John Updike and David Foster Wallace: Of Binaries, Sports Writing, and Transcendence

Abstract

ABSTRACTA comparative analysis of John Updike and David Foster Wallace which directs attention to their efforts in sports writing and memoir. The essay problematizes the binary of Updike and Wallace as polar opposites: the former uncool, traditional, and narcissistic; the latter hip, postmodern, and empathic. After an analysis of Wallace’s denigrating review of Updike’s Toward the End of Time, the essay reveals substantive similarities and differences through a consideration of two sets of paired essays: Updike’s “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu” and Wallace’s “Federer Both Flesh and Not”; Updike’s “A Soft Spring Night in Shillington” and Wallace’s “Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley.” Updike is seen as an observer and storyteller, a writer drawn to celebration of the visual world. In contrast, Wallace is more critic and philosopher than observer, continually struggling to figure things out. With attention to ambition and transcendence, both in sports and writing, the essay posits the two authors less as competitors or antagonists, and more as fellow aspirants to the American sublime.