Perennial Promisss Kept (9/10)

(9 of 10) from the East Coast suburban adulteries that had dominated his novels a few years earlier. Its hero, Colonel Hakim Félix Ellellou is a beleaguered black dictator in an arid, impoverished and brilliantly imaginary African land called Kush. Then Rabbit reappeared, older and more interesting than ever, and now Bech. Sequels can betray a lack of imagination.

Authors who fall back on old characters may desperately hope that an old formula will work once again. Updike's work is an exception to that rule. He endows his heroes with so many specific characteristics, gives them such tangible environments and geography, that they naturally seem to go on living after their books are closed. Updike wrote Rabbit Redux (1971) after growing tired of answering questions about what the ex-basketball star was up to now. Bech may or may not reappear, but Rabbit probably will. Says Updike: "I figure I only have one more to go with that man."

Rabbit has evolved into a quintessentially American character, full of restless optimism and energy, not yet ready to believe dark rumors of his own mortality. Similarly, his creator has carried on a long, attentive affair with his native country. Living temporarily in London some years ago, he concluded a poem: "Don't read your reviews/ A*M*E*R*I*C*A:/ You are the only land." He still feels the same way: "I've had a pretty good run as an American writer, and I know a number of other writers who have too." He displays the Stars and Stripes on a flagpole in his backyard, overlooking the ocean. The house he grew up in in Shillington also had a flagpole. Says Updike: "Life in this country is, despite its obvious flaws, as good as can be. People run down, and they confuse their condition with the world's."

Updike's view from middle age is optimistic. He has no regrets about his books: "I'm sure that if I reread any of them, I could find opportunities to make them better. But there's a point beyond which any chance of improvement is small." He has heard the charges, from feminist critics and others, that his women characters are reflected in the mirrors of a man's world. "In many respects," he says, "I think they're right. I'm trying to learn. I've given women a rather large place in my fictional universe. But I admit that I was raised with some thoughts that are, at least by today's standards, sexist. I was glad that I was a boy and not a girl." He is still glad and boyish: "I've had a generous share of the good things, money, prizes. I lack for nothing. What I would like to do in the time I have left is deliver my best self."

That does not include slowing down.

Updike has begun a novel that is "at too delicate a stage" to discuss. He wants to put together another collection of poetry. He is also interested in assembling three or four "longish" ruminative essays in the "Thoreauvian-Em-ersonian tradition." He has in recent years become a diligent student of America's literary past. He has written lengthy articles on the careers of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville and Walt Whitman. In a poem called "Authors' Residences," he recalls visiting the Hartford, Conn., homes of Mark Twain and Wallace Stevens and concludes: "Writers, know