Though it's a bother converting the julian date, and the quotes from Pilgrim's Progress seem a little small in comparison to the commentary, this book makes for great devotional reading with my 10 year old boy. He enjoys looking up the two or three scripture references at the bottom and the prayer after that is always appropriate to the story above. Each day brings a new lesson in the Christian graces.

The Pilgrim's Progress is a wonderful Christian classic that the author John Bunyan wrote while in jail for his Christian faith. It is a wonderfully rich book which charts the ups and downs of the Christian faith, as the character Christian finds his way to the Gate where he will find relief for the burden on his back. Amid the fiery trials that comes his way, he meets people like Evangelist and Help who offer him sound advice, while others like Worldly Wise attempt to lead him off the narrow and straight path.

This commentary by Cheryl Ford does justice to this great classic. The author of this book dispenses scriptural lessons from the original classic. Each day's devotion is full of rich insights that is backed up by scripture verses. It offers sound theology that does not shy away from commenting on where Christians sometimes trip up on our walk. For example, there is a point where Christian falls into the Slough of Despond, because his awareness of his sin becomes overwhelming. But the message is that God's grace is greater than our feeling of condemnation. Each day's devotion also comes with a prayer that asks God to help us guard against these weaknesses. Definitely recommended.

It remains to be seen how many literary works of our day will survive even the minimum duration of popularity to reach classical status. Judging the current day classics against our modern day offerings, I suspect our number of contributions will be woefully lacking. Measured against the best selling book of all time (Bible), the structural basis of this book, Pilgrim's Progress, rates second. Why? Because as with the Bible, it deals with and addresses man's inherent needs to know who am I, where did I come from, what is my purpose in life and how do I achieve it?

Cheryl Ford did an outstanding job segmenting this complex work, dealing with the convoluted issues of life, to daily doses of spiritual meditations. Who should read this book? Only those who have the intellectual honesty to face the issue of who we truly are.....God's fallen creation and then, the courage to begin their own personal pilgrimage back to God.

I own a 1997 Ford Aspire and recently got this book. So far I have not used it much, though it has helped me with some simple procedures like changing the air filter. However, while flipping through parts of this manual I have found that it is definately useful to have a basic knowledge of automobile mechanics in order to correctly complete some of the procedures.

As a person who has learned most of what I know about working on cars by taking something apart on a lazy day, I don't have some of the experience that I think this book assumes the reader has. For example, the section on repacking the wheel bearings confused me within the first few steps. I definately recommend reading through an entire procedure and making sure you understand it all before getting started, to avoid getting into trouble.

The only gripe I have, which is fairly minor, is the ten-year coverage contained in the book, resulting in plenty of pictures with captions like "Typical engine compartment components".

All in all, I think this is a useful book to have, though extremely amateur mechanics like myself may get confused by the lack of very detailed step-by-step instructions.

Haynes offers the only currently available non-factory printed repair service manuals in existence for the Ford Festiva.A good reference manual to help someone maintain their own car. Many of the procedures are accompanied by pictures and given explanations that sometimes are more extensive than the factory Ford shop manuals. Think of the Haynes manual as a supplement to the factory manuals, not a replacement. Upon reading, it will be clear the information is geared to the "shadetree mechanic". The Haynes manual covers the North American Ford Festiva from 1988 to 1993 and the Ford Aspire from 1994-97. With such broadbased coverage, you can expect some information not included in this book. For example, step by step transaxle overhaul, you will not find in the Haynes manual. Typical of Haynes, some generalization also applies with respect to certain diagnosis symptoms, which may or may not be attributed to the Festiva/Aspire coverage. Also, there is lots of pictorial emphasis on the Aspire which Festiva owners might find frustrating. In fact, some info can be misleading if not care is taken to differentiate between the two cars. Still, this manual has too much valuable data to pass up. A definite must-have for the Festiva owner.

This book is a goldmine of information about the Ford Festiva. There are many simple fixes, tips and tricks which can save you hundreds if not thousands in repair shop costs by doing it on your own. It is well organized and contains enough information to keep your Festy running like a charm. If you own a Festiva, this book is the best investment in the vehicle you will ever make.

John Ford is THE greatest film director of American Cinema, and perhaps one of the greatest artist of the 20th century. Yet his figure remains enigmatic, part of the reason is because this man never wanted to talk about himslef. This biography is a well-researched piece written by Ford's own grand son, who is also a film producer. As the director's relatibe, he had access to most of his personal papers, as well as interviews with Ford's many collaborators, which includes John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Maureen O'Hara and many others. It is a very good introduction about the man. I do not share the author's view about Ford's later works, and I have found some contradicting facts about the making of Cheyenne Autumn when I researched the atchive papers of Waraner Brothers, but these are details. This book is a bit sentimental, but so are many of the movies directed by the author's grandfather, so I think that's okay.

This is the best book on the greatest director who ever lived, by his grandson Dan Ford... Part of the reason is that Dan Ford grew up not only in his grandfather's immediate vicinity, but "inside" his world -- the people in Ford's film "family," from the stars to the stuntment to the gaffers, were part of his everyday world as a child. A biography by a relative can go either way: it can be "protective," trying to present the biographical subject in the best possible light, or it can be an account by what anthropologists call a "native informant" -- somebody who actually lives with the tribe he's writing about, and speaks their language. Dan Ford is the latter. He pulls no punches about John Ford's alcoholism, his moodiness, his constant tendency to self-aggrandizing lying about himself and his origins, his streak of personal cruelty, the weakness of personality that made him suck up to powerful people and military leaders while acting as a tyrant to his entourage, but the important thing is that you see this as the people actually around Ford experienced it, as somehow sustained by an affection and an awareness of his genius. Maureen O'Hara, Dudley Nichols, John Wayne, George O'Brian and hundreds of others LOVED Ford, for all his faults and his transparent dishonesty and his small-mindedness. And because they loved him, they gave him everything they had in the golden days of the Hollywood studio system. And because they did that, Ford emerged from that golden age as the greatest director film has ever known. Dan Ford is wonderful on all this, and especially good on the films -- not in the formal sense of cinematograhic analysis, but events in Ford's creative life as a director -- in a way that makes the book indispensable for serious students of film. Dan Ford also writes well, though he protests that he's not a writer. His fine clear and engaging style must have come from living in an Irish household, where language is always assumed to have a magic to it. That shows up in John Ford's films, and it shows up abundantly in his grandson's fine biography.

This book is out of print, but still available if you know where to look. John M. Ford's award winning "Growing Up Weightless" is a familiar theme for him: coming-of-age during a period of change in society. His version of Lunar society owes some debts to previous stories including Heinlein's 'The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress,' but has developed in ways that may surprise you.

As usual, his story is multi-layered, and requires an intelligent reader to decipher the hints and allusions that Ford places throughout the text. Those who want active, clearly described plots should look elsewhere - but those who prefer not to be condescended to and enjoy puzzling out a story would enjoy this novel.

Ford never descends to the device of having characters explain something to each other that they would obviously already know, i.e. "As you know, George, a light bulb is a luminescent device powered by electricity that creates light in dark areas." For science fiction in particular, I find this very refreshing.

Finally, Ford's teenagers are active, thinking kids with dreams and desires. If they are very bright, they also seem very real to me.

It's worth finding a copy of this book. Better still, it would be worth bringing back into print.

I read this book when I was too young to fully understand the complexity of the main character's decision about his future. When I started to go through the same sorts of choices, I found myself haunted by the book, even though I had finished it years ago. The most powerful scene for me is the mother's farewell. Even at the time it made me cry; now it is one of those scenes I use as an example to myself of what good writing really is. Thank you John M. Ford for a very moving experience!

I cannot imagine why Growing Up Weightless is not in print. I was on the jury that picked it for the P.K. Dick award, and since reading it I have always felt that it describes life on the Moon as it should and must be.

Bob Dylan used to introduce his drummer as "the only drummer better than no drummer at all". That pretty well sums up this John Ford book.

What you can't see from home is that the book is truly tiny, about a quarter inch thick and six inches square. It's only 144 pages long; the last 35 of those pages are a John Ford filmography and the first 35 are a Bogdanovitch essay.

The interviews in between are similarly miniature, and in typical Bogdanovitch fashion they revolve more around anecdotes and personalities than film making and theory. For instance, here's what Ford says about my nominee for his best film, My Darling Clementine:

"I knew Wyatt Earp. In the very early silent days, a couple of times a year, he would come up to visit pals, cowboys he knew in Tombstone; alot of them were in my company. I think I was an assistant prop boy then and I used to give him a chair and a cup of coffee, and he told me about the fight at the O. K. Corral. So in My Darling Clementine, we did it exactly as it had been. They didn't just walk up in the street and start banging away at each other; it was a clever military maneuver."

And that's it. A good story. But a short one. Not much about the film itself, though, is there? The longest statements go on for about one full page.

Ford's thoughts on film making are scattered throughout, and it's good stuff:

-On his dislike of close-ups: "We've got this big screen - instead of putting a lot of pockmarked faces on it...play a scene in a two-shot. You see people instead of faces."

-On actors: "If you get the first or second take, there's a sparkle, an uncertainty about it; they're not sure of their lines, and it gives you a sense of nervousness and suspense."

-On film music: "I don't like to see a man alone in the desert, dying of thirst, with the Philadelphia Orchestra behind him."

Ford talks about almost every film he ever made, including most of the silents that no one's ever seen. You can read the book in one sitting, and by the end you'll have a sense of who John Ford was and what he was all about. Since Ford hated giving interviews, but was very patient with Bogdanovitch, this one is something of a standout.

It's a good book, I just wish there was more of it.

(A poster below slags the Hitchcock/ Truffaut book; don't listen to him, that book is marvelous.)

I love film interview books. There has become a great tradition of directors interviewing directors for all of posterity. Bogdanovich was successful at getting a great number of the leading directors on the record. This was his attempt at debriefing John Ford.

John Ford was quite an elusive character. He was considered a great artist inside and outside of Hollywood during his life. This short book isn't a bad attempt to have him comment on those films most precious to him and to us. Unlike Orson Welles, who made only a few films over 40 years, and spoke on them extensively with Bogdanovich, Ford speaks just a sentence or two or maybe a paragraph on some of the greatest films of all time. Grapes of Wrath? "I liked the idea of a family going out and trying to find their way in the world." She Wore a Yellow Ribbon? "I tried to copy the Remington style there." The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? "I think they were both good characters and I rather liked the story."

I hope I haven't made it sound too simplistic, because Ford actually reveals the most important parts of his films with very few words. Just reading a sentence or two and watching the film gives you the idea of what Ford was trying to convey. It may even give these films new meaning.

This book by Bogdanovich is the first attempt to portray the art of this truly great poet in cinema. If you are looking for the facts about his life, just forget this book. But if you are REALLY interested in what kind of person he was, this classic book still remains one of the most poignant portrait of a great filmmaker. Ford rarely tells the truth, and many things that he said in this book is now considered or confirmed to be untrue by biographers and scholars. But it is not only the facts that makes a man. Through the "lies" (if you may called it), you learn a lot about his great sense of sarcastic humour, and his way of capturing people's heart: in many occasion, Ford makes fun of Bogdanovich, yet without hurting his feelings. How many people can talk to somebody like this? I, personally, have never met. Telling stories is itself an art, for somebody like Ford. And through him telling stories, you can feel the poet inside him. Actually, Ford is more honest than most of the directors of his generation. Think of Alfred Hitchcock's self-glorification as he was interviewed by Truffaut. Ford doesn't do that. He is humble and never tries to boast about his "art". He says, he just put the camera before something he found interesting. He never tells about all the difficulties he had to go through to achieve that, but you if you are a careful reader, and somebody who knows his films, you can just feel it. Bogdanovich's introduction, describing the great artist at work during the shooting of Cheyenne Autunmn is so beautiful and sad it will bring tears to your eyes.

If one is searching for a biography of John Ford, this is not the book. (A suggestion--Scott Eyman's "Print the Legend" Another, with a slightly different emphasis but still with insightful observations--"John Wayne's America" by Garry Wills.) But as an analysis of specific Ford films as well as the themes he used throughout his career, this book is invaluable. Gallagher's style is a bit too academic at times, but he offers some interesting observations (His examination of the structure of "The Searchers" is particularly memorable).

This is a good book, even though not what I was looking for. The title says "The man and his films", but this book is mainly about the films. That means, if you are looking for the definitive Ford bio, this book isn't it.

That said, this book does has its advantages. It explores Ford's movies in depth, revealing new facts and a lot of insight. It also has a lot o photos.

If you want research on his movies, this is the book for you. If you want a biography, I suggest you read "Hollywood's Old Master" by Davis.

I don't think customer Lee Kane is quite right when he says that Tag Gallagher's labour-of-love book is mainly about the films. Gallagher's writing is spare and lean but he gives at least as much biography as the purely biographical books.

This is not a great biography of Ford. It doesn't add anything new, and it's probably 100 pages too long(I never thought I'd say that about a book on Ford)! Read Scott Eyman, Print the Legend, and you won't even want to bother with this book.

This is a very good biography of Ford. Yes, McBride relies on Sarris and Carey Jr. a good bit of the time, yet this book remains very interesting and does a thorough job covering the many films Ford made.

Strengths of the book include an eye-opening look at Ford's WWII service, (How many other guys were at both Midway and D-Day and managed to get to Burma and Yugoslavia as well?) a clear presentation of Ford's relations with the different studios (the list of "better" titles for The Quiet Man the head of Republic tried to force on Ford is hysterically funny) and an evenhanded evaluation of Ford's behavior during the blacklist era.

Perhaps the evenhandedness of McBride's tone is what I liked the most about the book. One could take Ford's life and turn it into a straightforward case of hero-worship, or one could take an axe to him up and down the line, pointing out his failures in family life, his bigoted comments, his questionable actions in some controversial issues. McBride avoids falling into either extreme camp. We get Ford warts and all here, and it is left up to us to decide.

My only complaint is that the book is too short. I would have liked more discussion on a few films, and I would have liked a chapter on Ford's posthumous reputation. McBride raises the issue in his introduction that Ford is being forgotten by the new generation of writers and filmmakers, but he never quite tells why.

Still, this was a fine book, one that I read quickly despite its length.

As a fan of the master filmmaker John Ford, I was enthralled to find this wonderful biography. It is both entertaining and scholarly, filled with fascinating anecdotes that provide the reader with an in-depth view of Ford's complex personality. In spanning Ford's life and career, this book also provides a panoramic overview of Hollywood itself and the dramatic changes it went through over the years, many of which are reflected in Ford's work. I really enjoyed the analyses of Ford's films which provide many new insights and perspectives. A must-read for anyone interested in film.

I think the problem with this book is that it is too broad. It covers virtually everything you can think of and a lot you probably didn't know existed. Unfortunately this wealth of knowledge is so diverse that it only covers the very surface of most topics. If you want to know what something is or get a very rough idea of how to do it, this book is helpfull, but it certainly won't improve your photography. It is quite elaborately illustrated and provides many black and white, and color examples. It needs to be updated as technology is advancing so rapidly. I would prefer much less information on tricks and special effects, and more practical information such as exposure tables for different films and conditions.

I found this book to be the best book on all aspects of photography. It shows examples of very simple
lighting setups and some very very complicated and interesting examples. It will show you how you can set up rooms with conflicting natural lighting, by mixing the lighting with flash or incandesent lighting. It shows you what equipment you will need. In addition it covers everything, and I do mean everything in photography.
I am ordering another one because the first one I had literally came apart. That is the one thing that dissappointed me. Its NOT the fault of the author. My first book was very poorly binded.
Some of the pages came loose. In all honesty let me say that I was rather rough with it. If this one falls apart, I am going to punch holes in it and put it in a loose leaf binder. I miss my first one so very much.

This is an extremely useful guide for beginners on up. I have a master's degree in photojournlism but am interested in other aspects of photography as well. This book is comprehensive and covers anything from artistic processes to commercial photography. I teach photography at the college level and highly recommend it to my students. It is not a book that will collect dust if you're seriously committed to photography.

John M. Ford's latest is another in a string of excellent novels by an author who doesn't receive the praise and recognition he deserves. Ford's novels are all fabulously inventive. 'The Last Hot Time' is no different.

This novel is about a young man in an alternate world where Faerie exists. Danny Holman is 'called' to Faery where he becomes Doc Hallownight, the personal physician to a mysterious gangster-type figure.

What I love most about this book are Ford's fascinating characters. He's created a relatively large ensemble cast, all of whom receive roughly equal time sharing the spotlight with Doc. The forlorn newspaper reporter. The babbling beauty with a voice to die for. The Elf assassin. Ford's menagerie is endlessly inventive and interesting. I was sorry to see this novel end after only 200 pages.

I highly recommend this novel. One of my favorites from 2000.

"The Last Hot Time" is, at heart, a coming of age story. Years after the gates to Faerie have been reopened, Daniel Holman is running: away from his Iowa childhood, toward something better, or at least different. A road accident throws him into the orbit of a literate, powerful patron named, appropriately, Mr. Patrise. Patrise, it seems, is one of the leaders of the world between the worlds, and Holman, now renamed Doc Hallownight, learns much about his new world and more about himself.

John M. Ford owes debts in many directions for this book. Most of them are explicitly acknowledged, such as the movies Doc & his girlfriend Ginevra go to see and the references to tales of 1920s gangland Chicago. Terri Windling's "Borderlands" series is neatly tied to this one by several subtle references, and Ford borrowed two Emma Bull characters for a cameo. Those who love contemporary fantasy, residents of Chicago, and old movie lovers will find many in-jokes and references to enjoy here.

Ford's signature style is to leave much unsaid, to assume the readers' intelligence and let the reader draw their own conclusions from the hints Ford provides. It took me a full re-read of the novel before I understood the ending, and the exact nature of Doc's treacherous heart, and the reason Doc fears himself as much as anything or anyone around him. The story is told from Holman/Hallownight's viewpoint, and the moment when he switches from thinking of himself as Danny to knowing himself as Doc is sharply drawn and never commented upon.

If "The Last Hot Time" has a flaw, it is that Ford is covering well-trodden ground. Windling and her co-conspirators have done a remarkable job describing their Borderlands, to the point that Ford's story is overshadowed by his predecessors. Still, "The Last Hot Time" is at least as much about mood and character as about setting, and here Ford succeeds admirably. It's easy to fall in love with his complex, self-contradictory, wonderful characters.

I recommend 'The Last Hot Time' to anyone who wants to remember a time that never was, but that you wish you'd seen.

The Last Hot Time is a fascinating tale of young man who leaves his home in the mortal world to live in The Levee, a region inbetween the mortal world & Faerie. Danny Holman becomes Doc Hallownight and quickly becomes involved in the intrigue of the Levee. Under the sponsorship of the mysterious Mr. Patrise, he uses his medical knowledge to help the other residents of the shadow region. With a colorful cast of characters with names like Cloudhunter, Stagger Lee, Ginevri Benci, & Phasia, he battles a dark force loose in the Levee. I have waited a while for Ford's new novel and it is well worth the wait. This made my Hugo nomination list for Best Novel of 2000.

"Memories of the Ford Administration" (1992) is the fifteenth novel of John Updike, a prolific American writer. It is the third of Updike's novels I have read, spaced widely over the years, with the other two being "Roger's Version", which predated this book, and "In the Beauty of the Lillies", which followed it. I had similar reactions to all three books. Updike deals with important and large themes, such as the possiblity and nature of a belief in God in a skeptical age, the character and promise of American life and history, and, of course, the nature of human sexuality.

There are interesting things in the books by Updike that I have read. But they are all highly uneven with long, dull and wordy sections. Worse,the books have each seemed to me glib in a way that detracts from the importance of their themes. They are more in the nature of literary performances than thoughtful explorations of their subject matters. I have thought about the three Updike books I have read, and was engaged while I was reading them. But I still came away dissatisfied.

"Memories of the Ford Administration" begins when, in 1992, a historical organization called the Northern New England Association of American Historians asks Professor Alfred Clayton (named after Alf Landon, the 1936 Republican Presidential candidate) to provide "requested memories and impressions of he presidential Administration of Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977)." Clayton is a professor at a small women's 2-year college in New Hampshire during the Ford years. By 1992, the college is a four-year institution and has gone co-ed.

In response to the request Clayton produces instead a long, rambling, draft-like monologue which is the text of this novel. It consists, in roughly alternating sections, of a discussion of Clayton's personal life during the Ford years, and of a long unfinished manuscript of Clayton's involving the life and administration of President James Buchanan. Buchanan was the fifteenth President, just before Lincoln, and the only bachelor President.

One can understand the befuddlement and the irritation with which the Northern New England Association of American Historians would have greeted Clayton's response. The trouble is, as far as the novel is concerned, that their response is justified and that the reader of the novel is entitled to the same response and more. There are interesting things in Clayton's ruminations on his life and good discussions in the manuscript on Buchanan. There is little on President Ford's administration and, from a novelistic standpoint, far too little in tying the Ford administration together in some insightful way with Clayton's life or with the Buchanan administration. Updike tries to do this I think, but in an overly clever manner. That is why the book is more a "performance" than it should be and ultimately doesn't succeed.

Clayton remembers the Ford years as a time of widespread sexual openness and promiscuity. The novel focuses on his sexual liasions and primarily on his lengthy audulterous affair with a woman named Genevieve, the wife of a colleague at the University, whom he fantasizes to be the "ideal wife." Genevieve and Clayton abandon their families, including young children, to pursue their affair, with deleterious and unhappy consequences. Neither has the will to get a divorce and to marry the other.

Twentieth century writers of every variety show great interest in sex and in the human libido. I think it is a product of the englightment, with the attendant skepticism toward revealed religion, that took place centuries ago, not, of course, in the Ford Administration. Even writers and individuals who have remained committed to organized religion have tended, for the most part, to accept at least some of this product of enlightenment thought. I found it useful to remember this in considering the book's treatment of sexuality.

The Buchanan portion of the book focuses on Buchanan's romance with a young woman during his early career as a lawyer, the termination of the romance due to what appears to be a misunderstanding, and the subsequent early death of Buchanan's beloved. There are good scenes in the book describing Buchanan's subsequent relationships with President Andrew Jackson and the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne. The final days of Buchanan's administration, the prologue to our Civil War, are described in a revealing, if slapdash, way.

There is a focus on the elusive character of historical understanding -- which is good and well-taken. The book seems to suggest the impossiblilty of achieving anything even approximating historical truth which seems to me tendentious and unsupported.

One theme that comes through, I think, is the value of restraint of our tendencies to be overly-critical of our national leaders, of American culture, and of ourselves. This is easier to do when events are separated from us by historical time, as is the case with President Buchanan, than is the case with our contemporaries, such as President Ford. There is also the broad theme of forgiveness running through the book. I found President Ford's pardon of former President Nixon hovering in the backround of this novel, even though it is little discussed. Thus, to the extent the book deals with the Ford Administration at all, what it has to say is thoughtful and humane. President Ford is praised for doing his best, for keeping the Nation's interests at heart, and for acting in a responsible manner. (see, e.g. p.354, p.366) Professor Clayton learns, I think, in the course of his ruminations, to work towards a sense of forgiveness and understanding of his own life, including its disappointments and failings. I think this too is a message of the book, but I find it obscured by a good deal of false bravado, obscurity, and unnecessarily showy writing.

There is good material in this book and it stimulates reflection. Thus I think the book will reward reading in spite of the reservations about its specific tone, style, and substance that I have expressed.

Professor Alf Clayton looks back on the days of the Ford administration and weaves into those reminiscences his research on President James Buchanan.

After an uncertain start, principally because I thought that Updike's style was over-elaborate and the sex scenes overdone, I found this a very entertaining novel - Updike seemed to control himself as the novel progressed, and it became more enjoyable for that.

This is a book that works on many levels - it's about historic change, on a national and personal scale (if you like macro- and micro-history). Clayton recalls the Ford administration not only because it coincided with a crisis in his married life, but also due to the fact that, with hindsight, it could be seen as the end of an era for the USA (the crises of the late 1970s were yet to come, as were the end of the days of irresponsible sexual liberation with the arrival of AIDS). The Buchanan administration concluded of course with the Civil War: indeed, both Ford and Buchanan could be seen as "forgotten" Presidents due to the events that followed, and therefore erased, the collective memory of their Presidencies.

Updike also contrasts the sexual mores of the nineteenth and late twentieth centuries. To some extent it's a contrast of extremes - Buchanan's love life is stymied by the highly restrictive and repressive norms of the time, whereas the mid-1970s is the hedonistic swan song of the liberation begun in the 1960s. Yet the irony of it is that neither time results in human fulfilment - neither produced happiness. In all, Clayton despairs at finding a meaning both to his and Buchanan's lives - and by his reflection upon both American and personal history questions whether "meaning" exists as a tenable concept at any level.

In all, good thought-provoking stuff. A star lost for the rocky start, but I thought Updike redeemed himself later, and the writing on Buchanan's life is every bit as assured as, say, Gore Vidal's historical novels.

This book features Updike's astonishing talent with the felicitous phrase and the perfect observation. Here is one of hundreds from this beautifully written book: 'The coming day was yet only an unhealthy blush low in the eastward sky, a crack of sallow light beneath a great dome of darkness to which stars still clung, like specks of frozen dew, though the moon had fled.'

But oddly, this genius seems to work against Updike in 'Memories.' This is because his immense talent allows him to jump from what he can render as high point to high point in the lives of Alf Clayton and John Buchanan, the protagonists of this novel's two interlocked story lines. Here, a comparison might be an acting class, where actors do only the most dramatic scenes from great plays. There, we see the great and perfect scenes. But we don't really get a great feel for the characters.

Somehow, Updike's brilliance in 'Memories' has this same effect on me. In retrospect, this novel is a succession of perfect aesthetic moments. But the personalities of Alf and Buchanan? For me, it's hard to say what motivates these men or to wrap my mind around them. Certainly, it's clear what Alf sees in Buchanan--his early romanticism and his ultimate failure to master chaos. But in a few months, I won't remember either character clearly. I certainly won't feel their pain.

Nonetheless, Updike's genius is on full display here. It remains one exemplar for judging fiction, for all time.