"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
It didn't matter that I hadn't written a book that had won a National Book Award, hadn't written a book of any kind, and didn't know how to golf: still, I felt strongly that Updike should have asked me and not Tim O'Brien.
He justifies this reaction with a remarkably intricate series of associations between his life and Updike's, starting with the major impact a golf joke in an Updike essay once had on him. When Baker reads in the paper that his local cops offer to X-ray kids' candy for razors, he plausibly imagines the droll "Talk of the Town" piece Updike might have spun from the item, glumly noting that Updike's piece would have been better. He even teasingly confesses that U and I constitutes "a little trick-or-treating of my own on Updike's big white front porch." By the time he actually meets his hero (at Rochester's Xerox Auditorium!) in 1981, Baker has transformed him into a character in a Baker story. Quite a trick--and a treat.
In his elegy for Yeats, Auden wrote that a great poet's words are modified in the guts of the living, but Baker proves what really happens: at best we misremember and mangle, shamelessly remaking the master in our own image. --Tim Appelo
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. When Nicholson Baker, one of the most linguistically talented writers in America, set out to write a book about John Updike, the result was no ordinary biography. Instead Baker's account of his relationship with his hero is a hilarious story of ambition, obsession, talent and neurosis, alternately self-deprecating and self-aggrandising. More memoir than literary criticism, Baker is excruciatingly honest, and U and I reveals at least as much about Baker himself as it does about his idol. Written twenty years before Updike's death in 2009, U and I is a very smart and extremely funny exploration of the debts we owe our heroes. Baker's startlingly honest, very funny account of his obsession with John Updike. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9781847083517
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9781847083517
Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. Baker's startlingly honest, very funny account of his obsession with John Updike, part of a stunning redesign of Baker's Granta backlist. Seller Inventory # B9781847083517
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. BRAND NEW ** SUPER FAST SHIPPING FROM UK WAREHOUSE ** 30 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. Seller Inventory # 9781847083517-GDR
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 192 pages. 7.80x5.08x0.47 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __184708351X
Book Description Condition: New. Baker's startlingly honest, very funny account of his obsession with John Updike, part of a stunning redesign of Baker's Granta backlist. Num Pages: 192 pages. BIC Classification: BGL. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 197 x 129 x 15. Weight in Grams: 142. . 2011. 2nd edition. Paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # V9781847083517
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 12297941-n
Book Description Condition: New. Baker's startlingly honest, very funny account of his obsession with John Updike, part of a stunning redesign of Baker's Granta backlist. Num Pages: 192 pages. BIC Classification: BGL. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 197 x 129 x 15. Weight in Grams: 142. . 2011. 2nd edition. Paperback. . . . . Seller Inventory # V9781847083517
Book Description PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # GB-9781847083517
Book Description Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - Baker's startlingly honest, very funny account of his obsession with John Updike, part of a stunning redesign of Baker's Granta backlist. 192 pp. Deutsch. Seller Inventory # 9781847083517