I was wondering if we could meet to talk about my integrative project. Mondays are my designated IP days (but, of course, I think about it constantly throughout the week) — which means it’s my primary meltdown day.

Basically I know what my question is — how does Updike read Augustine’s view of the body? (Because Updike reads it a very specific way — Augustine is responsible for centuries of Western/Christian men hating the flesh and honoring the soul. Updike has pretty much said those exact words.)

But now I’m unsure of which works to use. I was so sure the Scarlet Letter trilogy would be the best option, now it’s seeming overwhelming and not quite right. Because I’ve discovered that Updike’s story about Augustine is so important, because he creates this “prototype,” or I guess “archetypal” man that he reuses in all his books. (Every Updikean Christian male is the same way — the way Augustine is in this story — a horny jerk.)

But it still feels important to use the final book of the Scarlet Letter Trilogy because it seems that Updike is doing something completely different. His story is about a woman, not the archetypal Christian male. And this woman is trying to escape this Western view of the body by joining an Eastern religious co-op-thing. But she discovers that her guru, who’s supposed to be this enlightened Indian guy, is really a Jewish guy from Jersey who just wants to sleep with her.

[This is when I realize — duh — I should just focus on that short story, “Augustine’s Concubine,” and then the final book of the trilogy, S. Because even though they were written 10 years apart, S. does something no other Updike book does. He has a woman protagonist (not antihero — protagonist) trying to escape this Augustinian world. But, she fails.]