<\/p>
James Wood is always illuminating, but never more so than when he\u2019s giving a book a sharply negative review, as he does with Updike\u2019s recent Terrorist <\/em> (reviewed in TNR July 3). My favorite line: \u201cWhen Ahmad [the terrorist of the title] speaks, he sounds like V. S. Naipaul; but when Ahmad thinks, he sounds like John Updike.\u201d <\/p>\n Wood, as always, addresses the theological dimensions of the novel. While acknowledging Updike\u2019s religious impulses (\u201cthe world is uncomplicatedly God\u2019s, and it exists to be lyrically praised,\u201d which \u201clicenses what is best in [Updike\u2019s] writing \u2013 his strong will to thank God for His creation by attending carefully to all its surfaces, from fridges to vaginas\u201d), he also highlights Updike\u2019s confidence in redemption by sex. Ahmad begins to waver in his commitment to radical Islam after a sexual encounter, and this illustrates \u201cUpdike\u2019s gospel\u201d of sexual redemption: \u201cSex is both the earthiest of activities, the most human, and the most touched by divinity: not either\/or, but both\/and. We can have it all. We can rut like rabbits and pray like priests; our rutting is priestly [shades of Cleopatra!]. Theology sacralizes sex, while sex humanizes theology. In this way sex manages at once to rid us of our religious hang-ups, to abolish theology, and also to rid us of our secular hang-ups; it manages to make us theological, to divinize us; it is the perfect spiritual exercise, the soul\u2019s supreme therapy.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" James Wood is always illuminating, but never more so than when he\u2019s giving a book a sharply negative review, as he does with Updike\u2019s recent Terrorist (reviewed in TNR July 3). My favorite line: \u201cWhen Ahmad [the terrorist of the title] speaks, he sounds like V. S. Naipaul; but when Ahmad thinks, he sounds like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature"],"yoast_head":"\n