>> [Music: Latche Swing, "Hungaria"]
>> John Updike: I was trying to get away from the hassle and the expense of the city.
And if I was going to be a New York culture vulture,
I shouldn't have gotten married and had children. Basically children are very...
They pin you down. And if I was going to be pinned down,
if we were going to be pinned down, why not be pinned down
at least somewhere where we could park the car for free
and get some free air, grass and sunshine and so on. [laughter]
>> John Updike: I didn't know (coughs) when we moved that (coughs)
I'd be up there for the rest of my life. I thought to become a serious American writer
and I hadn't written a novel, so I gave myself this sabbatical,
which stretched then into a lifestyle that lasted all my life.
>> [Latche Swing, "Rhythme Gitane"]
>> John Updike: I sat in this rented house in this north shore town
and after writing a couple of short stories,
which they took so I knew I wouldn't starve...
John Freeman: [laughs]
John Updike: Yet... meanwhile we were getting used to the town
and to country-suburban living. And bought a house.
I actually begged the Guggenheim grant, so I could feel I could take a break
from trying to write and sell short stories. It was a mere thousand dollars in those days,
but a thousand dollars went a much longer way than it does now.
And, I felt, too... I'd said I was a Pennsylvanian Dutch, Dutchman
and I thought if I'd taken the money I ought to write the book.
So I wrote Rabbit Run. In... for much of '59, much of 1959...
so that is how I wrote Rabbit Run.
>> [Music: Jackson F. Smith "Cantina Rag"]
>> John Freeman: As somebody who's had a family of your own
and has been producing an innumerable amount of work every year for over 50 years,
how did you strike that balance?
>> John Updike: In those days, you know the man worked and earned the bread.
And the wife took care of the children, whether it was one, or, as in my case, four.
After the children got to be, ah, four in number and all very young. Pretty noisy.
They couldn't help it. My wife suggested I get out of the house. For her too in a way.
There is something very nice about having children in a home.
They bring into it all the new things. The new gadgets. The new words.
So that it's a plus for a writer up to a point to have children around.
But after awhile they do get to be distracting.
So I rented a room and tried to go to work.
>> [Music: Jackson F Smith "Cantina Rag"]
>> John Updike: But I was seeing it as a job and as a livelihood.
I think I was maybe the last generation that could actually try
to enter the literary profession, as if it was a trade and something you did
and you produced a product that was useful enough that you'd get paid for it.
And now I think it's harder. There were a lot more magazines
that paid for short stories and a dollar went a long way.
Well I have been re-reading my old short stories and of course
the sums of money that people dealing with is laughable. Two men eating lunch
in a New York restaurant for less than five dollars [laughs]
I could hardly believe these figures, but there they were.
>> John Freeman: What brings you to your writing desk every morning?
>> John Updike: To put the more fearful anxiety ridden spin on this,
there is the fear that you somehow neglected to say what was really yours to say.
You neglected somehow that the key thing. It's not likely. I've written a lot.
I must have somewhere touched on almost every aspect of my life and experience.
Nevertheless there's this haunting fear that maybe
the thing you left out is finally going to be captured. [laughs]
>> [Music: Latche Swing, "Hungaria"]
Subtitles by the Amara.org community