Beautiful books Quote by John Updike
““They were beautiful books, sometimes very thick, sometimes very thin, always typographically exhilarating, with their welter of title pages, subheads, epigraphs, emphatic italics, italicized catchwords taken from German philosophy and too subtle for translation, translator's prefaces and footnotes, and Kierkegaard's own endless footnotes, blanketing pages at a time as, crippled, agonized by distinctions, he scribbled on and on, heaping irony on irony, curse on curse, gnashing, sneering, praising Jehovah in the privacy of his empty home in Copenhagen.””
About This Quote
Source Book: The New Yorker, 1975, article by John Updike
A description of a dense, richly annotated book that overwhelms the reader with scholarly detail and emotional intensity.
In simple terms: A heavily footnoted book full of irony and philosophical references.
Key Takeaway
Appreciate depth but seek clarity.
Themes
literature
philosophy
irony
annotation
emotion
Mood
introspective
critical
thoughtful
Type
analytical
descriptive
literary
When to use this quote
- academic research
- personal reflection
- writing workshops
- philosophical study
Key Concepts
postmodernism
intertextuality
existentialism
scholarly critique
Questions to Reflect On
- How does excessive annotation affect comprehension?
- When does irony become counterproductive?
A Different Perspective
The overload of footnotes can obscure the main narrative.
![“It seems to me one cannot sit down in that place [the Round Reading room of the British Museum] without a heart full of grateful reverence. I own to have said my grace at the table, and to have thanked Heaven for my English birthright, freely to partake of these beautiful books, and speak the…” quote by William Makepeace Thackeray](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/21d/william-makepeace-thackeray-74_beautiful_it-seems-to-me-one-cannot-sit-down-in-th_291707.jpg)
