"...'I really think Obama would regenerate this worn-out country. I'm such a believer that I probably won't be able to watch the debate tonight. I get so upset when I think about the alternative. McCain is blameable for choosing Palin as his running mate. She's a bird-brain, she annoys me terribly. McCain himself is worse. You know the way he grits his teeth? Mine grit too as I watch him.'
Novelists, like actors, create character by an act of physical identification, which even extends to someone they despise. Opposite me on a couch, Updike's teeth froze, his arms shortened and stiffened, and his sparkling eyes turned wild. The magus momentarily became the grizzled, barking, Republican nominee.
I told Updike that both Obama and McCain had nominated him as one of their favourite writers. 'They did? I'd have thought Barack would be reading Hegel, not fiction! And I can't imagine McCain reading anything. He's so irascible, readers have to be patient.' Just in case the candidates were bluffing, I asked Updike to assign one of his books to them as required reading. He made a lattice of his intertwined fingers and sunk his face into it: this is his portable, manual cave, into which he retires to do his thinking. He spent a while perusing his back list, which after all comprises 23 novels, a dozen collections of short stories, an equal number of volumes of critical prose, half a dozen collections of poetry, five books for children, a play and an autobiography. Then he re-emerged into the light, beaming.
'Here we go. For Obama I'd recommend a novel of mine called The Coup. It's about an imaginary African country where the dictator pretends to hate the US, though he actually went to college here. The politics were based on Gaddafi - what's he called, not Mohamed, Muammar, right? The joke is how unlike Obama my character is! Now for McCain. I think he should read another novel, Memories of the Ford Administration. It's about an academic who hardly remembers Gerald Ford's term in office because he was too busy committing adultery and researching James Buchanan's presidency. Buchanan was old, tired, ineffective, and failed to prevent the Civil War; Abe Lincoln succeeded him. Maybe if McCain read the book he'd have the humility to realise he should gracefully yield to a younger, brighter man. Or maybe not.'...
guardian.co.uk
========
McCain has openly said that he is running for President because of personal ambition. He doesn't care about the country, this is all about me-me-me. Besides, he wouldn't do anything gracefully, the klutz. |
