In this, the final volume in John Updike’s mock-heroic trilogy about the Jewish American writer Henry Bech, our hero is older but scarcely wiser. Now in his seventies, he remains competitive, lecherous, and self-absorbed, lost in a brave new literary world where his books are hyped by Swiss-owned conglomerates, showcased in chain stores attached to espresso bars, and returned to warehouses three weeks after publication. In five chapters more startling and surreal than any that have come before, Bech presides over the American literary scene, enacts bloody revenge on his critics, and wins the world’s most coveted writing prize. It’s not easy being Henry Bech in the post-Gutenbergian world, but somebody has to do it, and he brings to the task his signature mixture of grit, spit, and ennui.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
After recounting almost every detail of Rabbit Angstrom's mental, spiritual, and (especially) erotic life for almost four decades, John Updike laid his brilliant creation to rest in 1990. Another of his ongoing characters, however, has remained at large--Henry Bech. In Bech at Bay, Updike revives his philandering Jewish American novelist for one last trip through that wringer we call the writer's life. Like his creator, Bech is getting on in years. And although age cannot wither his considerable sexual appetites nor custom stale his cantankerous charms, he is uncomfortably aware of his mortality. In the first episode, during a visit to pre-perestroika Czechoslovakia, the "semi-obscure American author" is taken to view Kafka's grave, and the sight gives him the willies: "It all struck Bech as dumbfoundingly blunt and engimatic, banal and moving. Such blankness, such stony and peaceable reification, waits for us at the bottom of things." His own proximity to the bottom of things is what gives Bech at Bay an extra dose of sobriety. For the first time, Updike's ingratiating impersonation of a Jew--who shares the author's lapidary style, sizable nose, and not much else--is not only supremely amusing but moving.
Which isn't to say that all is gloomy in Bechville. Updike keeps things breezy throughout, as his hero is seduced and subpoenaed, excoriated and honored, finally, with the Nobel Prize. Only once does the author lose his footing, with "Bech Noir": this world-class nebbish just doesn't cut it as serial killer, and even the prose goes untypically to pot. But otherwise the book is a delight, venting all the nastiness about literary life that Updike always purges from his own more genteel (not to mention Gentile) persona. It's also an elegant meditation on literary being and nothingness. "A character," we are told, "suffers from the fear that he will become boring to the author, who will simply let him drop, without so much as a terminal illness or a dramatic tumble down the Reichenbach Falls in the arms of Professor Moriarty. For some years now, Bech had felt his author wanting to set him aside, to get him off the desk forever." Here Updike proves himself Nabokov's equal in the metafictional sweepstakes--and makes us hope that his doppelgänger will get one last reprieve. --James Marcus
Bech at Bay is brilliant"
--David Lodge, New York Review of Books
"A comic delight...the ultimate wasp has produced another wonderful piece of Jewish fiction. In this, his third go-round with soulful Manhattan literary lion Henry Bech, Updike gets under his character's skin as naturally as Sinatra inhabits the soul of a heartbroken guy at the bar at 3a.m."
--David Lehman, People
"I suspect you'll find it irresistible"
--Alex Beam, Boston Globe
"If you're anything literary--writer, publisher, even critic, you'll love it. And if you're not, you'll love it too...Everything Bech-Updike has to say about the writing life is awful, hilarious and true"
--Caroline Angier, Wall Street Journal
"Updike unbound--at his most frolicsome & funniest"
--Kirkus Reviews
"Bech at Bay is wise and funny, charming & pointed"
--Joan Mellen, Baltimore Sun
"A mordantly comic look at the literary life"
--Paul Gray, Time
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 2341041-6
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: HPB-Movies, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
paperback. Condition: Very Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!. Seller Inventory # S_398310955
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Fallen Leaf Books, Nashville, IN, U.S.A.
Mass Market Paperback. Condition: Good. Slight spine slant. Seller Inventory # 25667
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Black Cat Hill Books, Oregon City, OR, U.S.A.
Mass Market Paperback. First Edition Thus (1999); so stated. First Printing indicated by a complete numerical sequence. Near Fine in Wraps: shows just a hint of wear to the upper outside edge of the rear panel; the pages have tanned very slightly, due to aging; some scuffing to the rear panel; else flawless. The binding is square and secure; the text is clean. Free of creases to the backstrip. Free of any creased or dog-eared pages in the text. Free of underlining, hi-lighting, notations, or marginalia. Free of any ownership names, dates, addresses, notations, inscriptions, stamps, plates, or labels. A nearly-new copy, structurally sound and tighly bound, showing the very mildest wear and a couple of minor, unobtrusive flaws. Bright and clean. Close to "As New". NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 12mo. (6.9 x 4.25 x 0.75 inches). 237 pages. Language: English. Weight: 5 ounces. Mass Market Paperback. First Edition Thus (1999); so stated. First Printing indicated by a complete numerical sequence. Seller Inventory # 54525
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: medimops, Berlin, Germany
Condition: good. Befriedigend/Good: Durchschnittlich erhaltenes Buch bzw. Schutzumschlag mit Gebrauchsspuren, aber vollständigen Seiten. / Describes the average WORN book or dust jacket that has all the pages present. Seller Inventory # M00449005658-G
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Antiquariat Bücherkiste, Wuppertal, Germany
Taschenbuch. Condition: Gut. Updike John Bech at Bay - A quasi-Novel TB - 11 x 18 cm - Verlag: Fawcett Crest, New York - 1999 - ISBN: 0449005658 - 237 Seiten - english Klappentext: Henry Bech, the moderately well known Jewish- American writer Who served as the hero of John Updike's previous Bech: A Book and Bech Is Back, has become older but scarcely wiser. In these five new chapters of his life, 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. Still, our septuagenarian veteran of the literary wars is rewarded in the end With the coveted Nobel, stunning him into a well-deserved silence. It's not easy being Henry Bech in the post-Gutenbergian world, but somebody has got to do it, and he brings to the task that indomitable mixture of grit and ennui that only Updike could make so deliciously funny. Zustand: GUT! Einband mit ganz leichten Gebrauchsspuren, sonst innen sauber Size: 11 x 18 Cm. Buch. Seller Inventory # 035639
Quantity: 1 available