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Self-Consciousness: Memoirs by [Updike, John]

Self-Consciousness: Memoirs Kindle Edition

by John Updike (Author)

29 customer reviews

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John Updike’s memoirs consist of six Emersonian essays that together trace the inner shape of the life, up to the age of fifty-five, of a relatively fortunate American male. The author has attempted, his Foreword states, “to treat this life, this massive datum which happens to be mine, as a specimen life, representative in its odd uniqueness of all the oddly unique lives in this world.” In the service of this metaphysical effort, he has been hair-raisingly honest, matchlessly precise, and self-effacingly humorous. He takes the reader beyond self-consciousness, and beyond self-importance, into sheer wonder at the miracle of existence.

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Length: 273 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
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Product details

File Size: 2761 KB
Print Length: 273 pages
Publisher: Random House; Reprint edition (March 13, 2012)
Publication Date: March 13, 2012
Language: English
ASIN: B006L7RBXA
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

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Not Enabled

Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Screen Reader: Supported

Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #820,283 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #1552 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Essays & Correspondence > Essays
- #2226 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Authors
- #5570 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Essays & Correspondence > Essays

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29 customer reviews

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Great introduction to John Updike; more generally, a great analysis of the impact on life of our self-perceptions

November 9, 2012

Format: Mass Market PaperbackVerified Purchase

I'm so glad I finally read John Updike, starting with this book. It's a very touching, personal, well written diary, really. Updike is very open about having been self-conscious his whole life due to a skin condition he had that isolated him quite frequently as he tried to fight it by lying in the sun. The book is a revelation about the famous writer and how his life revolved around this condition and the self-consciousness it engendered. Being very self-conscious myself about certain things, I almost cried reading his revelations and honest self-assessments. I highly recommend this book if you want to understand the workings of self-consciousness or of the famous author.

4 people found this helpful

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From one Shillingtonian to another...

June 1, 1998

Format: Mass Market PaperbackVerified Purchase

One of the main regrets of my five years in Shillington (ages 12-16) was that I did not realize that I was walking in the footsteps of one of the greatest authors of all time. John Updike's autobiography, especially as it concerns Shillington, was like reading a bit of my own life. He was an alter boy at the church that is behind my old Miller Street home. I was a busboy at the restaurant that used to be his doctor's office that used to be a house. He used to walk up New Holland Avenue to the cemetary, passing number 39, which would years later be a home (apartment) to me. The hallowed halls of Governor Mifflin Jr. High, where I labored from 7th to 9th grade, were once the halls of the old high school that Mr. Updike once passed through. I wonder if we shared the same locker? The old movie theater, in which I saw my first movie alone, still holds a special place in my history. But through my many walks up and down Philadelphia Avenue, I am saddened by the fact that I was never drawn to number 117. My visits to Shillington in the past decade have been unfortunately too brief, and even before reading Mr. Updike's autobiography I have wanted to return to retrace my old footsteps. However, the walk up and down Philadelphia Avenue will include a stop, a reverential pause, at number 117, the shadow of my life in Shillington.

9 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

March 20, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

None better at remembering his time and his thinking through that time.

2 people found this helpful

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I could relate to many of his experiences 60 years later

August 29, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Loved the sections on stuttering and psoriasis. Made him very human. His writing makes you feel the scene and his 'self-consciousness.'

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E. James Morrissey Jr.

Seeing life stages through John Updike

June 17, 2009

Format: Mass Market PaperbackVerified Purchase

Self-Consciousness
This book of John Updike's memoirs is a revealing view of how he viewed his life as he passed through various stages. The overly detailed descriptions of specific streets and houses led me to boredom frequently and seemed to have way too much space for the stories needs. His introverted image of himself is inconsistent with how his peers viewed him. The class rapscallion is missing of Shillington High School 1950 is missing.
Memorable book that follows the personal life of this great author through many stages of his life.

3 people found this helpful

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Stephen E. Smith

One of Updike's weaker works. The first two essay ...

October 12, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

One of Updike's weaker works. The first two essay are indeed self conscious to the extreme. The final essay is worth a couple of careful reads.

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Self-Consciousness

February 1, 2010

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

A look into John Updikes's world without any mean spiritness towards others on his part.

One person found this helpful

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brutally honest

May 4, 2011

Format: Mass Market PaperbackVerified Purchase

One of my favorite books by this author. Can't think of more honest, self-targeting and life revealing confession.
Upon reading this autobiographical essay-like work, I understood many previous books by John Updike. His struggle with an illness, skin problems and other unpleasant part of life, I feel closer to the author.

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