R.I.P. John Updike

We've lost far too many literary luminaries in the past year. For me--although the end of Rabbit, Run sings through my mind sometimes when I am running and it feels just right, and I don't think anyone has ever described that feeling any better--Updike's death doesn't quite have the artistic and emotional resonance that Harold Pinter's or David Foster Wallace's did.

But it does have a personal resonance. Updike I actually met. In college the Assembly Series offered student groups the opportunity to sponsor visiting lecturers, and so the literary magazine for which I was an editor got to sponsor Updike. After his talk, the student editors and a small group of English professors had lunch with him at the alumni house (which represented by far the nicest meal most of the students were going to have all semester).

I wish I could offer some reminiscence of the perfect phrases that left Updike's lips. What sticks in my memory, though, is the awestruck silence in which the students ate, while the English faculty tried very hard to say impressive things. It was fairly awkward, all told. Updike was quiet and gracious. It must be difficult to eat your lunch when everyone around you is holding their breath, waiting for you to be brilliant.

Don't wait for brilliance. Eat your lunch.

That's actually a fantastic lesson for a young writer. Perhaps I learned more from him than I thought.