The equation of thought and thing …

'John Updike: Novels' Book Review | National Review. (Hat ip, Dave Lull.)

In 1989, Updike published a remarkably brave and candid essay about his political ambivalence in Commentary, “On Not Being a Dove.” Although he thought of himself as a man of the Left, he recognized that he was conservative, even hawkish, in many of his attitudes. Furthermore, he displayed an almost childlike protectiveness in standing up for the nation’s leaders as they navigated, sometimes bumblingly, the nightmare of Vietnam. “I felt obliged to defend Johnson and Rusk and Rostow, and then Nixon and Kissinger, as they maneuvered, with many a solemn bluff and thunderous air raid, our quagmirish involvement and long extrication,” wrote Updike, who also bemoaned the lack of “intellectual interest” — that is, the dullness — of decrying Johnson and Nixon for being bad presidents. “Truth had to have more nooks and crannies, more ins and outs than that,” he wrote.