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The great shame must be that he never got a Nobel Prize. I guess his books had too much oddly descriptive, but wryly observed rumpty tumpty for the committee's liking. Which is ironic given the Scandinavian stereotype. This from his "Couples": Sex is like money; only too much is enough.

But he did receive Britain's Bad Sex in Fiction lifetime achievement award from the editors of the Literary Review magazine in November 2008 for "crude, tasteless or ridiculous sexual passages in modern literature."

He wasn't a bad poet either

Candace, I think he would have been quietly smirking with the description of his lurv scenes as [the most] "crude, tasteless or ridiculous sexual passages in modern literature". I wouldn't bet against the idea that that was the reason why he wrote them like that..

I have nothing in common with the characters of world of the Rabbit novels, but Updike has created this character- Harry Angstrom- who i cannot hate. He is flawed and selfish and a pig at times, but i still love him and that is down to Updike's genius. The final pages of Rabbit At Rest broke my heart and he will be with me forever. I would recomend reading Rabbit, Run to EVERYONE. seriously, go and read it.

Gore Vidal was scornful of Updike.

I read Couples many years ago, and I am sure his sentences are marvellous. The problem is that suburban couples do not interest me. However well a writer writes, if the characters are not of interest...

He was an author's author, I suggest, in that, outside a certain social circle of high academics and publishers and outside a certain time, say, 60s and the 70s, his work cannot be truly read simply for enjoyment. For all his finesse and his output, his style is so dry and his subjects so water-coloured, that his books have dated quite quickly. I fear that now he is dead, his status is likely to recede as quickly and dramatically as that other dean of East Coast WASPishness, Peter De Vries. To those who say 'who?' I reply, 'exactly'.

Updike was the dullest pornographer ever. He made sex sound about as dull as washing the car.

Read the Witches of Eastwick - it's very entertaining, with superb descriptions of the families and characters - in my humble opinion Updike was a great writer - but his less acclaimed books are better than the acclaimed ones - could never get into the Rabbit series - but read the above, or the Bech books, or early ones like the Centaur - and I liked "S" even though it often seems to be panned by the critics. Read the ones you enjoy - I think you'll find them if you look.

Definitely a superb writer.

The Rabbit novels will continue to be read becuse there is no better way of seeing the America of the 60s - 90s than through Updike's eys and ears. A commentator said that he didn't have anything in common with Rabbit Angstrom and maybe that's so but we all know the backdrop Rabbit's drama played out against: the commercials, TV shows, movies, crime stories, presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton, Wategate and Monica Lewinsky, Toyotas and McDonalds, pot, hippies, basketball---their likenesses executed perfectly by Updike who does this kind of thing better than anybody. These novels gave me more sheer pleasure than any others I have ever read.

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