Centaur

John Updike (1932-2009) is one of the most significant American writers of the second half of the 20th century, a prose writer, poet, and literary critic, the author of 23 novels and 45 other books: collections of short stories, poems, critical articles on literature, painting, and children’s books. He was a laureate of many literary prizes, including two Pulitzer Prizes (for the novels "Rabbit Is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest").

John Updike's novel "Centaur" was published in 1963 when Updike was 32 years old, and a year later he was awarded the highest literary prize in the United States - the National Book Award. The author himself described the novel as intertwining ancient Greek myths with the reality of a small town in Pennsylvania in 1947.

The characters in the book can be seen as prototypes from among the inhabitants of Olympus. In the main character, George Caldwell, a high school natural science teacher, one can sense the centaur Chiron, the son of Cronus, originally endowed with immortality, and in his son Peter - Prometheus, to whom, according to legend, Chiron gives his immortality. And perhaps Updike himself was a teenager from the same place and the same times.

Some have abilities, others do not. But everyone has something, even if sometimes it is only life. Merciful God did not create us to regret what we do not have. A person with two talents should not envy a person with five. Look at us with Peter. I have no talents, and he has ten. But I do not hold it against him. I love him. He is my son.

John Updike