Terrorist by John Updike

Terrorist by John Updike


It is probably the worst of John Updike. "The terrorist" is his last novel, about the breeding of a muslim terrorist at the very core of american middle class. The idea is great, there is enough material in the media to support and fuel the theme, but the actual book lacks art. If we define Art as the human act of creating new objects to portrait human feelings, Updike hit water this time. Many clichés are tirelessly presented during the plot. The terrorist to be comes from a shattered home, raised by a single mother, nurse, and frustrated artist. A character that was created as a survivor of the 70´s crazy years. She can´t give any emotional education to his kid, being herself a soul in need of emotional male support. Her sexual adventures create in his son a rage, only finding relief in a strict system of rules and regulations, such as american projected Islamism. Not the real Islamism, but the perception that the american middle class has of it.
There´s also the jewish teacher (highly educated, frustrated, maritally unhappy) as the local heroe. Someone whose guilt leads to the obligation to save the boy from Alah´s tightening hands. A good man, unfairly taken into adultery by his vegetative wife. Herself a fat lady in her early fifties, who´ve seen better years as a wife and woman.
The whole terrorist plot hides itself at a furniture store, perhaps a joke about being inside every american home. Family business as a disguise for anti-american practices.
The boy stands at the center of this world, intelectually very gifted, having to fight his doubt about going to college (
becoming american), or assuming his position as an outcast and attending technical school. His dream of becoming a truck driver is nothing more than his reaction against the status quo. Predictible? To the hilt.
At the end, everything turns out to be only sort of a bad dream, and the world is saved by seconds, like in any James Bond movie.
Let´s stick with the Rabbit novels, just in case.

Philip Roth

He is probably the best American author alive. His books form a real corpus, since they carry an inherent cohesion, and some common pathos. His view of middle class America has many points in common with other Jewish-American authors like John Updike and Saul Bellow. However, he goes beyond common interpretations by giving us just the right amount of neurosis and mind deviations. His characters are never too normal. But nobody is, after all. But most of us are lucky enough to walk away without been noticed. At the secrecy of our rooms we are not guilty at all. Roth´s people are usually living in a state of relative innocence, given their inability to be empathic. The world revolves around their selfish emotions. Maybe Sabath is the best example. He´s amoral, and his acts are not judged by his own inner conscience. Even his mistress is a burden to him, and will bring him to very awkward situations. At the end of his life, though, his final acts give the reader a sensation of the conclusion of a work. A depraved work.

Harold Bloom

The western canon is biased, awkward, politically incorrect, arrogant, but mainly essential. One of the best books on Literature Criticism. Bloom is not a very sweet person, and never tryes to contemporize his opinions. His canon is based almost exclusively in English Literature, with some few glorious and obvious exceptions. He claims that is not bound to any party, clan, or Criticism School, and we may believe in it, based on the amount of ammunition he spends against his detractors, both real and imaginary. One of the real interesting points in his book is the criticism on aestetic analysis based on political grounds, such as what we see in Literature from "Minorities". Bloom´s basic criteria for the canon is literary originality, and the pleasure that one can savour from such readings. Sometimes bordering harshness, Bloom has the erudition, the expertise, and the strict criteria to justify his influence on the Literary community. 

Camille Paglia - Sexual Personae

Although completed in 1981, the manuscript of Sexual Personae was rejected several times by many editors. Finally accepted by Yale University Press in 1985, it became a major hit. Camille Paglia is certainly polemical, and none of her opinions swoops silently. Sexual Personae found a very interesting approach to Art History. It analyzes Art Movements and Art Periods through the never ending conflict of male and female world views. It may sound simple, but yet it can be very complex and rich. According to Paglia, men has always been more prolific in Art as an envious reaction to the female capacity to generate life. There is also a major dichotomy between chtonian and divine, mind and matter, creation and sterility, Apollo and Dionisius, sex and even better sex. The subtitle (Art and Decadence from Emily Dickinson to Nefertiti)tells about the time span of the book. From the creation of the western eye in Egypt (the first manifestation of aesthetic issues in the West)to the utmost sexual perversion of Emily Dickinson´s reclusion in Amherst. Everything "artsy" is sexual, and artistic pleasure is eminently a perversion. The Egyptians were the first to move from creating pots and pans to the creation of objects without practical uses, only for artistic contemplation and enjoyment. Every original artist is a sexual pervert in the sense that it takes sexual originality to create artistic originality. Mixing up Art Criticism, Art History, Psychoanalisis, Pornography, and Hollywood Culture is not only pervert, but also highly original and refined.