Average customer rating:
- Enjoyed First Experience With Updike
- Bech Noir: a delicious writerly power-fantasy
- Bech is Funny and Sad
- Quizzical Quiddities
- Extremely Mixed Bag
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Bech at Bay (Quasi-Novels)
John Updike
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Updike, John
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Bech: A Book
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Bech is Back
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Roger's Version
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Seek My Face
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Licks of Love: Short Stories and a Sequel, "Rabbit Remembered"
ASIN: 044900404X
Release Date: 1999-10-05 |
Amazon.com
After recounting almost every detail of Rabbit Angstrom's mental, spiritual, and (especially) erotic life for almost four decades, John Updike laid his brilliant creation to rest in 1990. Another of his ongoing characters, however, has remained at large--Henry Bech. In Bech at Bay, Updike revives his philandering Jewish American novelist for one last trip through that wringer we call the writer's life. Like his creator, Bech is getting on in years. And although age cannot wither his considerable sexual appetites nor custom stale his cantankerous charms, he is uncomfortably aware of his mortality. In the first episode, during a visit to pre-perestroika Czechoslovakia, the "semi-obscure American author" is taken to view Kafka's grave, and the sight gives him the willies: "It all struck Bech as dumbfoundingly blunt and engimatic, banal and moving. Such blankness, such stony and peaceable reification, waits for us at the bottom of things." His own proximity to the bottom of things is what gives Bech at Bay an extra dose of sobriety. For the first time, Updike's ingratiating impersonation of a Jew--who shares the author's lapidary style, sizable nose, and not much else--is not only supremely amusing but moving.
Which isn't to say that all is gloomy in Bechville. Updike keeps things breezy throughout, as his hero is seduced and subpoenaed, excoriated and honored, finally, with the Nobel Prize. Only once does the author lose his footing, with "Bech Noir": this world-class nebbish just doesn't cut it as serial killer, and even the prose goes untypically to pot. But otherwise the book is a delight, venting all the nastiness about literary life that Updike always purges from his own more genteel (not to mention Gentile) persona. It's also an elegant meditation on literary being and nothingness. "A character," we are told, "suffers from the fear that he will become boring to the author, who will simply let him drop, without so much as a terminal illness or a dramatic tumble down the Reichenbach Falls in the arms of Professor Moriarty. For some years now, Bech had felt his author wanting to set him aside, to get him off the desk forever." Here Updike proves himself Nabokov's equal in the metafictional sweepstakes--and makes us hope that his doppelgänger will get one last reprieve. --James Marcus
Book Description
Henry Bech, the moderately well known Jewish-American writer who served as the hero of John Updike's previous Bech: A Book (1970) and Bech Is Back (1982), has become older but scarcely wiser. In these five new chapters from his life, he is still at bay, pursued by the hounds of desire and anxiety, of unbridled criticism and publicity in a literary world ever more cheerfully crass. He fights intimations of annihilation in still-Communist Czechoslovakia, while promiscuously consorting with dissidents, apparatchiks, and Midwestern Republicans. Next, he succumbs to the temptations of power by accepting the presidency of a quaint and cosseted honorary body patterned on the Académie Française. Then, the reader finds him on trial in California and on a criminal rampage in a gothic Gotham, abetted by a nubile sidekick called Robin. Lastly, our septuagenarian veteran of the literary wars is rewarded with a coveted medal, stunning him into a well-deserved silence. It's not easy being Henry Bech in the post-Gutenbergian world, but somebody has to do it, and he brings to the task an indomitable mixture of grit and ennui.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Enjoyed First Experience With Updike.......2006-04-28
John Updike is one of those names I had always heard of but had never checked out. Finally, a few weeks ago, I decided that it was time for me to get acquainted with Mr. Updike. I must say that the first work I chose to read of his did not disappoint me.
Bech at Bay is the last in a series of books that feature Henry Beck, and aged writer who still manages to find himself in precarious adventures. Bech at Bay is a series of short stories that loosely make up a larger story. At times hilarious, at times insightful, and at times rather disturbing, I found myself quite pleased with Mr. Updike's work. I look forward to reading more of it.
Bech Noir: a delicious writerly power-fantasy.......2006-01-03
_____________________________________________
Novelist Henry Bech, 74, is in bed with his secretary and computer
consultant Rachel (Robin) Teagarten - "26, post-Jewish, frizzy big
hair, figure on the short, solid side." He is reading the obituary
of a hostile critic:
A creamy satisfaction - the finest quality, made extra easy to
spread by the toasty warmth - thickly covered his heart.
It occurs to Beche that he could hasten the passing of other
noxious critics. Thought leads to action, then to suspicion, then
to confession:
Perhaps he had made a fatal error, spilling his guts to this
chesty broad. "OK. Turn me in. Go to the bulls."
Robin is unexpectedly sympathetic: "I think you've shown a lot of
balls, frankly, translating your resentments into action instead
of sublimating them into art."
He didn't much like it when young women said "balls"... but
today he was thrilled by the cool baldness of it. They were, he
and his mistress, in a new realm, a computerized universe devoid
of blame or guilt, as morally null as an Intel chip.... "My
lover, the killer," she breathed...
"So, who are you going to do next?" ...Her pupils, those
inkwells as deep as the the night's zenith, were dilated by
excitement.
For their next victim, a critic turned Internet personality, they
devise a subliminal attack on his self-image, slipped thru a
trapdoor in Sendmail:
Invisibly these truths rippled onto the screen's pixels for a
fifteenth of a second - that is, five refreshments of the
screen, a single one being, Robin and a consulting
neurophysiologist agreed, too brief to register...
NON-BEING IS AN ASPECT OF BEING...
- this Bech had adapted from a Taoist poem by Seng Ts'an...
LET THE ONE WITH ITS MYSTERY BLOT OUT ALL MEMORY OF
COMPLICATIONS.
JUMP
JUMP
JUMP!
Literary villains of Gotham, beware!
-----------------------------------------
copyright 1998 John Updike/The New Yorker
First published June 8, 1998.
Excerpted by Pete Tillman, who sincerely hopes that by doing so he
has not aroused Mr Updike's ire.
Note that the version published in the New Yorker is *far* superior to that in Updike's book, "Bech at Bay" -- showing once again the danger of Famous Authors slipping extraneous padding past Ye Editor's blue pencil....
Bech is Funny and Sad.......2004-07-31
How does one best review a literary genius? This is not going to be easy. Updike is an author I discovered in college, but haven't been seriously reading him since a couple years ago. I devoured "Roger's Version" and his latest short stories, and I didn't know what to expect with the latest Bech book. This is the first of the Bech books I have read. What an amazing book. Updike has a way of describing reality that makes it feel more important..almost surreal.
Bech, Updike's alter-ego, runs loose in this one, even resorting to murder of his least liked critics. If you are looking for very DARK humor, here is where to find it. In this pathetic yet somewhat brilliant character, we find some autobiographic hints about Updike himself I'm sure. Some of his dislike of critics is probably projected into Bech's harsh words. And at one point Bech wonders if he is polluting the world with subtle pornography, maybe something the author wonders about from time to time too.
Perhaps the best part of the book is the end when Bech gives a rambling but very interesting Nobel Prize acceptance speech in Sweden. This is something only Updike could write. He rambles on about mortality, religion, relationships and birth and death. Vintage Updike. He is a world class writer of the highest order.
Jeffrey McAndrew
author of "Our Brown-Eyed Boy"
Quizzical Quiddities.......2001-06-17
"Bech at Bay" presents five comic stories about the novelist Henry Bech, starting out with a visit to Communist Czechoslovakia when he is 63 and ending in his acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature when he is 76 years old (with his infant daughter held struggling in his arms). Through these Bech stories, Updike takes a satirical look at the the Manhattan literary scene, pokes fun at the absurdities of the big city life and even takes a moment or two to ponder the Eternal Verities (but not too seriously). As his life enters its last phase, Bech finds himself in some interesting new situations: president of the The Forty, an intellectual society hopefully modelled on the French Academy but without its sense of self importance; as a caped avenger "ridding literary Gotham of villains" (read critics); as a septuagenarian father. Through all this absurdist comedy, the old Updike magic is constantly with us. Bravo!
Extremely Mixed Bag.......2000-12-30
As a big fan of the first two Bech collections, I carefully rationed my reading of this one, limiting myself to one story per day. All was well until I reached "Bech Noir" in which our hero takes murderous (yet flippant) revenge on his literary enemies. This was so ludicrously out of character that I kept waiting for the authorial signal that it was just the protagonist's fantasy. Unfortunately, it never came. I don't know whether Updike was being contemptuous or just plain stupid. But not only did his trashing of my suspension-of-disbelief ruin this book for me, it cast a retrospective pall over the previous ones.
Ironically, a new first-rate Bech story appeared in The New Yorker some time later. Presumably, it will be included in the omnibus Bech edition being published in 2001. I only pray that Updike, who is known for his post-publication tinkering, will come to his senses and leave "Bech Noir" out.
Average customer rating:
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Bech At Bay - A Quasi-novel
John Updike
Manufacturer: Fawcett / Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Contemporary
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ASIN: 0140282300 |
Book Description
This first book in the series introduces Matty Graves, midshipman in the early years of the United States Navy. In 1799, the young U.S. Navy faces France in an undeclared Quasi-War for the Caribbean. Matty Graves is caught up in escalating violence as he serves aboard the Rattle-Snake under his drunken cousin, Billy. Matty already knows how to handle the sails and fight a ship. Now, with the sarcastic Lieutenant Peter Wickett as his mentor and nemesis, he faces the ironies of a war where telling friend from foe is no mean trick.
Customer Reviews:
Great debut ! We want more !!!.......2007-09-14
Finally, another writer who writes a book about the U.S. Navy set in the age of sail. Although it started out a little bit slow at the beginning, this book will keep you turning the pages until the end.
Young Snotty Matty Graves tells his story so real that you think you are there right with him.
I already bought the next book in line and hope we will get many more.
OTHER BOOKS RECOMMENDED WRITTEN BY : Charles D. White, Frank Eccles
Unreadable.......2006-10-16
Being a fan of the genre in general, and O'Brian in particular, I very much looked forward to reading this book, based on the reviews. Sadly, I found the book completely unreadable. I put it down around page 30. I don't recall the last time I put a book down.
If you're interested in other period yarns written from the American point of view, check out "The Revolution at Sea" novels by James L. Nelson. Although no O'Brian (but who is?), Nelson tells a good, readable story.
P.S. For reference, other genre authors whose work I enjoy are C. Northcote Parkinson, Alexander Kent, and Richard Woodman.
Fast and Fresh.......2006-09-24
With this fast-paced launch of a new series, Broos Campbell offers a fresh perspective on the seafaring novel--a Napoleonic-era saga with an American, not English protagonist. In the last days of 1799, 17-year-old midshipman Matty Graves sails out of Baltimore aboard the USS Rattle-Snake of the fledgling U. S. Navy, bound for the strife-torn West Indian island of Santo Domingo. As the Rattle-Snakes fend off a press-minded Royal Navy frigate and savage island picaroons, trouble brews between Captain Trimble, a genial lush who is also Matty's cousin, and wily, acerbic First Lieutenant Peter Wickett, ferociously competent and ripe for his own command. But will he risk mutiny to get it? Campbell's period dialogue is expressive, succinct, and often damned funny. His characters are well-developed, he writes about shipboard life with authority, and he understands that history is as often made by weakness and blind, dumb chance as stout-hearted heroics. As for Matty, he's a complex, resourceful young fellow with a dry wit who'll be excellent company as the series progresses. Sign on now!
A long needed series.......2006-07-18
I have always been a fan of British Naval series and always wondered why no one wrote a series dealing with the American navy during the Age of Sail. Campbell has now done just that. I found No Quarter an excellent read, good story and characters with solid historical information. I look forward to the next book.
Smashing!.......2006-05-17
I've grown up reading Flasman, Hornblower and Sharpe and I am happy to see a new writer taking on less traveled ground. We've all read accounts of the Battle of Trafalgar from every angle execpt from the fishes point of view and its time for the rest of history to be explored. I am a major in History working on a degree on American Studies and I find it refreashing to read a novel full of historical insight that makes me care about the characters and engauged by the action. I'm looking foreword to his next book.
Mr. Coyote
Book Description
The year is 521 A.D. and Lesser Blackthroat, assassin for a secret sect of the Catholic Church, attempts to obtain the blood of a messiah in hopes of washing clean his cursed spirit. His journey leads him to an underground cathedral in Mesopotamia where the ancient undead guard Blackthroat's prize and the secret to pure immortality. The year is 2005 A.D. and after 500 years, Marco Esperanza's wait for revenge ends when he finally confronts the man on whom he blames his fate, Lesser Blackthroat. However, Marco learns that nothing is as it seems when he is confronted by a shadow from his past.
Book Description
This provocative new study proves the existence of a de facto Confederate policy of giving no quarter to captured black combatants during the Civil War—killing them instead of treating them as prisoners of war. Rather than looking at the massacres as a series of discrete and random events, this work examines each as part of a ruthless but standard practice.
Author George S. Burkhardt details a fascinating case that the Confederates followed a consistent pattern of murder against the black soldiers who served in Northern armies after Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. He shows subsequent retaliation by black soldiers and further escalation by the Confederates, including the execution of some captured white Federal soldiers, those proscribed as cavalry raiders, foragers, or house-burners, and even some captured in traditional battles.
Further disproving the notion of Confederates as victims who were merely trying to defend their homes, Burkhardt explores the motivations behind the soldiers’ actions and shows the Confederates’ rage at the sight of former slaves—still considered property, not men—fighting them as equals on the battlefield.
Burkhardt’s narrative approach recovers important dimensions of the war that until now have not been fully explored by historians, effectively describing the systemic pattern that pushed the conflict toward a black flag, take-no-prisoners struggle.
Customer Reviews:
Better than Fifth Quarter!!?.......2006-07-26
I didn't think it was possible for Tanya Huff to write a book better than Fifth Quarter. Boy, was I wrong. This book was outstanding. End of story. Buy it, read it, enjoy it, read it again! The thing I like best about this book and Tanya Huff's style in general is that her characters are always well developed and very believable. And they all grow. Vree and Gyhard's relationship really develops in this book and by the end you are very satisfied. Don't, of course, read No Quarter until you've read Fifth Quarter, which is equally compelling.
Always a great read.......2006-03-25
I completely loved this story and did the first time I read it when it was originally published. The quality of the book sent to me was as good as if I'd bought it as a new release in a book store. Tanya Huff is an author that draws you into the world she's created with well written characters and a storyline with a completely fleshed background including religious dogma and a belief system that is believable.
Best yet in the Quarters series.......2005-04-21
This book picks up almost where it's predecessor ("Fifth Quarter") left off. Vree and Gyhard have left the Empire and traveled to Shkoder in the hopes that a young and promising healer named Magda can find Gyhard a body without killing someone to claim it. If Gyhard ever kills again he will immediately come up under charges and be executed. Our initial conflict comes with with a jealous and emotionally wounded Bannon who will go through any length to steal back the life he and Vree shared up until Gov. Aralt's appearance.
"No Quarter" finally intermingles the plot lines of the characters from "Sing the Four Quarters" and those of "Fifth Quarter" as we meet a grown up Gerek and his little sister, Magda who are charged of taking care of a homesick Vree and a nervous Gyhard. Gerek has grown up to be a dashing romantic, while Magda inherited an iron will and streak of independence not uncommon in her family.
While the bards of Shkoder are marveling over Vree and Gyhard's "two kigh in one body" news comes in that points toward a reemergence of the walking dead, and therefore of Kars. Vree/Gyhard and Magda go off to finally put a stop to him, but they're not alone as Bannon and Gerek are quickly sent off to retrieve them.
All in all this book was so much fun to read! It may have used a well-worn plot line (oops we didn't kill *insert problem character here* the first time, but we'll get 'em now!), but the bits and pieces that Huff added to it to make it her own completely distance it from anything approaching banality. Huff's story is lively and engaging. I found Bannon's immature reactions in "Fifth Quarter" annoying at best, and downright painful to read at others. Luckily Vree/Gyhard are the main characters in this story, and Bannon gets to grow up a little towards the end. Huff chose wisely when she made the semi-romantic couple the lead characters for this book as they both have interesting backstories to deal with and plenty of room and need to grow as people.
The ending is a bit contrived, but the feeling of resolution it gives makes that small fact easy to overlook. I highly recommend this book as a lively, character driven fantasy novel to enjoy during a weekend read. It's best in one long sitting rather than multiple shorter ones as the sense of urgency is dimmed when you pick it up and put it down over and over.
Just amazing..........2002-08-22
I love the character development and the changing relationships between the characters. Tanya Huff gives us a lot of action, suspense, and different forms of love: romantic, sibling-love, friendship, and love twisted by madness & bitterness. The writing is deep without being overtly philosophical. No Quarter is a fast-paced, edgy story about Gyhard, a man without a body of his own, sharing the flesh of Vree, the woman he loves. Vree is a former assassin, pursued by her brother, who wishes them to return to the army--and who wishes to kill Gyhard. And in the middle of this turmoil, an ancient, insane murderer walks, raising the dead around him. The old man still loves Gyhard, but the only way he could get Gyhard to stay with him would be to kill Gyhard and Sing his living kigh back into his dead body...
A truly excellent read.
Great book, great series.......2000-05-17
Loved it, loved it, loved it. My favorite out of the Shkoder series - and the rest of the series is equally good. My only complaint - what's with the cover art? Vree looks like Pat Benetar on one of her early album covers. Normally I love this particular artist, but . . . blech.
Customer Reviews:
Women of Glory: Book 1.......2000-05-21
Dana Coulter has graduated from Annapolis but now she has an even tougher challenge. Flight School. Her instructor doesn't like women and is a "screamer" in the cockpit. Griff Turcotte lost a friend who died while teaching a woman pilot. He wants to hate Dana but can't. Somehow, these two get together. This book should be read with "Under Fire" and "The Gauntlet"
Average customer rating:
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No Quarter Given
Manufacturer: Neil Wilson Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Irish | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Scotland | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
General | England | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
19th Century | England | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
General | Ireland | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
Military Science | History | Subjects | Books
Regiments | Military | History | Subjects | Books
General | Genealogy | Reference | Subjects | Books
Directories | Catalogs & Directories | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1903238021 |
Average customer rating:
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No Quarter Asked
Janet Dailey
Manufacturer: harlequin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Dailey, Janet | ( D ) | Authors, A-Z | Romance | Subjects | Books
General | Romance | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:
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For Bitter Or Worse
ASIN: 0373832133 |
Customer Reviews:
Absolutely the best.......2000-04-26
I first read this books nine years ago, and have read it countless times since then. I have read over 100 romance book and this is the absolute best. No other characters can even begin to share the kind of chemistry that Stacy and Cord have together. I will always love this book and Stacy and Cord will always have a place in my heart.
Book Description
Illus. in full color. Poor Walter has not only lost a tooth, he's also managed to lose his lost tooth. His chances of getting his quarter look slim, and the apprentice tooth fairy assigned to pick up the tooth is in hot water in this imaginative romp for young readers.
Customer Reviews:
cute story but too much name calling.......2002-04-14
I agree ...that points out the name calling issue. We see this every where we don't need it in book.
But it is a cute little story about the tooth fairy.
Save your tooth fairy money.......2002-03-07
Adding "Queen Denteena" and the "Decay Prevention Ball" to the basic tooth fairy tale is more than a stretch -- it is a strain!
Queen Denteena shouts "Idiot!" twice at the boy in the story because he has lost his tooth -- not helpful to those of us teaching 5 - 8 year olds to avoid name-calling. The story ends with the passive tooth fairy appeasing the aggressive Queen Denteena with the help of the boy. Good does not triumph over bad in this story - it simply figures out another way to get along. This results in the tooth fairy's report card going from all "F's" to all "A's." Everyone has a good time at the Decay Prevention Ball.
There are too many story twists and no satisfying ending. Oh, yes... the boy does receive a quarter.
No Tooth, No Quarter!.......2000-04-26
This book is a great book for a young reader! It shows you the perspective of the tooth fairy, and how she needs that tooth to give you money. The leader of the tooth fairy community is mean, but the little boy out foxes her. Your children will love it!
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