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[title]By John Updike. Knopf, $40.
For anyone who's ever wondered what it would be like to have a truly unguarded conversation on a barstool next to a Pulitzer Prize winner, John Updike's Higher Gossip should do the trick. This posthumous anthology of short stories, essays and criticism represents a snapshot of what the late, great author had on his mind during his twilight years.
In the story "The Writer in Winter," a very Updike-like narrator realizes he's advanced beyond his prime, although he still secretly holds out an "irrational hope that the last book might be the best." In "The Valiant Swabian," the writer discusses Albert Einstein in a way that makes the fabled physicist seem endearingly unsure of himself—even ordinary—as he struggles to unravel the mysteries of the universe. Several "Gallery Tours" detail the sights, sounds and even smells of exhibits by everyone from El Greco to William Blake, as Updike repeatedly gripes about a particularly crowded 1995 Vermeer exhibit at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Those looking for a distillation of Updike's fiction would do better to look elsewhere, but the collection still has its moments. "The Beloved," a short about a gifted young actor, is a pitch-perfect tale with vivid imagery, palpable emotions and pacing brisk enough to feel as though it dripped off a twentysomething. As for the essays, though Updike's prose is amazing, it doesn't always connect; the reader's interest in the subject of any given piece often reflects how much he or she will get out of it. In one of the book's final essays, the author laments the death of the physical, printed word. He argues that without the defined edges of solid books, e-books will be clipped into tiny snippets that obliterate the exchange between a single author and a single reader. It's the kind of stuffy, reactionary thinking that becomes downright romantic on a literary mixtape such as this.
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