Updike's Bech: a book, and the heaven of fiction

Abstract

This paper examines Bech's trajectory as a fictional character and as an artificer of words. Bech, the word master, is "reduced" throughout the novel in the several oeuvres which try to capture his essence until finally he enters the "heaven of fiction," the ultimate reduction which fixes him as an immortal, immutable character. Bech, however, longs for the mortality of life outside the pantheon, for the unlimited possibilities of reality.