The entirety of John Updike’s 20th novel “Seek My
Face” takes place in one setting and revolves around two main
characters. At one point in the novel one woman asks the other to
describe how she remembers meeting her late husband.
“I like the way you put that,” she responds.
“How one remembers slowly replaces what really was.”
For Updike, that attempt to recreate the past from the present
represents his novel’s bold ambition, but also its biggest
flaw.
Painter Hope Chafetz has a rich past, and her memory is coveted
by art lovers as the storage place for the influential post-war
icons who helped mold the New York arts scene in the latter half of
the 20th century. The persistence of a young journalist Kathryn
D’Angelo leads Hope to, over the course of one laboriously
long day, recount her complex relationships with first husband Zack
McCoy (a thinly veiled Jackson Pollock), and second husband Guy
Halloway (a synthesis of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Claes
Oldenburg).
Updike here is torn between two goals: to provide a deep and
meaningful history lesson on the lives of these complex,
irritating, violent, occasionally brilliant and often misunderstood
men, and to paint the portrait of the woman they left behind,
detailing her now road-weary and melancholy persona. Both of these
progress with Kathryn’s prodding, whom Hope at times refers
to as her “intruder.” The strength of the novel rests
entirely upon the interplay between the two women, and while there
is a certain chemistry, Updike never finds the balance to reconcile
his two goals.
The artists are well-drawn and human: the moody abstract
expressionist Zack “took pride in awaking from however
degrading a binge with his manly energy intact, hungry for
breakfast, a fresh slate before him, his bedwetting for him a
discharge, a release, a restatement of his contract with the earth.
There is nothing more wonderful about alcoholics than the way they
get the world to assume the burden of their misbehavior.”
Updike’s stylistic virtuosity which he established with his
“Rabbit” series is still very much in tact, but without
any immediate dialogue from them, the artists he recalls remain too
remote to stand up against the more dynamic scene in Hope’s
home.
Updike, who also spends time as an art critic, can’t help
but chime in with his own analyses, like when Hope says of
Halloway’s work and influence: “these big cartoony
abstractions, to me it almost looked like giving up, a reduction of
a complex subjective process to ideas, compared to what Zack was
doing out of his instincts.” Conveniently, at certain points
Hope remains enthusiastic enough to “get her art-crit voice
in gear.”
The author’s ungraceful attempts at fitting in serious
analyses are unfortunate because he has beautifully painted the
character of Hope, reaching nearly poetic heights by the end of the
novel. At the start, a burned-out Hope maintains a sense of
antagonism against Kathryn, partly from the fear of another mundane
interview that treads tired old ground, but mainly from a youthful
energy behind Kathryn’s fearless curiosity. This tension
between memory and immediacy forms the heart of the novel,
gradually combining to create a deep and profoundly moving
whole.
The interview ends up anything but mundane for Hope, but as a
narrative it prods along for the reader. Updike’s dynamic
relationship between Kathryn and Hope is colorful and alive, but
the artists that inspired it remain two-dimensional, static figures
filled in to “replace what really was.” Judging by the
way Updike treats them, these artists give us reason to care about
Hope and Kathryn only on a superficial level.