Goodbye, John Updike

I'm a day late on this, but that just gives me better places to link to. John Updike died yesterday, and the New York Times has a lengthy obit as well as an appraisal by Michiko Kakutani. The New Yorker has a collection of remembrances from writers such as E. L. Doctorow, Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Lethem, T. Coraghessan Boyle, and even John Cheever. You can also search through their archives for Updike's contributions to the magazine. Click through, and you'll get the ten most recent of 846 results. Dig deep enough, and you'll find something dear to the heart of this blogger (and maybe one or two readers): his appreciation of Ted Williams upon the Splendid Splinter's retirement.

Also, via The Beat, we can see comics historian Jeet Heer's plea for a collection of Updike's writing (and off-hand comments) about comics.

Thankfully, John Updike left an awful lot of writing behind him. Although you might not know it from the comments I've offered here, he was best known as a novelist. Go explore his work if you haven't already.