Updike and Cheever

[monk222]

Dick Cavett wrote a column about John Updike. It's a little funny to see the old guy take on the role of eulogist for all his friends passing away. The column was actually about both Updike and John Cheever. Cheever is one of those big names whose works I have managed to miss entirely somehow.

Cavett posted videos of an interview with both writers, and I was so enrapt watching them, as though trying to look at them as a model of what I aspire to be. Although I get a little giddy like a fangirl listening to them intellectualize over all things literary, it was a little depressing to see how far removed they are from anything I know or can be. And I wasn't even sure if I really wanted to be like these two old, very white, kinda gayish sounding men. But I do share their interest in the art of crafting an excellent sentence. In my case, it is to make reality more bite-size and to render it richer in meaning or humor, that one might get more out of life and be less overwhelmed by it.

And how silly I am to still be thinking in terms of what I want to be when I grow up!

Comments

Grown Up

[poovanna.livejournal.com]

And how silly I am to still be thinking in terms of what I want to be when I grow up!

``Grown up'' implies a certain finality. I do not like it sometimes. But what does it mean to be grown up?

I mean, sure, I have learned a few rules over the years (be polite but detached in office parties, do not laugh at jokes during a funeral etc.). But apart from a superficial change in behavior, I sometimes feel that I have not learned anything fundamental over the years.

I am still capable of doing idiotic things like:

• staying up until 2AM during weekends, debating random BS with my buddies;
• watching silly B-movies; and sometimes
• stupidly falling for somebody during the course of a conversation over coffee.

Somedays of the week, I wish I could become the ``strong, silent, grown-up type,'' but I can never keep it up.

Re: Grown Up

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm sure grown-ups can be gregarious and outgoing, and one gets to appreciate with the years that growing up is something you should do at least once sometime in your life, and I think women like that a lot, too. ;)

Re: Grown Up

[poovanna.livejournal.com]

Sheesh, but what is it?!

I cannot define what it means to be ``grown up.'' And I find others have trouble as well.

It kind of reminds me of another nebulous term that was bandied about when I was in school: ``the real world.'' I have been working for years now, and I still do not know what the hell it means or why they made such a big deal of it when I was back in school.

Re: Grown Up

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

As far as women are concerned, so long as you are bringing in the money and you are not cheating on them, I think that's grown up enough.

Re: Grown Up

[poovanna.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was looking at growing up from a more abstract point of view of change in perspective, wisdom etc. :-)

But yeah, you may be right about what pleases women; although I want to grow up for my own sake, than for someone else.