"Outage," by John Updike

John Updike's story, "Outage," in the latest issue of The New Yorker, is illuminating and beautiful, and is also a piece of crap.  It is the story of Brad Morris, a man working from home while his wife is away managing a boutique, and the few hours during which he experiences a blackout, stumbling around his house with nothing to do (because "Without electricity, there was nothing to do," of course).  Then he goes to town, where he sees other people experiencing the same helplessness, which has now transformed into a kind of excitedness:

... the atmosphere of the downtown, beneath its drooping festoon of useless cables, seemed festive. Automobiles paraded past with burning headlights. The ominous thickening in the air stirred the pedestrians to take shelter again. There was a brimming, an overflow of good nature, and a transparency: something occluding had been removed, baring neglected possibilities. Hurrying back into the shelter of his car, Brad laughed with irrational pleasure.

Then, on Brad's drive home, he encounters a neighbor who he doesn't know very well.  Lynne is scared and alone, her husband away on "business" (ha!), and when Brad invites himself to her home ("if I may") to take care of things; which is to say, to "be a man" and solve the problems that she cannot solve on her own, to fix things, to take care of her, etc, they are suddenly, out of nowhere, preparing to have sex.  Then, of course, the electricity comes on (oops!  I ruined it for you!) and they are embarrassed ("but she, too, in her nakedness, was embarrassed"), distinctly awkward with one another, as though the electrical outage had somehow given them a permission which has now been taken back.  And then Updike starts talking:

“I think I do [have to go]. He [referring to Lynne's husband],” he said, “might call. Even she [referring to his own spouse] might, if the outage has made the news in Boston. You’ll be fine now. Listen. Lynne. The alarm has stopped beeping. It’s saying, ‘All is well. All is normal.’ It’s saying, ‘Get that man out of my house.’ ”

“No,” she weakly protested.

“It’s saying, ‘I’m in charge now.’ ” Brad turned his eyes from her nakedness, his wispy blonde’s. “It’s saying,” he told her, “ ‘This is how it is. This is reality.’ ”

Blah.  Now, of course, this being Updike, the story is written beautifully and intelligently, with a subtle sense of danger and freedom that he so desperately wants us to associate with a world without technology, a world where we can finally be human again, our lives no longer mediated by machines but, rather, by our own physical desires.  But why do we have to, in the end, talk explicitly about what the story is about?  I mean, it's a short story.  It's really short.  And not much happens.  So it's fairly obvious, you know, what the story is about.  I get it.  Really, I do.

But like I said above, the story is sometimes beautiful.  There is a tragedy here -- the tragedy of the way we live now, so attached to televisions and burglar alarms and ATMs and computers that we don't really see each other anymore.  Updike's thesis is an important (if obvious) one, and is something that is worthy of exploration.  I just wish I hadn't seen the whole thing coming from a mile away, and I wish, after the predictable outcome had played itself out, that he hadn't felt the need to restate his thesis in his conclusion -- because this is fiction published in the most high-profile venue available, not a high school essay, and sometimes we should be allowed to figure things out for ourselves.

Comments

[Guy]

I agree. I enjoyed the story very much but felt that Updike's voice was at times coming out through Brad in an intrusive manner which was not in keeping with Brad's character. I have to say though that the story gave me goose bumps, and while I agree that the ending was obvious and that perhaps the whole story was obvious, I think that is what makes it relevant and satisfying. I don't read fiction to be surprised (or I would be reading thrillers), I read it to feel affirmed and to find my own thoughts in those of another, and I think Outage succeeded at that beautifully. Thank you for your enlightening comments however, and for the oppurtunity to express my thoughts!

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