Updike, Ashkenazy.

John Updike is from Mars, Vladimir Ashkenazy is from Ve... no, not really. They are both from this world, although Mr. U is from middle-class white America (which, it seems from his novels, a separate world of its own) and Mr. A is from Soviet Russia (although, to be fair, he is also a half-Jew and his surname is Jewish).

What do those two people share to warrant writing about them in the same entry, other than having born in the same decade (1930's), and looking like a pair of identical gray scale twins with characteristic silver white hair?



Well, not much, it seems. And probably not much really, too. But in my mind, those two greatly accomplished artists of nearly completely unrelated fields of art are inexplicably linked. Let me explain:

Ashkenazy is a pianist. I don't know the first thing about playing a piano or listening to one, but through my few years of casually listening to classical music, it seems Mr A has a rather distinct style. To put into words, he plays every note with extreme clarity and precision, it is overwhelming. For the first two bars or so of his performance, I'm in awe. His piano, it seems, has transformed from a crude approximation into the very Platonic model of the perfect sound generating machine. Unlike, say, Artur Rubenstein, who doesn't give a flying fuck about what the notes are and gets them wrong about half the time anyway.

Updike is a novelist. I don't know the first thing about writing a novel or reading one, but through my few years of casually reading to novels, it seems Mr U has a rather distinct style. To put into words, he writes every word and sentence with extraordinary beauty, it is overwhelming. For the first two pages of his novel, I'm in awe. The scene he's describing, it seems, has transformed from a dark, sordid, poor quarters of the normal little people into a scene of great beauty and grandeur. Unlike, say, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who has never sent anyone running to a dictionary.

After the first shock of beauty, and when readers and listeners alike have regained their consciousness, and have read and listened and enjoyed and then endured more than half of their respective performances, readers and listeners (reasteners?) are left to wonder: What is this guy trying to say? and if one is brave enough to stay to the end the answer comes, sometimes like a dove, sometimes like a drill against the skull - Nothing.

Mr U and Mr A alike, it seems, have spent a great deal of time and effort mastering their arts (and no doubt, they are great masters) and yet, their performances ring hollow. Under the skin of extraordinary prettiness, there is nothing.

Final words - Ashkenazy's music is far more endurable than Updike's to me personally, if only because I think literature should have a message, where music can server very well in an elevator.