約翰•厄普代剋（John Updike，1932-2009）

美國當代公認的文學大師。畢業於哈佛大學，曾供職《紐約客》雜誌。一生寫過大量體裁多樣的作品，包括長篇小說“兔子四部麯”、短篇小說集、詩集和評論集，共計60餘部著作。厄普代剋兩次獲得普利策奬、美國圖書奬和歐•亨利小說奬，以及其他十餘種重要文學奬項，兩次登上《時代》雜誌封麵。“性、宗教、美國、死亡”是厄普代剋擅長的創作主題，“美國小鎮、中産階級”是他偏愛的文學世界。厄普代剋的文風，對許多作傢産生巨大影響，菲利普•羅斯稱他是“我們時代最偉大的文學傢”。

John Updike’s first collection of new short fiction since the year 2000, My Father’s Tears finds the author in a valedictory mood as he mingles narratives of his native Pennsylvania with stories of New England suburbia and of foreign travel.

“Personal Archaeology” considers life as a sequence of half-buried layers, and “The Full Glass” distills a lifetime’s happiness into one brimming moment of an old man’s bedtime routine. High-school class reunions, in “The Walk with Elizanne” and “The Road Home,” restore their hero to youth’s commonwealth where, as the narrator of the title story confides, “the self I value is stored, however infrequently I check on its condition.” Exotic locales encountered in the journeys of adulthood include Morocco, Florida, Spain, Italy, and India. The territory of childhood, with its fundamental, formative mysteries, is explored in “The Guardians,” “The Laughter of the Gods,” and “Kinderszenen.” Love’s fumblings among the bourgeoisie yield the tart comedy of “Free,” “Delicate Wives,” “The Apparition,” and “Outage.”

In sum, American experience from the Depression to the aftermath of 9/11 finds reflection in these glittering pieces of observation, remembrance, and imagination.