Newsnight Review discussed John Updike's new novel Seek My Face.

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(Edited highlights of the panel's review)

BILL BUFORD:
You see a lot of familiar Updike troughs. I always think there's two Updikes; the autobiographical Updike who, for me is the most resonating, and then there's the Updike that projects some kind of fantastic narrative. This is a little bit of both. What I liked best was the autobiographical Updike, which I felt I was getting at the beginning and the end of the book. I liked his flashy, flowery sentences that depend on sometimes flaccid alliteration. Invariably in Updike, you're going to find some description of a woman's pubic hair. Sure enough, somewhere in like on page 75, you've got the woman's pubic hair. But I thought it wasn't a novel. It's a very bad moment when you start skimming a novel. You must never skim a novel, because you're not reading a novel for information, you're reading it to luxuriate in those Updike sentences. I just thought, you know, there's a lot of theorising about art. There's a whole fascination with that period. I did go to the Cedar Tavern once with Doctorow. He sort of dreamed up everybody in that place. There was Pollock and de Kooning. There was a fascination that that generation has with these really romantic painters. I just found them, like much of the book, finally self-indulgent.

ROSIE BOYCOTT:
Firstly, it's ludicrous that you would have an interview that was conducted like that, that would take place in a day. I felt that you were getting the information from the interviewer to the question to Hope, and then back to the story of what she went through. So nobody became real in the book to me at all. Even the kind of clich�d way that he describes Pollock and Warhol is just, again, you know, drunk here, minimalist here, and a load of drugs going on in this place. You never sense� and even Hope you don't actually get a grip on. It starts out with a lot of promise because you think there will be some really interesting reaction between Hope and the interviewer. Occasionally, there are some interesting and good lines about how much you enjoy your life, and the difference between the 50s and the difference between now. But overall, I found myself, like Bill, sadly starting to skim the book, and feeling that it was kind of Updike showing off about his knowledge of art, and that it was his 54th book, and that he should have missed it out.

MARK LAWSON:
He has that deep knowledge. There are fantastic sentences here. I thought he differentiated the two women incredibly well. They have different voices.

ROSIE BOYCOTT:
But the interviewer's voice is so small that it barely exists. You get a lot of descriptions of the fact that she goes to the loo a lot, she doesn't like eating peanut butter sandwiches, she wears black clothes, and she has a boyfriend who dislikes going to art galleries. Then she vanishes, and I felt that the interaction was very little. You also thought maybe this would have a big effect on Hope, and maybe it will make her reconsider the way that she gave up her life for the man. The interesting thing is the interviewer is about to give up her life for a man as well, so there's no movement there.

PAUL MORLEY:
I enjoyed it very much as a sort of deconstruction of an interview, and what it must be like for someone of Updike's stature to be interviewed by someone who is slightly sort of impudent.

MARK LAWSON:
I've done him four times, so I felt guilty about it!

PAUL MORLEY:
I quite enjoyed that, the whole idea. I enjoyed it as a 200 page interview, because, as someone who writes interviews, I wish I could get 200 pages. I enjoyed very much also the idea of someone coming to the end of his life. I thought it was quite brave in that sense, using Hope, the elderly lady, as a way to get some of the things out of John Updike's... There's the sense of when you get to a certain age, and you've been through, done so much, and has it all come to nothing, or very little? But a beautiful end, I felt. I won't fill that in just in case anybody decides to read it. Funnily enough, there's a Johnny Cash video out at the moment for a song called Hurt, about getting to the end of a life. These two things, for me, form a very interesting double act about age, and about what it's like to come to the end of your life. I think it's also that it mirrors his first-ever book, the idea that it was set in a day, and it may well be his last book.

MARK LAWSON:
And in his 70th year. I think what is amazing is a lot of writers would say, "They say," and he has "Catherine's voice softens, retracts its hard tip, becomes almost idle in its helpful prompting." He's hearing those voices. He's beautiful at all that.

ROSIE BOYCOTT:
You can't fault his actual sentences and lines, and some of his descriptions, which are beautiful. But if you take the novel as a whole, I think it fails. But it's not to say that there aren't vastly pleasurable bits in it.

PAUL MORLEY:
It's just great to read Updike on art in any way whatsoever, so I just enjoyed that.

BILL BUFORD:
I don't think he's showing off. I think he can't help himself. It's a life long obsession.

MARK LAWSON:
He does know a fantastic amount. I liked it more than they did.