Customer Reviews

Too Far to Go

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In 1956 John Updike wrote a short story about a young couple, Joan and Richard Maple, at the beginning of their marriage. Over the next twenty years he found himself returning to these characters at regular intervals, writing a total of thirteen more stories in order to track the couple's progress through parenthood, infidelity and eventual divorce. This volume gathers the stories together and supplements it with two first-person meditations in the voice of Richard Maple and with a 'fragment' - an aborted attempt to write a seventeenth story. Most of the pieces have, inevitably, been published before - ten of the seventeen in earlier short story collections. It is nevertheless good to have a complete Maples volume. In many ways these are Updike's strongest characters, particularly in the quality of their conversations with one another. The book amounts to a definitive portrait of what we, as domestic animals, have become: complex, soul-baring, sophisticated, gamesome, oblique, selfish, loving.

Of all the scientific works that have dealt with the subject of love, marriage, divorce, children, parents, and care, none can truly explain the complex emotional waves that crash into lives of people when love is born. John Updike's Too Far Too Go is an astonishing work of literary fiction dealing with the early love and eventual separation of a young man and woman. Using simple language that is refined and beautiful, Updike masterfully explores the complex emotions that arise out of marital conflict and the stress it can cause on others, especially children. Updike's characters are so real that it becomes hard not to feel true sympathy for them. They are flawed as any human being, which makes them so wonderful.

His best work in Too Far To Go is "Separating", the end of the road for the Maples who have been dealing with marital troubles and are contemplating a short separation. Being the child of a divorced family, I found his account so accurate that it felt as though the words and actions of the characters were lifted word for word from a real conversation. It brought tears to my eyes as Richard, who seems always to be the collected father, break down and cry at dinner and confess his own shortcomings to his family. Every couple considering marriage and every child whose life has been so hurt by a divorce should read Updike's work in Too Far To Go. He is truly an American treasure and a master of the English language.

This book is comprised of several short stories, which, like the title characters themselves, often seem like little more than sketches. Although I initially found that frustrating, I eventually came to realize that that works in this book's favor. As the title would suggest, the focus is on the Maples- their marriage, their infidelities- and the brevity and compactness of the stories helps to highlight that. Current events, politics, and the existence and plight of children are of secondary importance, and are mentioned, when they are mentioned at all, primarily to mark the passing of time and to fit the stories into a larger context.

Like a relationship that has ended, in which we remember the beginning and the ending more than the middle, the two stories that stand out the most are the first and the last, "Snowing in Greenwich Village" and the ironically-titled "Here Come the Maples".

"Snowing in Greenwich Village" shows a young couple just beginning their lives together, naive and inexperienced, who know very little about each other. "Here Come the Maples", by contrast, shows a couple who deeply understand one another, the result of familiarity and the passage of time as much as love. By this point, however, it's too late, and there's nothing they can do but go their separate ways. The final sentence is a perfect summation, touching and sad, that, despite its transparent literary-ness, still gets me choked up just recalling it.

Here come the Maples, John Updike's fictional representation of a typical married couple in mid-to-latter twentieth century America. The Maples fight, drink, and sex their way through life, somehow still managing to find a little happiness. This book, comprised of a number of related short stories, is highly evocative of the mood of the early sixties. The gender roles and sexual repression of earlier decades was giving way to a new kind of freedom, but there was still an awful price to be paid in anger, in jealousy, in heartbreak. Yet somehow, this book explains, life goes on; stands are taken, moves are made, and children are raised, despite all the unpleasantness. The stories are told from the husband's point of view, so it seems odd that we don't get a very clear picture of the 'other woman' who causes so much trouble. But the really big question that hangs over this melancholy little volume is: Why are these people so hung up on sex? Updike takes pains to show how much these people care for each other, but somehow they still can't seem to be satisfied with each other. No answers are offered here, but no judgments are passed, either. Essentially, we're presented with a novel of manners that documents (for future generations) a particular time and lifestyle.

As always, Updike's prose is as flawless as his characters are flawed. Confused, weak, vacillating, frequently suffering from some self-inflicted or psychosomatic ailment, Richard is the everyman we don't want to glorify even though we see much of ourselves in him. His more conservative wife Joan feels herself trapped in a pit of self-righteous indignation. Together they feed off each other's neuroses until the inevitable occurs. This is not a happy book, but it doesn't have a powerfully tragic feel either. It's almost as though Updike had written these stories about his own failed relationships, from which he'd since moved on, but which still bore a kind of nostalgic, wistful glow. A lovely book, although not a spectacular one, aimed at those who enjoy analyzing relationships, rather than those who expect big things to actually happen.

Updike's older novel, TOO FAR TO GO, deals with the end of a marriage. In each concise and beautifully-written chapter, the Maples family faces another situation leading to the split-up of their relationships. The needs, the frustrations and the failures of parents and children are revealed often in ordinary situations, but those feelings complicate even simple transactions. With so many American marriages going through this process, readers from teenagers to adults of all ages are often profoundly touched by moments shared with Updike's family.

And so there I was, having just finished the latest of the Rabbit series, sad to be leaving a group of people with whom I had spent many entertaining hours, when I came upon this book in the store. Terrific, I thought, another series in which to immerse myself, even if for much less time. I was not disappointed. This is excellent.

In addition to the storytelling, it is interesting in that it gives one a picture of an artist in development. As with the Rabbit series, the writing improves with each story, as the writer matures over a period of years. I highly recommend this collection.

Also of interest: this contains "Gesturing," selected by Updike himself for inclusion in "The Best American Short Stories of the Century."

The Maples story "Snowing in Greenwich Village" is the most erotic short story I've ever read. Now that I've told you that, you'll read it and be disappointed. But what makes me feel this way is what Updike deliberately doesn't say about this one evening in the life of Richard and Joan Maple and their guest, Rebecca Cune. Doesn't say, that is, until the final sentence. And in that sentence, a single omitted comma where anyone else might have inserted one had the effect of nearly taking my breath away. Once you're finished reading, go back and read the first sentence again to see how well it all ties together.

I don't mean to ignore the other stories in this collection. They're all good, and I'll take the Maples as a series over Rabbit's sequels anytime.