Though our enthusiasms may fade, it's interesting to note their lasting effects. Since I've been thinking and writing about those years, I've revisited some of the early Updike short stories I first read, and I noted particularly a couple of his comments in his Paris Review interview. aI'm sure I came upon the first of them for the first time in this interview, and it became formative. The second is more in the nature of consolation, a retroactive justification for a different personal history than I was looking for.
"When I write, I aim my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas. I think of the books on library shelves, without their jackets, years old, and a countryish teen-aged boy finding them, and having them speak to him. The reviews, the stacks in Brentano's, are just hurdles to get over, to place the books on that shelf."
"No, I always wanted to draw or write for a living...I would write ads for deodorants or labels for catsup bottles if I had to...The distinction between a thing well done and a thing done ill obtains everywhere..."
