Acclaimed literary "yardstick" passes away at 76Before you all go off half-cocked and send me a bunch of hate email saying how insensitive I am with that title, let me explain. If you sit back for a moment and conjure up some images of various celebrities, I can guarantee you that there will not be a single writer among your mental list (well, apart from me, that is).
I'm encouraged that John Updike's passing is considered a lead story. So, therefore, the "yay" in the title of this posting refers to the "media report" part, not the "John Updike dies" part. I only hope that this next generation comes to have some degree of admiration for writers: journalists, novelists, satirists, poets, what have you.
It is thought that this is Updike's last bit of wordsmithing, something he wrote as he pondered his destiny while at his hospice:
It came to me the other day:
Were I to die, no one would say,
'Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise - depths unplumbable!
Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes
Will greet my overdue demise;
The wide response will be, I know,
'I thought he died a while ago.'
For life's a shabby subterfuge,
And death is real, and dark, and huge.
The shock of it will register
Nowhere but where it will occur.
Were I to die, no one would say,
'Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise - depths unplumbable!
Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes
Will greet my overdue demise;
The wide response will be, I know,
'I thought he died a while ago.'
For life's a shabby subterfuge,
And death is real, and dark, and huge.
The shock of it will register
Nowhere but where it will occur.
- John Updike
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