If you have the guts to be yourself, other people'll pay your price.
John UpdikeRead
My last vivid boyhood fright from books came when I was 15; I was visiting my uncle and aunt in Greenwich, and, emboldened by my success with 'The Waste Land,' I opened their copy of 'Ulysses.' The whiff of death off those remorseless, closely written pages overpowered me. So: back to soluble mysteries, and jokes that were not cosmic.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a young person's fear and intimidation when confronting complex literature.
John Updike shares a personal memory from his adolescence, highlighting how he felt overwhelmed by the dense and challenging prose of 'Ulysses' after having just experienced success with T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land.' This moment serves to illustrate the contrast between the comforting and accessible nature of some literary works compared to others that evoke fear and a sense of cosmic dread, indicating the varying effects that literature can have on readers depending on their maturity and readiness to tackle difficult themes.
Themes
LiteratureFearYouthExperienceUnderstandingComplexity
In practice
Example use cases
In a literary discussion about the challenges of reading classic works, one might say, 'Like Updike, I often find myself intimidated by dense texts.'
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Museums and bookstores should feel, I think, like vacant lots - places where the demands on us are our own demands, where the spirit can find exercise in unsupervised play.
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But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.
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The reader knows the writer better than he knows himself; but the writer's physical presence is light from a star that has moved on.
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To guarantee the individual maximum freedom within a social frame of minimal laws ensures - if not happiness - its hopeful pursuit.
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