John Updike has earned his stripes. He can write whatever he wants to write and it will get a respectful audience, because in the last forty years, he has published six books of poetry, sixteen novels, eleven collections of short stories, six books of essays and criticism, one play, one memoir and five children's books. Over the years, he has won the Pulitzer, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Award. He is a literary gentleman. He has lived in Massachusetts since 1947, writes in the morning and often plays golf in the afternoon.
Golf is more than an interest, but probably less than an obsession.
His obsession, clearly, is the written word, and equally important, the world from which that word proceeds. There is usually a kind of comfort in reading Updike because the changes in him are undoubtedly represented in the changes to his characters, and the reader can assume that he either has been there or will be shortly, depending on his date of birth. It is no surprise that he is a golfer. If that is the case, he is more to be pitied than censured. Ben Turnbull, the character, is narcissism run rampart, coupled with Updike's astonishing ability to see his surroundings in phenomenal detail.