receive some assistance in setting up house. Nevertheless, even with these new responsibilities, Teddy is hesitant to take risks with his life, instead becoming content as a postal carrier—a job where everyone knows him but no one is close to him. He is certainly not unhappy, but there is a sense that he has traded his chances for commercial success and personal fame for the contentment which comes from having personal and family security.

Teddy and Emily’s daughter Esther—Essie, as she is known in the family—is the subject of the third section of the novel. A beautiful child who grows into a beautiful woman, she is doted on by her parents and her aunt Esther, Teddy’s older sister. Unlike her father, she is adventuresome, and is quick to seize the opportunity to enter the world of modeling and show business. Aided in New York by her cousin Patrick, the son of her Uncle Jared, she makes the connections she needs to land contracts in magazine advertisements, on television, and eventually in films. Her successful career as the starlet Alma DeMott leads to roles opposite all the major male stars of the 1940’s and 1950’s, but she pays a price in her personal life: constant besiegement by fans, a string of lovers and husbands, and demeaning treatment by agents, directors, and producers who want her for her image, not herself. The contrast between the Hollywood life and that of small-town America is brought into sharp relief on the occasions when Updike shows Essie visiting family in Basingstoke.

The final section focuses on Essie’s son Clark. The offspring of one of her marriages, he grows up in the Hollywood environment of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Frequently neglected by his hardworking mother, he drifts into the company of people often older than himself but with little sense of direction in their lives. As a young man, Clark ends up working at a Colorado ski resort for his great-uncle Jared, who, after moving from New York to avoid criminal prosecution, has landed in the Centennial State, where he has made a fortune through a series of fortuitous land deals and a generous share of plain luck. Clark’s chance encounter at the resort with a young woman he mistakes for a free- spirited ski enthusiast leads him to the mountain retreat of a religious sect headed up by a charismatic figure modeled on the real-life cult leader David Koresh. The group openly defies state and federal law, and as a result becomes involved in a bloody stand off with authorities. Clark, renamed Esau by the leader, serves as spokesperson for the group with outside agencies. Although he is not able to avert a tragic ending for his fellow cultists, when federal agents storm the group’s compound, Clark exhibits personal heroism in saving some of the women and children from being murdered by the more extreme members of the sect.

Updike manages to hold together these disparate strands in a single novel by highlighting overt links among family members, and by providing a subtext that unites all four generations of the Wilmots: their relationship to motion pictures. Clarence finds solace in films when his faith is gone. Teddy also finds escape in the dark houses where fantasies are played out on the silver screen. Essie becomes involved directly in the industry, making her life a living fantasy as she interacts with screen stars such as Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and Bing Crosby. Clark serves as a living reminder of the dark side of the motion picture industry, which uses up people and discards them without regard to their needs or their personal dignity. As more than one reviewer has suggested, Updike is fascinated with the way the films have replaced religion as both the symbol of hope for many Americans and as an object of worship in the society.

What also unites the Wilmots is the similarity of their desires. Despite the generational gaps, despite the widely disparate professions in which they engage, and despite the changing social climate which influences their actions and colors their perceptions, their life stories strike a chord of recognition in every man and woman. Clarence, Teddy, Essie, and Clark are all concerned with those basic personal and social issues that characterize all humanity: discovering oneself, falling in love, choosing one’s life work, finding God. No doubt some readers will find most of the Wilmots rather ordinary people, and even the exciting Hollywood life which Essie leads is given short shrift in the novel. Instead, Updike is content to focus on the commonplace to highlight the universality of human desires exhibited over four generations in this typical American family.

The supporting cast of characters, however, is far from banal. Updike provides readers a number of sketches of men and women whose lives intersect those of the major figures in his tale. A number of these are quite tantalizing: Mr. Dearholt, the chief elder in Clarence’s church, who is reminiscent of Mr. Bounderby in Charles Dickens’ Hard Times (1854), but who provides quiet assistance to the Wilmots long after Clarence has left his ministry; Clarence’s brother Jared, the rebel of the family who marries into a gangster family in New York, flees to Colorado to escape prosecution, and ends up prosperous as much through good fortune as through foresight; Clarence’s sister Esther, who defies the moral code in Basingstoke by taking up with a married man who is also her boss, and who encourages both her brother and niece to flaunt convention in the pursuit of happiness; Jared’s son Patrick, openly gay and deeply involved in the New York social and entertainment scene; and Jesse, the Vietnam War veteran who drops out of the mainstream to found the cult where conservatism on many educational and political issues is united easily with liberal sexual mores. Any one of these might have made a more “interesting” subject for a novelist bent on entertainment, but Updike sticks to his self-appointed task of presenting figures who (with the exception of Essie) remain out of the spotlight.

There are also pages and pages of descriptive detail: items in the local drugstore, people wandering the streets of small towns and large ones, buildings and landscapes that make up small towns and great cities, events momentous and trivial which form the backdrop against which the lives of the Wilmots are played out. Updike wants readers to get a sense of the American scene, variegated and changing; his work is a paean of praise for the commonplace in the life of the country. For every notation of a change in presidents or an announcement of war, there is some mention (frequently rendered with more lavish attention) on the everyday events in the United States during the twentieth century.

Bibliography

Bloom, Harold, ed. John Updike: Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. A wide-ranging assortment of essays by important critics assessing various aspects of Updike’s work.

The Christian Century. CXIII, April 24, 1996, p. 452. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

Commentary. CI, April, 1996, p. 64. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

The Economist. CCCXXXVIII, February 24, 1996, p. 89. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

Greiner, Donald J. Adultery in the American Novel: Updike, James, and Hawthorne. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1985. Explores the Updike- Hawthorne connection in regard to the theme of adultery.

London Review of Books. XVIII, March 21, 1996, p. 23. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

Los Angeles Times Book Review. January 28, 1996, p. 3. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

Maclean’s. CIX, February 26, 1996, p. 70. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

The Nation. CCLXII, February 12, 1996, p. 25. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

National Review. XLVIII, February 26, 1996, p. 63. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

New Leader. LXXVIII, December 18, 1995, p. 27. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

The New Republic. CCXIV, May 27, 1996, p. 29. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

New Statesman and Society. IX, May 3, 1996, p. 37. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

New York. XXIX, January 15, 1996, p. 52. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

The New York Review of Books. XLIII, February 29, 1996, p. 4. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

The New York Times Book Review. CI, January 28, 1996, p. 9. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

The New Yorker. LXXII, March 11, 1996, p. 105. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

Plath, James, ed. Conversations with John Updike. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1994. Updike discusses various concerns raised by his work.

Schiff, James A. John Updike Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1998. A brief, readable survey of Updike’s work.

Time. CXLVII, January 29, 1996, p. 78. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

The Wall Street Journal. January 17, 1996, p. A12. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

The Washington Post Book World. XXVI, February 4, 1996, p. 1. A review of In the Beauty of the Lilies.

Wood, Ralph C. “Into the Void: Updike’s Sloth and America’s Religion.” The Christian Century (April 24, 1996): 452-457. A major review of In the Beauty of the Lilies exploring Updike’s religious vision.

To tell his story of the changing nature of American society during the twentieth century, Updike turns to one of the most popular forms of fiction during that era: the saga or chronicle novel. Updike's imagined history of the Wilmots spans four generations, and although he gives unequal play to the progenitor of the clan, Clarence, he manages to display how the values which prompted Clarence's actions at the turn of the century linger in his great grandson at the end of the period. The modern chronicle novel, usually expansive and filled with details of everyday life, captures readers' attention by presenting generations of everyday people whose stories are both interesting in themselves but also typical of the adventures that many families have faced in their attempts to establish roots and make a good life for themselves.

Updike is a master at creating characters and providing minute details of ordinary life. His descriptions of houses and business establishments, of neighborhoods, and of political and social ceremonies, have a ring of reality so strong that readers find themselves transported imaginatively to these places and events.

Additionally, two leitmotifs characterize In the Beauty of the Lilies. a focus on religious issues and a running commentary on the American cinema. The novel opens with a description of the production of D. W. Griffith's The Call to Arms (1910), which is juxtaposed to scenes from ordinary life in Paterson, New Jersey, where Reverend Clarence Wilmot is struggling with thoughts of atheism. The novel ends with the destruction of a religious cult, whose final days are witnessed by all of America via broadcast television, the technological stepchild of the movies. Throughout the novel Updike contrasts the hopes provided by conventional religious belief with those offered to Americans by the make-believe world played out for them on the big screen. Updike accentuates this counterpoint by telling his story through the eyes of his four principal characters, each of whom responds to the lures of religion and the movies in different ways. Hence, readers gain multiple perspectives on the power of these dominant forces in American culture as they influence the lives of Clarence Wilmot, then his child, grandchild, and great grandchild.

The title, In the Beauty of the Lilies, is taken from Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic," a patriotic song that espouses the righteousness of the Union cause during the American Civil War by asserting that God is leading the North's effort. Ward's lyrics, which Updike uses as a Preface to his novel, reads: "In the Beauty of the Lilies, Christ was born across the sea,/ With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me." Updike has commented that the stanza has always haunted him, presumably because it suggests Christ's promise of salvation. In this novel, however, there is no hint that any character has been transfigured; there is only the continuing search for meaning in a world where commercialism has replaced religion as the dominant cultural force.

Because it shares many characteristics of other novels chronicling the development of the American character, In the Beauty of the Lilies offers great opportunity for discussion of a number of historical, sociological, political, cultural, and moral issues. The changing nature of Americans over the decades of the twentieth century, and the ongoing preoccupation of Americans with religious and moral issues, are two areas which can lead to particularly fruitful debate. The unusually muted treatment of sexual issues makes the novel one of the few by Updike which can be examined without fear that an overemphasis on the physical description of sexual attributes and activities may diminish attention on other matters. The widely divergent lifestyles of the four principal characters also presents opportunities for comparisons of ways Americans have attempted to achieve success and personal fulfillment.

1. The novel opens with a description of Hollywood director D. W. Griffith filming a scene for one of his movies, A Call To Arms. How does Updike use this opening to set a tone for the novel? Griffiths was also the director of one of the most famous silent movies ever made, Birth of a Nation (1915). Do you think Updike wants knowledgeable readers to recall this fact? Why might that add resonance to your understanding of the opening scene?

2. After the Wilmots move from Paterson, New Jersey, to Basingstoke, Delaware, the youngest of Clarence's children, Teddy, has several opportunities to move to a major metropolitan area to make his fortune. He chooses not to do so. Why do you think he remains in Basingstoke?

3. Even after she achieves success as a movie star, Teddy's daughter Esther returns home periodically to visit family in Delaware. What is the significance of these trips home for her? Do they seem "in character," or does she seem to be simply carrying out an outmoded social ritual? How do her parents and friends react to her return visits?

4. After he joins the religious cult in Colorado, Clark is given a new name, Esau. Do you see any parallels with the biblical figure of Esau? How is Updike using Clark's behavior with the cult to comment on religion in American society?

5. A number of reviewers have commented that, while In the Beauty of the Lilies traces the history of an American family, the four sections are not particularly well connected; rather, they resemble four novellas, only loosely connected by the use of the same characters in more than one of the stories. Do you agree with this assessment? Why, or why not?

6. Near the end of the novel, Esther's brother Clark, who has spent his adult life working for the Central Intelligence Agency, tells his nephew Danny, "I try to be dispassionate about it, but I love this crazy, wasteful, self-hating country in spite of itself." Do you believe Updike shares this view? Why might it be appropriate for Danny to be the one to make this observation?

7. Updike has often been called America's finest stylist and one of the great wordsmiths. His ability to create mellifluous prose has, at times, been seen as a drawback: some critics argue that his concern for creating beautiful word pictures sometimes obscures rather than illuminates his themes. Do you think this is the case in In the Beauty of the Lilies? What passages seem to be overdone? Which ones bring Updike's themes into sharp focus? Do you see any differences in the passages you have identified?

8. The story of the Wilmots is set against the backdrop of twentieth-century American history. From time to time, Updike mentions events that have significant impact in shaping the course of America's destiny during this eventful century. How do these real-life events affect the Wilmots. Which ones seem most significant? Which seem to have little relevance to their lives? What is Updike suggesting by introducing these events in the way that he does?

In many ways, In the Beauty of the Lilies is the story of American society in the twentieth century. The four principal fictional characters, all members of the Wilmot family, live through these eventful hundred years, witnessing the growth of the United States from an emerging industrial and political leader among nations before World War II through the decades of warfare and internal turmoil that culminate in the country being left as the lone superpower on the planet. Surprisingly, however, little of national or international politics takes center stage in the novel. Instead, Updike focuses on the domestic and personal sides of the Wilmots's lives, intent on examining not the character of a nation but the character of individuals whose collective experiences have shaped the moral fiber of the country.

James Garner, an early reviewer of the novel, links Updike's attempts with those of many of his predecessors and contemporaries. Writing in the National Review, Gardner says that American novelists are obsessed with the desire to "send their characters across the great expanse of this continent to find themselves and discover what it means to be American." What emerges in Updike's version of this journey toward self-discovery is a continual struggle between material wealth and spiritual poverty. As the country becomes more diversified ethnically and economically, and as the standard of living rises for those who manage to take advantage of good fortune, there is a concurrent reduction in the importance of spiritual values in guiding individual lives.

In Updike's vision, the cinema becomes a new form of religion for Americans in the twentieth century. On the silver screen, rather than in the pulpits, Americans find the inspiration for fulfilling their dreams—dreams which have become devoid of any need for considering one's eternal fate. As a reviewer in Commentary, a religious publication, noted about the novel, "In America, the theater has replaced the church," and "the movie goer's passive suspension of disbelief has replaced the religious believer's active embrace of faith." The internal struggle over theological matters which drives the patriarch of the Wilmot family to give up his place in the Church plays no part in the life of his granddaughter; his great-grandson, however, eventually turns to religion, albeit an extremist sect led by a destructive false prophet, when he becomes disillusioned with the materialistic society in which he has grown up.

In the Beauty of the Lilies can best be classified as a chronicle novel, a popular genre in twentieth-century American fiction. Linked to historical events, it depicts the lives of a single family over a number of generations. Like the novels of Kenneth Roberts, John Jakes, and Howard Fast (to name but a few), it relies on real chronology to establish background and setting for the fictionalized accounts of the family whom Updike chooses as his representatives of Americans affected by the changes in technology, politics, culture, and religion over the course of the century. Among the more noted literary figures who have also written works of importance in this genre is John Steinbeck, whose East of Eden (1952) tells the story of three generations of an American family. Like Updike, Steinbeck uses the chronicle novel to explore not only the development of the American character, but also universal issues of human morality and social justice.

Updike is not the only serious novelist to make use of the movies as a leitmotif in his fiction. In his most highly regarded novel, The Moviegoer (1961; see separate entry), the Southern writer Walker Percy also uses the movies as a symbol of modern society's penchant for seeking substitutes for religion as a means of coping with contemporary problems.

Although no other Updike novel follows a family through four generations, there are a number of parallels between In the Beauty of the Lilies and others by the author. The four fictional works commonly referred to as the Rabbit novels— Rabbit, Run (1960); Rabbit Redux (1971; see separate entry); Rabbit Is Rich (1981); and Rabbit at Rest (1990; see separate entry)—chronicle the life of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, Updike's modern hero who grows up in modest circumstances and makes a comfortable life for himself despite the many anxieties he faces from adolescence through old age. These novels portray the changing face of America from the late 1950s through the early 1990s. Like a number of the characters in In the Beauty of the Lilies, Rabbit Angstrom struggles with religious doubts and with the lure of material culture. One can also find similarities between Clarence Wilmot and Roger Chillingworth, the hero of Roger's Version (1986) who becomes obsessed with obtaining verifiable proof for the existence of God.