Perennial Promises Kept

(10 of 10)
your place/ Before it gets too modest to be known." / am informed by the driver that our little engine difficulty has been cured and that we can now proceed up the hill to Mr. Updike's residence . . .

When Updike leaves his writing quarters, it is often to play golf, which he does as often as he can, scoring in the 80s on his best days. ("You know instantly how badly you're doing. It's not like writing or being a husband.") He and Martha go to movies about once a week, although he complains that films now "seem more and more to be pitched toward audiences of which I am not a member."

Social life includes some entertaining at home ("My wife is a good cook") and evenings out with friends in Boston, members of a literary set that includes Biographer Justin Kaplan and his wife, the novelist Anne Bernays. Throughout his career, Updike has chosen to live in snug corners, well away from the intrigues, gossip and power struggles that invariably ensue when the literati mingle.

He is proud of his work and enjoys recognition and praise as much as anyone, but in small doses that he can control: "I think what's most disturbing about success is that it's very hazardous to your health, as well as to your daily routine. Not only are there intrusions on your time, but there is a kind of corrosion of your own humility and sense of necessary workmanship. You get the idea that anything you do is in some way marvelous."

Here at last. And look, look quickly, behind that outcropping of rocks by the driveway. That tallish man, trying to hide. It's him. Isn't he marvelous? Why is he moving away from us? Look at how he runs. Ah: runs. Runs. —By Paul Gray.

Reported by Peter Stoler/Boston