Updike the music room - stories

In the stories fr the early 60s john Updike collected in The Music Room he explores some of the themes and modes he will continue to work for the rest of his career. Ex: the madman is a terrifically funny story of U and his young wife as innocents abroad worth reading if only for the first pages that perfectly capture the sense an English major has on arrival I London but then goes on to their arrival in Oxford and attempt to get 'lodging ' and this is or seems to be a story as close to memoir or personal essay as u ever came intl I his overtly autobiographical works much later. He was I think examining how close fiction cam come to fact. Another story giving blood introduces I think the Maples who will carry him through the next long phase in his writing - New England propriety and class and suburban infidelity and domestic distress. The title is b telling as is the single tight narrative of husband and wife driving to city to donate blood and raising many issues in their marriage ESP as they reflect on party o previous night and what that revealed about their marriage and family.

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