18. Out of "Redux" failure, the Rabbit books expand their social field outside Angstrom's personal life and try to encompass America.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
19. In her personal life in 1970s/80s, Updike had to deal with race more directly because a son & daughter both married African immigrants.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
20. So by 1980s Updike literally had an African-American family (in several senses) & had also traveled to Africa, Asia, South America.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
21. Updike's wider engagement with world and changes in family surely fed into The Coup: attempt to see USA through African eyes.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
22. I'd be the last person to describe Updike as racially enlightened.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
23. As
@jonathanshainin usefully reminded me, in both "R. Redux" & "Coup" Updike refers to black man's penis as "whip-like."3 replies 1 retweet 0 likes -
Replying to @HeerJeet
24. Still, in Updike we see something interesting: a very white man trying to come to grips with the non-white world.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
25. Won't explicate all of Updike's work but race theme is strong in "Roger's Version," "Brazil" and "Terrorist."
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Replying to @HeerJeet
26. The narrator of "Roger's Version" is pretty racist and very uncomfortable by his mixed-race relative: deliberate on Updike's part.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
27. Fredrick Crews thought "Roger's Version" proof of U's racism; I think it's a more serious probing of racism, not uncritical expression
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28. I didn't event talk about the racial subtheme in Couples (very small part of novel, but it's there).
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Replying to @HeerJeet
29. In Couples, U clearly makes protagonist Piet Hanema a mild racist (he muses on "curse of Ham" briefly).
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Replying to @HeerJeet
30. Hanema's racism parallels other characters indifferent to Kennedy assassination: they're screwing around while big history happening
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