Ian McEwan's Eulogy and Updike's "The Wallet": Faith vs. Technology

Introduction: McEwan's Central Claim

In an article meant to eulogize the late, great writer John Updike, Ian McEwan makes a statement that is confusing unless one understands Updike's background. McEwan says that "this most Lutheran of writers, driven by intellectual curiosity all his life, was troubled by science as others are troubled by God" (McEwan). The eulogizer makes the point that Updike was not troubled by God, but by the technology that had been increasing his confusion about the world he lived in. It is easy to see that the contention McEwan is making with relation to John Updike is that the author was comfortable with his conception of God through "long relationship" (McEwan), but he was uncomfortable with the change wrought in the world by an ever-increasing technology.

The Wallet: Plot and Symbolic Loss

To support this point, McEwan references the author himself and a short story Updike wrote in 1985 called "The Wallet" (McEwan). As a man who had lived through almost a century's worth of changes, John Updike had gone from the age of simple automobiles to that of space travel. More immediately, he had also gone from a time when he could rely on events occurring at a certain pace and with personal care, to a time when people were less involved and the entire process seemed "impersonal" (Updike).

"The Wallet" tells the seemingly simple story of a man who first seeks a large check he believes has been misplaced, and then discovers that he has lost his wallet (Updike). The crux of the matter is that he has lost himself. At one point in the story, Updike has his protagonist say, "It was my wallet. Everything was in it. Everything. Without that wallet, I am nothing" (Updike). It is not that the man — Fulham, known only by his last name in the story — truly believes his entire life is wrapped up in the wallet, but that because the wallet is missing, he has no identity. The wallet, whose contents Updike describes in detail, contains "credit cards, club membership cards, cash, personal pictures" (Updike) and other fragments of a life. Because Fulham has placed his entire sense of self-worth in the wallet, losing it means losing himself.

Connecting Fulham to Updike

Relating the story back to John Updike is at once simple and difficult. When an author writes a story — any story — they are, in part, leaving a piece of themselves behind (McEwan). In his story about a man losing his wallet, Updike explores some of his own concerns. One difficulty in seeing Updike in the narrative is that he was not beyond the peak of his powers when he wrote the story (McEwan). "The Wallet" appeared in Yankee Magazine in 1985; Updike would go on to win a second Pulitzer Prize, for Rabbit at Rest, in 1990 (McEwan). Thus, the feeling that Fulham has of being diminished in importance by retirement does not seem to directly apply to Updike. As another contrast, Fulham is in his seventies and had probably been forced to retire from his Wall Street brokerage house, whereas Updike was only 53 when he wrote the story.

However, Updike may have related to the irritation and impotence his character feels when things start to go wrong. This is the simpler part of the comparison. At one point in the story, Fulham reflects on his retired life and thinks that things were much easier when he was sitting behind a desk, attended to and shielded from reality by "swift-moving, enameled secretaries to shield and buttress him and to turn his hesitant murmurs of dictation into official communications on stiff company stationery" (Updike). Life used to be easy; now it is complicated by the new ways things are done. Updike, as someone in late middle age, could sympathize with the confusion and sense of diminishment gripping Fulham. At the end of the story, Fulham regains both his wallet and is delivered the check. He looks at both, realizes he has lost the world that was known to him, and understands that he is ready to die.

Conclusion: God as Constant, Technology as Flux

The comfort Updike showed toward God was unusual, and his discomfort with technology equally so to outsiders. But for John Updike, who had known God his entire life, it was not strange at all. The eulogy that McEwan wrote was a testimony to a man who produced impressive prose and could express himself as few others could (McEwan). That religion was always the undercurrent of his stories was widely understood (McEwan). Ultimately, Updike would have seemingly been content with an old typewriter and a friendly mail carrier rather than email and an impersonal computer.

Works Cited

McEwan, Ian. "On John Updike." The New York Review of Books, 12 March 2009. Web.

Updike, John. "The Wallet." Yankee Magazine, September 1985. Web.