Musems and Women and other stories

Museums and Women and other stories caught my eye recently because it’s a) on a bookshelf currently in view and b) I haven’t read any Updike for about 30 years. I think the last book of his was either his epistolary novel, S., or Roger’s Version. However, the first time I encountered Updike was in a university course blandly called Arts and Literature, and the story “Museums and Women” was on the syllabus and handed out on photocopied pages to us. Re-reading the story reminded me of why I enjoy Updike’s writing and how I can now perceive certain criticisms of his work that I would later hear: that women in his works are avatars rather than real, and that too few of his protagonists are women (the exceptions being his epistolary novel, S., The Witches of Eastwick, and The Widows of Eastwick).

Reading through the stories in Museums and Women, I think Updike may be a better short story writer than a novelist. The stories are nuanced, pithy, and offer flashes of astonishing intuition at times. The title story tells of how a young Billy moves through life and loves, midguided and misjudging the women in his life, using apt metaphors of museums, their entrances and treasures within, with an astonishing economy.

The other pieces in the collection are also a delight to revisit after what must be three decades.

I am also a fan of the many reviews Updike wrote for The New Yorker, which were a guide to discovering new writers during his seemingly lifetime “residency” with Harold Ross’s magazine. Updike’s collected essays and reviews can be found collected in two volumes, Hugging the Shore and Odd Jobs.