Eventually everybody has to read their first work by John Updike. It might be \The Poorhouse Fair"" in high school, or a stray New Yorker story that seemed like a relief from the esoteric movie reviews. Updike stands as one of the few authors who anybody masquerading as a cultured citizen has to come across eventually. For anyone who has not yet shook a literary hand with this godfather of American literature, they might as well start with his most recent novel, ""Seek My Face.""
Long ago Updike realized that he could do whatever he wanted and still have his readers glued to the page. He does not require any epic or cross-generation struggle to fill his pages. It only takes a week in his book's time and maybe a half dozen characters for him to tell a story. Or, as in his newest book, only an afternoon and two women.
""Seek My Face"" features Kathryn D'Angelo, a New York City journalist, interviewing Hope Chafetz, a sometimes known/sometimes forgotten painter. Over the course of one day's recollections Kathryn and Hope draw their stories from one another. Existing with nothing but conversation and occasional descriptions of both woman's tics and nuances, the journalist and the has-been painter draw two lives that sometimes run parallel and sometimes collide. The afternoon eventually stretches into evening and the conversation, along with the final pages, draws to a close.
The book could fall into a would-be biography of any wife of any twentieth century painter. Hope tells of her marriages with men modelled on Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol. Though the book might have simply suggested that Hope stood in the background while the men wrestled with their images, the opposite is true. Hope guided and inspired the men, giving them content for their canvases and standing back-to-back, yet behind the titans of the art world.
Updike's new book is comprised of nothing but the strength of his trumping and conquering the ones before it. But by the time the last page turns, it is clear that Updike's greatest accomplishment is putting together two completely engaging, thoroughly-developed and always believable female characters together through the course of the entire book, and not once seeming like a male writer is crafting the two. Hope and Kathryn look at each other and themselves in glances and stares and Updike never allows them to slip into masculine posturing or frames them stoically.
Another indisputable strength of ""Seek My Face"" lies in the way the smallest nuances and slightest movements gain immediacy through Updike's words. Hope examines Kathryn, thinking, ""The girl is gawky ... her arms dangle slightly, and her long white hands hesitantly hang between gestures.""
Passages like this are frequent, filling the interaction of the women with enough tics and miniscule gestures to make every dimple and twitch seem important. The features and movements of both women are described with precise grace.
Perhaps the book needs a sentence that requires the reader to take a break halfway through it or maybe Updike was just showing off, but he does produce one that is as long as some students' papers. About two-thirds of the way through the book a 288-word sentence manages to describe everything from Hope's children to ""innocent ravenous egos"" to the city of New Orleans. With 32 commas, three hyphenated words and only one long dash, the sentence sprawls across two pages, enough to completely fill one. Yet it fits in the story perfectly and only draws attention to itself because of its utter disdain for the period at its long-delayed end. What other writer can fluently create a sentence that is about half as long as this review?
Not bothering to settle for mere greatness in his work, Updike has written something that is both wise and impossibly fascinating. Even the most ardent art critic will love the way Updike walks through post-World War II art history. Any student who has read too many textbooks and is ready to throw off yet another bundle of words would be foolish not to seek this novel. ""Seek My Face"" works as a fantastic introduction to Updike and a worthy continuation of his storied career.
