Bech at Bay and Before: Three Bech Novels

Updike, John

ISBN 10: 0375404996 ISBN 13: 9780375404993

Publisher: Random House Audio, 1998

Synopsis

4 cassettes / 6 hours
Read by Ron Rifkin

Catch up with Bech.

This unique AudioBook collects John Updikes classic Bech novels, Bech: A Book (1970), Bech is Back (1982), and the latest installment, Bech at Bay.

"Mr. Updike finds full scope for his gifts here: for sly and cheerfully malicious pensees on contemporary life; for busy observations on human behavior."
-The New Yorker


Bech a Book (1970):  This is where we meet him for the first time - Henry Beck, a New York writer "with his thinning curly hair and melancholy Jewish nose," whose first novel had become a minor classic.  A rich and unforgettable portrait and a satire of the literary life.

Bech Is Back (1982): When Bech comes back, he roams a number of third-world countries as a cultural ambassador - astonished at his won literary celebrity.  From the era of Vietnam to the sagging end of the Seventies, his aesthetic embarrassments reveal truths about his trade and his times.

Bech at Bay (1998): Our hero returns - older, but scarcely wiser.  He is still at bay, pursued by the hounds of desire and anxiety, of unbridled criticism and publicity in a literary world ever more cheerfully crass.   it's not easy being Henry Beck in the post-Gutenbergian world, but somebody has to do it, and he brings to the take that indomitable mixture of grit and ennui that only Updike could make so deliciously funny.

About this title

About the Author

John Updike was born in 1932, in Shillington, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Harvard College in 1954, and spent a year in Oxford, England, at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. From 1955 to 1957 he was a member of the staff of The New Yorker, and since 1957 has lived in Massachusetts. He is the father of four children and the author of over forty books, including collections of short stories, poems, and criticism. His novels have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the American Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

From the Inside Flap

/ 6 hours<br>Read by Ron Rifkin<br><br>Catch up with Bech.<br><br>This unique AudioBook collects John Updikes classic Bech novels, <b>Bech: A Book</b> (1970), <b>Bech is Back</b> (1982), and the latest installment, <b>Bech at Bay</b><b>.<br><br>"Mr. Updike finds full scope for his gifts here: for sly and cheerfully malicious pensees on contemporary life; for busy observations on human behavior."<br>-</b><b><i>The New Yorker</i></b><b><br><br><br>Bech a Book (1970):  This is where we meet him for the first time - Henry Beck, a New York writer "with his thinning curly hair and melancholy Jewish nose," whose first novel had become a minor classic.  A rich and unforgettable portrait and a satire of the literary life.<br><br>Bech Is Back (1982): When Bech comes back, he roams a number of third-world countries as a cultural ambassador - astonished at his won literary celebrity.  Fr

Reviews

Henry Bech, the fictional subject of several Updike books, is a New York Jewish novelist -- or, more accurately, a satire of New York Jewish novelists. His life is the author's sometimes bitter joke on literary celebrity. Random House here presents an anthology of Bech stories, beginning with Henry's official visit to the Soviet Union in the '60's and ending with his 1999 Nobel Prize speech. Normally an excellent actor, Ron Rifkin give only a so-so performance here. His vocal personality is inappropriately fey and humorless. He stumbles over unfamiliar words and he doesn't connect with the material until he is more than halfway through it. Y.R. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

This audio program collects excerpts from Updike's Bech: A Book, Bech Is Back, and his most recent book, Bech at Bay. The story follows the writer Bech from a cultural exchange in Russia in the early 1960s and leaves him in Sweden accepting the Nobel prize in the late 1990s. The bulk of the story takes place in New York, where Bech romances women, grants reluctant interviews, and, occasionally, writes. Updike's (Golf Dreams, Audio Reviews, LJ 10/1/96) story is a straightforward and satirical look at the literary world of publishing, publicity, and prizes. In its attempt to span three full-length books in four cassettes, the program is somewhat disjointed and overabridged. Ron Rifkin's performance, however, is delightful, bringing Bech and the people he encounters to life. Updike's many fans should appreciate the acquisition.AAdrienne Furness, Lockport P.L., NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Audio
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375404996
• ISBN 13: 9780375404993
• Binding: Audio Cassette