut of his most enduring character, Harold "Rabbit" Angstrom.

In the following decades he would write sequels, including Rabbit Redux, Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest, charting the course of a man's life - his job, marriage, affairs, minor triumphs and death.

The death was announced by publisher Alfred A Knopf.

"He was one of our greatest writers and he will be sorely missed," Knopf publicity director Nicholas Latimer said.

RIP Pipkin (, Fiver, Bigwig, ...)

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Watership Down?

I thought that was Richard Adams...

[Peikko 1,575]

Indeed. I think he saw the word 'rabbit' as in Rabbit, Run and a false connection was created. I can't remember ever reading Updike...

Witches of Eastwick I saw the film version with the redoubtable Jack Nicholson.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Indeed. I think he saw the word 'rabbit' as in Rabbit, Run and a false connection was created. I can't remember ever reading Updike...

Not exactly--the more simplistic "I confoozled the two authors"

Witches of Eastwick I saw the film version with the redoubtable Jack Nicholson.

The film's one negative point, IMO, was in featuring Cher as one of the eponymous trio (Pfeiffer and Sarandon were excellent choices).

[Peikko 1,575]

Oh well. Still, Updike was an important author and his passing is worthy of note.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

[Jasman0717 9]

RIP I read that book to my daughter when she was little

Watership Down?

I thought that was Richard Adams...

You are right

[Kathryn41 3,205]

A good author. I've read a number of his books. He will be missed. (I actually thought he was older than 76, though).

[one...two...tree 2,762]

A good author. I've read a number of his books. He will be missed. (I actually thought he was older than 76, though).

I read his short story, 'A & P' back in college. A great story.

[Nagishkaw 510]