The Centaur (edition 1996)

3. The Centaur by John Updike

As far back as about 4th grade, I have loved writing stories. I never received much encouragement from the teachers until I reached high school. William A. Votto, Jr. was my junior year English teacher. He liked an essay I wrote about a football game kick off, and he encouraged me to write. I spent numerous afternoons talking with him about reading and writing. He became the first person to plant the idea that reading and writing as closely bound together. Bill Votto also introduced me to The New Yorker magazine. I stopped at a news stand on the way home that day and bought the latest issue. It had a story by John Updike. I immediately fell in love with Updike’s masterful use of the English language.

Updike became my favorite writer. He was also the first writer I began gathering as many of his writings as I could. Today, my personal library has well over 340 books by and about John Updike. I was also lucky enough to meet him on several occasions. I even attended a writer’s conference in Boston one year and heard him speak. March 18th would have been his 81st birthday. He died in January 2009.

Of all his books, The Centaur is my absolute favorite. In fact it securely holds first place at the top of my favorite novels list. I once told him about this choice for his best work, and he said, “Well, it’s my favorite, too. It is the warmest story I ever wrote.” In 1964, it won the National Book Award for fiction.

The Centaur tells the story of George Caldwell, science teacher at Olinger High School. The fictional town of Olinger is the setting for one of his numerous collections of stories. Interwoven with the story of George and his brilliant son, Peter, is the myth of the centaur, Chiron, the teacher of Achilles. Peter plays the role of Prometheus. In the myth, Chiron is wounded, but since he is immortal, he must suffer for all eternity the pain of his wound. He gives up his life for Prometheus.

For a sample of Updike’s power with words, I turned to a random page and began reading,

“My father and I scraped together the change in our pockets and found enough for breakfast at a diner. I had one dollar in my wallet but did not tell him, intending it to be a surprise when things got more desperate. The counter of the diner was lined with workmen soft-eyed and gruff from behind half-asleep still. […] I ordered pancakes and bacon and it was the best breakfast I had had in months. My father ordered Wheaties, mushed the cereal into the milk, ate a few bites, and pushed it away. He looked at the clock. It said 7:25. He bit back a belch; his face whitened and the skin under his eyes seemed to sink against the socket bone. He saw me studying him in alarm and said, ‘I know. I look like the devil. I’ll shave in the boiler room over at the school, Heller has a razor.’ The pale grizzle, like a morning’s frost, of a day-old beard covered his cheeks and chin” (169).

If you have never read Updike, pick a genre – poetry, novels, short stories, or essays on art, books, writers, and philosophy. You will not be disappointed.

--Jim, 1/27/13 ( )

This book was published in 1962 when, according to the paperback book’s cover, The New York Times could still call Updike “the most significant young (sic) (!!) novelist in America. I obtained a copy for free at the Gaithersburg Book Festival, saving a full 75¢ off the cover price. It was worth every penny.

The base story, which takes place in Pennsylvania in 1947, is pretty simple. A father, George Caldwell, who is a high school science teacher, and his 15-year-old son Peter get stuck in a snow storm a few miles from home. For three days they are unable to coax their car up a fairly steep hill that would allow them to return home. The son observes his father “in action,” only to find that he is somewhat naïve, easily taken advantage of, but generally beloved by those with whom he regularly deals. Updike loves to show how his characters’ weaknesses reduce their own happiness, but somehow make them more human and lovable.

The writing style is pure Updike, showing off. The chapters alternate in styles. The first contains elevated (some might say pretentious) writing in which a great deal of mythology is intermixed to the extent that the reader really can’t tell what actually is supposed to have happened to the characters. Other chapters are simple lucid narratives that ground the reader to the basic story. But even in these chapters, Updike shows a piercing sensitivity to typical human foibles. Here is a description of two former high school athletes:

“They are ex-heroes of the type who, for many years, until a wife or ritual drunkenness or distant employment carries them off, continue to appear at high school athletic events, like dogs tormented by a site where they imagine they have buried something precious. Increasingly old and slack, the apparition of them persists, conjured by that phantasmal procession—indoors and outdoors, fall, winter, and spring—of increasingly young and unknown high school athletes who themselves, imperceptibly, filter in behind them to watch also.”

Although the writing is indeed beautiful, I’m not sure Updike makes the mythological references fit the underlying story as well as he might. The mythical centaur is a half man-half stallion creature: intelligent but also physically powerful and sexually potent. That just doesn’t fit the main character, who is more of a Caspar Milquetoast. Even though he claims, “I never made a decision in my life that wasn’t one hundred per cent selfish,” the previous 216 pages belie that assertion.

Nevertheless, this is a fine book for anyone who enjoys truly expert manipulation of the English language with some penetrating psychological observations.

Evaluation: A large number of mythological characters make their way into grandiose but for me touching and satisfying novel that won the 1964 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.

(JAB) ( )

One of Updike's three best, according to Updike--on two, this and A Month of Sundays. I add Rabbit at Rest, which I consider his best because of his application of his great theme to Florida--existential isolation of American bourgeoise culture.
In this one, Updike gives a very considerable portrait of both American H.S. education, and of his father, a HS teacher in the forties. If the HS teacher is wounded by an arrow from a student in the forties, no teacher emerges without being wounded now, though our news informs mostly how wounded the students are.
U.S. Ed reform is doomed, especially headed by a coach, Sect'y of Ed Arne Duncan, who has never taught calculus, physics, literature, history--anything which requires more than "Attaboy, you can do it." And in fact, governments discourage an educated populace. Great teachers are killed: Socrates, Christ, and Giordano Bruno, to start a long list. ( )

Well, it's Updike, so at least it doesn't suck stylistically... but this novel was a failure. In one sense it's the cap to his earliest 'Olinger' material (Olinger Stories, Poorhouse Fair, Of the Farm) but it's also a failed experiment, an attempt to wed a mythic subtext to a modern story. like Joyce or Barth, but he just doesn't pull it off. The mythic material isn't well-integrated, the modern family dynamics are underdeveloped. I was expecting to enjoy this, so I was very disappointed -- had to force myself to finish it. ( )

Outstanding early novel from Updike. Underrated, and on a par with 'Catcher in the rye' for insights into childhood relationships and growing through adolescence (though this is from the parent perspective). ( )

Updike's best and in many ways most ambitious novel, written at the height of his lyrical powers. ( )

i realize this is meant to be a modern classic, but dudes, this is a weird little novel.

into what would otherwise be a poignant and well written character study, Updike has entwined strange tendrils of Greek mythology.

the opening scene is exemplary of this trend; we have our main character, a high school teacher, shot with an arrow by one of his students through the leg and trailing a bloody hoof.see, he's a centaur, apparently. once he reaches aid in the form of a mechanic able to cut the arrow, he goes back to class and struggles to complete his lecture under the jaundiced eye of his in-school nemesis, the vice principal.

the point of making any of these characters mythical creatures is completely lost on me and the execution seemed inconsistent from both a psychological and practical sense. a centaur that drives? how many legs do they have again?

to my mind this choice distracted from what would have otherwise been a solid, if somewhat gray, snapshot of a father-son relationship captured over the course of a handful of wintry days.

not bad per se, a little bizarre. perhaps just not to my taste. ( )

3203. The Centaur, by John Updike (read June 3,1999) This won the 1964 National Book Award, and I am sort of doing those winners. I found this book less obnoxious than the Rabbit books. It is heavy on mythological referants, and I did not follow those well, since mythology is not a strong point for me. There are humorous parts, and pathetic parts. I did not dislike the narrator nor his father, and I found the book readable. ( )

Despite its title, I was surprised by how myth-centric this novel is. It is the story of a high school science teacher and his student son. It is also a re-telling of the myth of the centaur Chiron who, wounded, gives his life (his immortality) to Prometheus.

This is a book I may appreciate more in the recollection. While reading it, I was distracted by the allegory. Sometimes, the mythical references were too vague or convoluted to catch and I had to refer to the index at the back to make sure I wasn't missing something important. But at times, the myth is more than allegory -- Updike sometimes refers to the hero as Chiron and describes his hooves clacking on the school stairs, for instance -- which I found jarring. Also, the hero was annoying, not just to me as a reader, but to his son, wife, and co-workers in the story. I can't figure out how this ties in with the myth of Chiron.
( )

This early novel by John Updike remains my favorite. The opening page is as good as any he's written, and the handling of myth and realism is balanced and not too strained. This is not a University Novel, to be taught, but a Public Novel, to be read.

Updike is at his best, as far as I can tell, in short story form. That being said, this novel from the early '60s still impresses, and will, I suspect, continue to impress long after his dozens of later, more popular fictions, fade from memory. ( )

While this novel starts off pretty slowly (and a bit confusing until you can just accept that the main character switches between being George Caldwell and Chiron the Centaur), but as you get into it, it gets more engaging. A very good father/son story. ( )

Reviewer: David G. Phillips

The Greek mythology interspersed throughout this book is a small but seemingly important factor. The protagonist, Caldwell/Chiron is a teacher of high school students in 1940s East Coast. Caldwell is an obsequious and self-hating man that feels totally inadequate in life - however, he is a goodhearted man that means well. Caldwell, like the famous centaur, Chiron, is a noble teacher that lacks the command and respect that a good person deserves. The book starts with Caldwell being shot in the foot with an arrow that one of his students shot into his foot (the same way in which Chiron is killed in Greek mythology.) Caldwell and his son Peter/Prometheus are connected for a three-day period after car trouble and a blizzard. The book is mostly narrated from Peter's viewpoint, and you sense the boy/students frustration with his father/teacher and his lack of self-esteem.

Peter dotes over his father during this bonding period, as his father prepares for death and his lack of will to live. Symbolically I believe that the father figure is immortal in a son's eyes, and just as Chiron prepares for death as an immortal, the father figure must also prepare for a type of death when the son comes of age as a young adult. The story slowly evolves to being a modern day metaphor of the Chiron legend.

I wish I knew more about Greek mythology to truly appreciate this book. Even though my amateurish knowledge limited my understanding of the symbolism, I still truly enjoyed the book and Updike's incredible ability to write. I recommend the book and also recommend having a basic understanding of the Chiron legend to really appreciate the book.

http://forreststokes.com/wordpress/?p=26 ( )

My desert island shelf contains all my favorite books which I have encountered since I began reading decades ago. I would want these books if I could have no others.

John Updike is my all time favorite author for a body of work. I have met him several times. In my opinion he is the pre-eminent word smith among American writers of the 20th century.
The Centaur is his warmest novel, and the one closest to my heart. Another book I read constantly. I always have a copy by my bed. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I open it to a random page. It calms and delights me. --Chiron 10/10/05

I love this book too. Although I had read some Updike years ago, I hadn't read this book until I met Jim 6 years ago. He was using a screen name of "Chiron" and I did some sleuthing to find out who Chiron was and that led me to "The Centaur." --RJM 10/10/05