Self-Consciousness

John Updike's memoirs consist of six Emersonian essays that together trace the inner shape of the life, up to the age of fifty-five, of a relatively fortunate American male. The author has attempted, his foreword states, "to treat this life, this massive datum which happens to be mine, as a specimen life, representative in its odd uniqueness of all the oddly unique lives in this world." In the service of this metaphysical effort, he has been hair-raisingly honest, matchlessly precise, and self-effacingly humorous. He takes the reader beyond self-consciousness, and beyond self-importance, into sheer wonder at the miracle of existence.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Random House Trade
Published: 03/13/2012
ISBN: 9780812982961
Pages: 272
Weight: 0.47lbs
Size: 8.24h x 5.49w x 0.58d