I felt bereft too when I heard that he died. Where would the new novel come from? The Centaur also is one of my favorite novels.

I can't help but imagine what it would be like to board a subway train, and see Updike sitting with Keillor. I grew up in NYC and am pretty blasè about seeing celebrities, but I honestly think I would be wowed. I love them both, in different ways, and I'd probably break my rule to say hello, probably gush a bit and make a fool of myself. But it would be worth it, I truly admire them both.

I met John Updike after his poetry reading at a writers' conference in New Jersey, close to 10 years ago. As he patiently signed the books I'd stacked before him, I prattled on nervously about how much I loved his work. He asked me if I wrote poetry, took a moment to focus his blue eyes on me, and said something to the effect that some days the writing goes well, and some days it doesn't. It was so honest and humble and touching, for this great writer to acknowledge that even he has days when all the words get tossed into the wastebasket--an admission that was a kind of blessing in itself.

From one original to another.

I think of the lost opportunities to say something nice to people - celebrity or not.

Garrison – You’re going to have to face the fact that, thanks to the passage of time & the reams of writing you’ve produced during that time, YOU’RE now one of the elder statesmen that others look to for blessing. Admit it , you know it is true …and don’t try to Lutheran your way out of it with your pathological self-deprecations.

Even prickly folks like myself who’ve lived by a code of “not caring” what anyone thinks of us or our creative work… What we really mean is: We don’t care what strangers and critics might think… but people we know or respect? Those moments DO buoy even us… a nod and a wink from an older comedian, an encouraging email from a successful writer pal, a compliment on my new shoes from my girlfriend… these things matter a great deal.

Updike's novels always left me a little disappointed, and I just stopped reading them many years ago.

His ability to paint real-looking people in real-looking moments was the launching pad for stories that became overblown and unreal.

I saw him on several occasions, usually in waterfront areas in New England. He stood out, looking slightly out of place in that he was covertly observing everyone around him -- maybe in the same uncomfortable way I was observing him.

I never said 'Hi' because I had nothing to say.

Well now. I've read Mr. Keillor's books and listened to his show for years but have not read John Updike's work other than a few excerpts and reviews. It's still winter here in central Wisconsin and we have a great library so here I go!

If I ever see Garrison I must be sure to give him an attaboy.

Thanks for using 'Lutheran' as a verb. It really works.

I really did love Updike and from every report I've seen he was as fine a human being as he was a writer. You forgot to mention "Bech, A Book," which was as fine a spoof of the "intellectually preoccupied" as I've ever read and that marvelous "Witches of Eastwick" that gave cherries a new collective meaning.

I'm no Updike, but -- that sure was good. I liked that.

Like others here, I am looking forward to reading more of Updike's fiction while winter has me hunkered down. His reviews in The New Yorker and elsewhere have always struck me as hugely generous--I've searched them in vain, at times, looking for a few savage pokes that would mirror my own dire feelings about a particular author, but I was always thwarted by his good humor and unfailing generosity. He was an appreciator, as Keillor says, which is not at all the same thing as being an idiotic glad-hander. If he had a criticism, you knew it, but he did not choose to annihilate the author, who he treated more like a colleague than a competitor. He had a judicious frame of mind, something in short supply in the Internet age of snarkiness (said sheepishly, as I often commit the age of snarkiness when over-caffeinated or out of sorts).

This is a wonderful tribute. Like always, Garrison gets to the heart of why Updike is special and why he will be missed.

When Garrison goes off to the great beyond, however, I will be inconsolable. A fellow Midwesterner, whose work I have followed my whole adult life, it will be more like a death in my own family.

"I live with fear as any parent does. I know people who've gone through catastrophes -- schizophrenia, the suicide of a child -- the skin shrivels at the words, and so the life of a parent is one of constant wordless prayer. Today, my child scored 96 on spelling. A good day."

That paragraph from the above article exemplifies Keillor's writing, which often, as in this instance, brings me joy. His description and admiration for Updike, who I've just started reading (Rabbit, Run) at the recommendation of a native Pennsylvanian, is great in this article as well.

Mr. Keillor.

for this touching piece. I've forwarded it along to many.

Well stated, Garrison. John Updike could cogently express his support of the Vietnam War tied to his boyhood staring at a square of family dining room carpet in a single sentence. I can barely re-cap this thought without it sounding ridiculous.

A thought for you - maybe it is you, Garrison, who will call us one morning and say, "well done, I like that." - PD

Okay, I hate it when people post just to nit-pick some little throwaway line, but here I am doing it:

"... this is her teacher calling to say that the child scored 96 on the spelling test. The child's instant reward is the phone call home and the words of praise. She sits at her desk pretending not to listen, basking in the acclaim."

Tell me I'm wrong here, but was the teacher actually calling from the classroom in front of the other students to single out one of them for praise? The rest being shamed by implication?

It doesn't sound very Minnesota to me.

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I'm sorry for Mr. Updike's death - his work has built a monument for himself that mere stone will never match.