NP Julian Barnes on Updike

[Rob Jackson]

Flights
By Julian Barnes

Hearing of John Updike's death in January of this year, I had two  
immediate, ordinary reactions. The first was a protest—"But I thought  
we had him for another ten years"; the second, a feeling of  
disappointment that Stockholm had never given him the nod. The latter  
was a wish for him, and for American literature, the former a wish for  
me, for us, for Updikeans around the world. ...

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22732

NYRB 56.10, 11 June 2009