Quote by John Updike
My father was a scared man. And he communicated his anxiety to me, so that perhaps more than most writers I wanted to make a practical go of it. And my career was eminently practical. I fastened on to this magazine, the New Yorker, that seemed to me to be the top of its class and I tried to get into it, and I did get into it. It was kind of calculating. Kind of crass.But I framed it to myself as a kind of altruistic ambition. Most jobs in the world were competitive, you had to push someone aside, but writing and art I thought weren't like that. You brought something new into the world without displacing anything else. To entertain people, or to hold out a standard of beauty or to even inform them seemed so self-evidently out of what my father called the rat race. Dog eat dog, in his phrase. He had a despairing picture of the capitalist world, as losers in that system tend to do.
Summary
This quote explains how the author's father's fear and anxiety shaped their understanding of success and their choice of career. The author's desire to make a practical go of writing stems from their father's influence, as they were taught to view most jobs as competitive and cutthroat. However, the author sees writing and art as avenues where they can bring something new into the world without displacing anything else. They view these creative pursuits as a means to entertain, inspire beauty, and inform people, perceiving them as a reprieve from the ruthless nature of the capitalist world, as seen through their father's perspective.
Topics
Authors & Writing
By John Updike
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