Imagination and Idealism in John Updike's Fiction

Book excerpt: Frontcover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Hawthorne, Updike, and the Immoral Imagination -- 1: John Updike and the Existentialist Imagination -- Part I. The "Mythic Immensity" of the Parental Imagination -- 2: "Flight," "His Mother Inside Him," and "Ace in the Hole"--3: The Centaur -- 4: Of the Farm, "A Sandstone Farmhouse," and "The Cats"--Part II. Collective Hallucination in the Adulterous Society -- 5: "Man and Daughter in the Cold," "Giving Blood," "The Taste of Metal," and "Avec la Bébé-Sitter" -- 6: Marry Me -- 7: Couples and "The Hillies" -- Part III. Imaginative Lust in the Scarlet Letter Trilogy -- 8: "The Football Factory," "Toward Evening," "Incest," "Still Life," "Lifeguard," "Bech Swings?" and "Three Illuminations in the Life of an American Author" -- 9: A Month of Sundays -- 10: Roger's Version -- 11: S. -- Part IV. Female Power and the Female Imagination -- 12: "Marching through Boston," "The Stare," "Report of Health," "Living with a Wife," and "Slippage" -- 13: The Witches of Eastwick -- Part V. The Remembering Imagination -- 14: "In Football Season," "First Wives and Trolley Cars," "The Day of the Dying Rabbit," "Leaving Church Early," and "The Egg Race" -- 15: Memories of the Ford Administration -- 16: "The Dogwood Tree," "A Soft Spring Night in Shillington," and "On Being a Self Forever" -- Conclusion: Updike, Realism, and Postmodernism -- Bibliography -- Index -- Credits