Rabbit Reduxion – Looking back at Updike

In the wake of losing several authors of extreme significance this last year, David Foster Wallace, Studs Terkel, and now John Updike, a bevy of reflection floods in.  Search for David Foster Wallace on the Rumpus, and you’ll find a host of articles ranging from Elisa Bassist’s expansive review of Infinite Jest to Stephen Elliott’s unfinished notes on DFW.  David Foster Wallace inspired an emotional outpouring from readers everywhere.  The death of John Updike inspired similar, if not more tempered, outpourings, such as this nice collection of writers reflecting on Updike’s work.  Garth Risk Hallberg takes the opportunity to revisit Updike’s novels, in which he finds that Rabbit Redux is a great novelistic representation of the age of political terror, and that ultimately terror may be a sign that beauty is lurking around the corner.