Of the Farm. A novel by John Updike

Of the Farm is a short novel that can surely constitute a good introduction to the style and fictional world of John Updike, one of the major American writers whose works have covered the second half of the 20^th century, depicting the great transformations that occurred in the United-States and more generally in Western world, be it the 1960’s revolution of morals or the consumerism which has increasingly invaded all the sectors of modern life. However, the works of Updike tackle also universal and timeless questions linked to human and family relations, the relationships between men and women, faith and the individual’s sense of helplessness facing overwhelming events.

John Updike is known for his poetic and incisive style which earned him, among others, the praise of the great English writer Ian McEwan who considers him “the last major writer in English language”.

His influence is claimed by several contemporary American writers such as the late Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates or even Richard Ford to whom I dedicated an article previously.

Concerning Of the Farm novel, it relates the short Holidays of Joey Robinson with his new wife Peggy and the son of the latter, Richard, aged of 11, in the ancient family farm now directed by Joey’s mother, a robust and nagging widow, with sharp irony.

From the first chapter of the novel, it’s obvious that the stay won’t be romp in the Heather. The young Richard, too much precocious, asks many questions, and as the narrator says: “his questions became aggressive because of their precision.” Besides, Peggy apprehends her encounter with Joey’s mother, although her husband reassures her in his own way, asserting that his mother didn’t like his first wife either, before gratifying Peggy with a hypocrite: “Be yourself, I love you!”

Is it enough to just be yourself? And can you ever be yourself under the inquisitive look of others, when you accept the game of murderous witticisms that make you play a constant role? The three adult characters of the novel will realize that it’s not always easy to assume everything one says when answering the hints, the double entendre and innuendos, under the eyes of the half-amused and half-intrigued precautious kid Richard, whose involuntary quirky reflections may raise a smile if they didn’t highlight, in a certain way, the communication problems of a recomposed American family and its members’ uncertainties regarding the choices they have made in their life.

Hence, beyond the disguised reproaches of a mother to her son or her daughter-in-law who fights back, and beyond the problems of a couple who discovers his failures under the gaze of a third party, in this book there is a reflection about some immutable aspects of the human being regarding his selfishness and cowardness, as well as an analyse of women’s nature, or rather what social conditioning makes them do.

It's true that John Updike has been sometimes accused of misogyny, but in this novel the depicted scenes are very realistic and can remind you of some resembling situations in real life. Without spoiling the story for those who have not read the book yet, there is a very funny situation where the two female characters are very worried about the health of their respective son despite the age difference, what urges both women to quarrel once again.  Hence, John Updike finds a way to evoke the mothering type that is still present nowadays, although it cannot prevent, unfortunately, the proliferation of wars where so many women lost their child…

Nonetheless, this novel is not a “huis-clos” since numerous scenes are set outside, precisely in this farm where the characters try to forget their resentment in the middle of nature.  There are very detailed passages over the use of tractor by Joey Robinson when he tills the soil, and even if the descriptions seem laborious in the beginning they soon become symbolic and poetic thanks to John Updike’s style, who also succeeds in depicting funny situations, for example when the hero finds himself in the nearest supermarket, in company of his mother and son-in-law who form a rather surprising duet, certainly much more at ease with modernity than Joey Robinson, that wise man who loses all his landmarks during a simple outing in town.

The loss of landmarks in Western world is also tackled in the four novels of John Updike’s great tetralogy axed around its main character “Rabbit”.

Less read in non-English-speaking world which favours Philip Roth too easily, John Updike has created works of which the meanings and the riches still await us, at every page, surprising us both in substance and form.

Lyes Ferhani