Book Description
Joey Robinson is a thirty-five-year-old advertising consultant working in the urban jungle of Manhattan. One day, Joey decides to return to the farm where he grew up, and where his mother still lives. Accompanied by his newly acquired second wife and an eleven-year-old stepson, he begins to reassess and evaluate the course his life has taken. For three days, a quartet of voices explores the country air, relates stories, makes confessions, seeks solace, and hopes for love. But all of their emotional musings and reflections pale when tragedy strikes— one that threatens to separate the family, even as it draws them closer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Tiny & Terrific
A must have for fans of Updike and new readers. This small novel is amazingly detailed and shockingly deep. The ideas touched in this story will have your brain kicking you. Updike has that ability to trap you in small menial suburban problems and make them glorious.

Not his best, but still worth reading
This book is not John Updike's best work. However, it is still an enjoyable read. His skill as a writer goes unparalleled as usual, and his writing in this rural drama is quite good.

Praise for Updike's terse psycho-drama
"Of the Farm" commands one's intuition, piques one's curiosity for the following line, and is nonetheless 'beach' appropriate.This is a great casual thriller.

Disappointing
Not Updike's best effort ... Read more

Book Description
John Updike's first collection of verse since his Collected Poems, 1953-1993 brings together fifty-eight poems, three of them of considerable length. The four sections take up, in order: America, its cities and airplanes; the poet's life, his childhood, birthdays, and ailments; foreign travel, to Europe and the tropics; and, beginning with the long "Song of Myself," daily life, its furniture and consolations. There is little of the light verse with which Mr. Updike began his writing career nearly fifty years ago, but a light touch can be felt in his nimble manipulation of the ghosts of metric order, in his caressing of the living textures of things, and in his reluctance to wave goodbye to it all. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Note for "jannieruth"
Note for "Jannieruth"Flick Webb is the subject of "Ex-basketball Star"

An exceptional collection!
John Updike is famous for his novels, of course, but I have been a fan of his poetry for 35 years, since Telephone Poles and The Carpentered Hen were issued in a single paperback volume called "Verse."While his best work was probably the adaptations of Yevtushenko that he did in Hugging the Shore, he has also had other triumphs.This book is his greatest of those. His early work was labeled as "light verse," but it was frequently much more.He wrote a great poem many years ago about a young man named Flick Webb, a high school basketball star turned gas station attendant.Flick was later to become his most famous fictional character, Rabbit Angstrom.The poem (I don't recall the title)contained such great lines as "...bright applauding tiers of Necco Wafers, Jibs, and Juju Beads."He has returned to that kind of vivid imagery in "Americana."For instance: "...brightly colored pools of candy bars; the men's room prim beside the equal-access women's; briefcases floating in a leather flock..."This volume contains A++ stuff of Philip Levine quality.Startling, remarkably perceptive and observant, beautiful but rarely obscure.You'll stop and read passages aloud dozens of times to whoomever you feel is worthy of hearing it.Highly recommended. ... Read more

Book Description
In this brilliant novel, John Updike has created one of his most memorable characters: the Reverend Tom Marshfield -- literate, charming, sexual -- whose outrageous behavior with the ladies of his flock scandalizes his parish.... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

A Decent Book from a Much Better Writer...
For those of you who have come to admire Updike's work, especially from the Rabbit Series, this novel will come as a disappointment. The story of Reverend Tom Marshfield whose sexual escapades with his parishioners causes many problems and eventully lands him in a place to be rehabilitated so that he can return to his church revitalized and purged of his wanton desires leaves much to be desired.

I had many problems getting into the novel - Updike seems to preoccupied with trying to establish Tom as a very astute and observant character with many insights into religion and life. Like with many novels that try to create unique and interesting perspectives, I found the text a little dull with nothing to entertain. If I wanted a diatribe on different subjects, I would buy a collection of essays. I found that Updike fails to have us really care or empathize with Tom's perspective (something Coetzee does marvelously in a similar novel Elizabeth Costello) so any rant he goes on comes off as unwanted. The middle of the text is where things pick up, when we finally find out what series of events leads to Tom being in the position he is in. For awhile, I couldn't put the book down as I raced through scenes of Tom coming to grips with his desires and needs, only to find the end of the novel return to the plodding pace that made the beginning so dull.

Stylistically , Updike is a writing master, as his prose is clear and succinct. It's a pleasure to read the way he constructs sentences. It's a shame that it's wasted on this somewhat problematic story.

Hilarious celebration of pagan flesh and baffled spirit
When the Reverend Thomas Marshall is busted for philandering with more than one of his buxom parishoners, he's dispatched by his bishop to a desert sanitorium for forty days of reflection, recuperation and golf.His carer, Ms Prynne, suggests he write as a form of therapy and this novel consists of Marshall's morning writing exercises and four sermons which he writes on Sundays.He recounts his recent past, the infidelities which led him here, reflecting on the joys of the flesh and the agonies of the spirit.In so doing, he also embarks on a cunning seduction of Ms Prynne... This is a wonderfully clever comic novel.It's rich with layers of symbolism and Biblical references - the Omega-shaped sanitorium, the forty days and nights in the desert - and bubbles along with puns, comic typographical errors, plus arch footnotes and endless wisecracks.It's beautifully plotted, impeccably structured, and like most of Updike's work, it's laugh-out-loud funny but utterly serious in its intent.It's an exploration of the nature and challenges of religious faith in contemporary America.The "sermons" are spectacular examples of the way we can reason the Bible into meaning anything - we can even turn adultery into the purpose of marriage and the key to fulfilling one's human destiny.Updike's control of language is astonishing - some reviewers find it confounding but they lack the patience to read this book slowly, to savour it like a seduction, to enjoy it as it was meant to be enjoyed.When you look back, you realize how meticulously crafted it's all been, and you're dazzled not only by that craftsmanship but also by how lightly it wears the weight.Updike's touch is deft, subtle and most of all incredibly funny.

Imitation Nabokov
I found this perhaps Updike's worst novel, because here, rather than writing as John Updike, he makes an ill-advised attempt to become Vladimir Nabokov. This novel reads like what a college English major might produce just after they had read LOLITA for the first time. Updike's Marshfield is a pallid Humbert. The effort, to reach for what Nabokov did with LOLITA, is transparent. Updike'sattempt to be arch, witty, and erotic, like the earlier book, is clumsy. This novel is embarassingly derivative. If you want real Updike, try THE CENTAUR, or the Rabbit series.

dark revelations from a priest
updike's dark novel of a priest's innermost revelations through his life's journey. not an upbeat read by any means

you people are crazy
This is a fabulous book.It marries esoteric philosophy and ultimate, base humanity better than any book I've ever read.This combination gives it the ammunition to truly shoot to the core of a reader.And I found it quite easy to read. ... Read more

Book Description
The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and several other accolades for his dry, sulky novels chronicling the life of ex-basketball player "Rabbit" Angstrom, John Updike has become a legendary American author. He turns out the flaws in his characters and relationships, simultaneously affirming their worth. Rabbit Redux is the second of five John Updike Rabbit novels, all of which focus on their central character Harry Angstrom.In Rabbit Redux, Harry Angstrom - known to all as Rabbit, one of America's most famous literary characters - finds his dreary life shattered by the infidelity of his wife, Janice. How he resolves or further complicates his problems makes for a novel of the first order.The assumptions and obsessions that control our daily lives are explored in tantalizing detail by master novelist John Updike in this wise, witty, and sexy story. John Updike was born in 1932 in Pennsylvania and has published more than 30 novels plus works of poetry, short stories and essays.John Updike is only one of three Americans to win two Pulitzer Prizes (the others are Booth Tarkington and William Faulkner).He has won many other prestigious literary awards.RosettaBooks is proud to publish the complete Rabbit set Rabbit Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit is Rich (National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize), Rabbit at Rest (Pulitzer Prize) and Rabbit Remembered.Download Description
Rabbit Redux is the second of five John Updike Rabbit novels, all of which focus on their central character Harry Angstrom.In Rabbit Redux, Harry Angstrom - known to all as Rabbit, one of America's most famous literary characters - finds his dreary life shattered by the infidelity of his wife, Janice. How he resolves or further complicates his problems makes for a novel of the first order.The assumptions and obsessions that control our daily lives are explored in tantalizing detail by master novelist John Updike in this wise, witty, and sexy story. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (35)

Updike's most forceful novel
The second of the Rabbit novels. Ten years have elapsed since the end of RABBIT, RUN, and times in America are not so good: chaos reigns as the country is embroiled in Vietnam, the "sexual revolution" is exploding, and social unrest spreads. The novel reflects that chaos through Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom and his world: Janice, his wife, is having an affair and leaves when Rabbit refuses to fight for her; Harry takes up with an 18-year-old runaway named Jill; and a black revolutionary man, Skeeter, comes to live with him. Chaos and violence escalate until Harry's house burns down and Jill is killed. Eventually Harry and Janice are reconciled. Again Updike masterfully portrays the times in which the novel is set through the reaction to them by Harry, and despite the death and destruction all the characters learn important things about themselves and gain perspective. It's an explosive work, an important one, and one of Updike's best.

Rabbit depression
Middle age doesn't suit Harry Angstrom.Just when the erstwhile high school basketball star settles into a comfortable blue-collar life, things come unglued.His wife leaves him, drifters move in, and everything goes up in flames in a hurry.Harry takes his setbacks in stride, frustratingly so, and he seems to have little passion for anything.Except, perhaps, for defending America's role in the Vietnam War.

"Rabbit Redux" is an unsettling book to read.You want to grab the Rabbit by the collar and shake some sense into him.What happened to that wide-eyed youngster who could do no wrong?That's probably the message of this well written book.Youthful potential often doesn't blossom into later-day success.And the dream of mid-life Americana sometimes isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

Apathetic Harry is jolted
At the start of REDUX, Harry finds himself in a dead-end job and a failed marriage with no prospects for a turnaround. Yet the times, 1969, are rife with social turbulence, mainly from Vietnam and racial disturbances. Most of that escapes ex local basketball star Harry; he has never been much of a thinker and is vaguely pro-military and racially prejudiced.

But Harry's life gets a bit of a jolt when co-worker Buchanan, sensing his apathy,invites him to a bar mostly frequented by blacks. There, Harry meets run-away, hippie, rich-girl Jill and a militant back dude Skeeter. Both take up residence with Harry and his son Nelson, Jill playing the role of wife/daughter/lover and Skeeter providing biting commentary on race relations both past and present, capitalism, war, etc. Harry, recast as "Chuck" by Skeeter, gradually becomes receptive to the changes in thought and life-style introduced by Jill and Skeeter, even fending off nosey neighbors.

Harry is an interesting character. He really cannot be cast as a reactionary, NASCAR dad. He seems to have great equanimity, although it may be lethargy, concerning developments in his life. He can even be civil to his wife's lover.

The book definitely should not be subtitled "the enlightenment of Harry"; the outcomes for the main characters are too ambiguous and even very costly in some cases. It is fair to say thatthe author does use the voices of his characters for social and political commentary, though that is consistent with the setting. It is interesting to consider: a dull, middle-class existence in the context of militant social times and whether there is any connection in salvaging a moribund life.

This book grows on you.
Updike is good at balancing the perspective of characters, so that we figure out what is happening through their heads sometimes, and at other times, we hear it in the third person.When inside a head, Updike also doesn't let a linear transgression occur through objectified and common facts, but instead shows us a kind of stream of consciousness, though patterned, way of thinking, and of being wrong about a physical and social world that is constantly changing.This book is a clarion call for class/race/gender analysis--these issues do not exist independently, and cannot exist independently.We get Americana at its finest, but here, things clash, and people talk; instead of any kind of dreamy removed abstraction, we have Updike challenging the social roles: is Jill a prostitute?Is she Harry's daughter?Is she at once Harry's daughter, a prostitute, a white rich girl from CT and Nelson's girlfriend, a heroin addict, a good role model, and a wise philosopher?Well, yeah! That's what makes Updike so good.People are boxed in the way that we traditionally box them, as is Harry, but they are simultaneously moving through space and time, so that the boxes are also moving around them.Through this kind of everyday analysis, Updike moves to tackle major social issues, and he does so, what, two decades ahead of many elite social scientists?And, in my opinion, he does so in a more accessible way--because looking at some of the issues presented in this book cannot be separated away from living a middle class lifestyle; race riots, urban sprawl, gender equity, coming of age adolescence, capitalistic monotony, family breakdown, love affairs, boredom, elitist, racism, the freedom of the road, the neutrality of whiteness, etc.--They are all intermingled and mashed up together, so that we get some kind of more realistic view on how things happen.That's the bottom line I guess.This book is like a moving snapshot, and Updike parses out enough details and specificity to tell us a story, but without losing some of the complication and ambiguities of how life is experienced on multiple levels, from multiple angles, and from simultaneous, but traditionally opposing, viewpoints.

Skeeter is Jar Jar Binks
Rabbit Redux is by far the worst of the Rabbit series and for one reason - the character of Skeeter.Never have I read a book where the author allowed such an annoying character to hijack his story.What Jar Jar Binks (that annoying character who never shut up)was to Star Wars-The Phantom Menace, Skeeter was to Redux. After a while of putting up with the boring and endless rantings of this character, I began skipping pages. I hate doing that but I had no choice. I found that it didn't matter much anyway - nothing Skeeter said brought anything to this story, nor does it to the following two Rabbit books

The book was good overall, but why did Updike have to devote so much of the story to Skeeter and his mindless rantings. ... Read more

Book Description
John Updike is one of the most prolific and important American authors of the contemporary period, with an acclaimed body of work that spans half a century and a source of inspiration that ranges from American exceptionalism to American popular culture. This Companion's distinguished international team of contributors addresses the major themes in Updike's writing as well as the sources of controversy that it has often provoked. They trace the ways in which historical and cultural changes in the second half of the twentieth century have shaped not only Updike's reassessment of America's heritage, but his reassessment of the literary devices by which that legacy is best portrayed. Includes a chronology and bibliography of Updike's published writings. ... Read more

Book Description
John Updike’s twenty-first novel, a bildungsroman, follows its hero, Owen Mackenzie, from his birth in the semi-rural Pennsylvania town of Willow to his retirement in the rather geriatric community of Haskells Crossing, Massachusetts. In between these two settlements comes Middle Falls, Connecticut, where Owen, an early computer programmer, founds with a partner, Ed Mervine, the successful firm of E-O Data, which is housed in an old gun factory on the Chunkaunkabaug River. Owen’s education (Bildung) is not merely technical but liberal, as the humanity of his three villages, especially that of their female citizens, works to disengage him from his youthful innocence. As a child he early felt an abyss of calamity beneath the sunny surface quotidian, yet also had a dreamlike sense of leading a charmed existence. The women of his life, including his wives, Phyllis and Julia, shed what light they can. At one juncture he reflects, “How lovely she is, naked in the dark! How little men deserve the beauty and mercy of women!” His life as a sexual being merges with the communal shelter of villages: “A village is woven of secrets, of truths better left unstated, of houses with less window than opaque wall.”

This delightful, witty, passionate novel runs from the Depression era to the early twenty-first century.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (31)

Beautifully written. Intensely annoying.
In Villages, John Updike has two messages for his male readers. 1) Unless you hurry up and start cheating on your wife, you will miss out on some great sex. 2) When you do commit adultery, don't feel too guilty about it; after all, sex is an overpowering force of nature that even the most well-educated and well-raised among us are utterly helpless to resist.

There may have been other messages that didn't leave much of an impression with me.

It took me a while to figure out why I disliked this book so much. There is, of course, nothing intrinsically wrong with doing a character study of a well-educated man whose main concern in life is to get the wives of other men to swallow his semen and who feels a little bit of guilt and quite a lot of pride about the hurt he brings to others. What is so grating about Villages, I think, is the sense--subtle but impossible to shake off even if you try--that Updike is entirely on Owen Mackenzie's side. That the book is, at its core, a paean to the forbidden ecstasy of adultery.

Updike knows perfectly well that readers are going to assume that Owen's values are the author's. So in order to distance himself a bit from his main character he devises a late, rather crude plot twist in which Owen's infidelity has fatal and tragic consequences. Voila, now the book is no longer a celebration of adultery but a moral debate with readers about it. Hmm...

Updike is sometimes accused of misogyny. Based on this book, I can't really agree. One thing seems clear, though: he has little interest in women who have little interest in sex. Don't be surprised, then, when Owen's wife Phyllis virtually disappears from the story for long stretches. Though sympathetically portrayed, she doesn't have the raw sex drive that would allow her to hold on to Updike's attention. It's a shame, really. I found her to be the most intriguing character in the book.

Updike's fascination with the mysteries of the female sex drive repeatedly distorts his judgment, at best driving him to paint a warped picture of womanhood, at worst causing him to stray into cheap pornographic fantasy made all the more jarring by the brilliant realism he achieves in his depiction of environments and settings.

[...]

I guess the key to reading Updike is to accept that he will not inspire you to become a better or happier person or give you any kind of fresh hope or appreciation for life. If you just focus on enjoying the lush, refined prose you might be all right.

Disappointing and forgetable
Slogging through the hero's sex life was pretty tedious, and there wasn't much else here.

Story of Sexual Experiences, but devoid of Passion!
I was in college when John Updike published "Rabbit Redux" but I never read it.I may read it to compare it to the disappointing "Villages".
Since I haven't read any of Updike's novels, I felt it was about time.The brief and humorous description of Cabot City (Beverly) and Haskell's Crossing (Prides Crossing/Bev. Farms) made it momentarily interesting.However, my dislike of the main character, Owen, made it painful.One would think that the sexual escapades of a successful businessman might be a quick read, but it was just the opposite.Owen lacked passion in his extracurricular activities, or for that matter anything in his life.The one character that I liked, the first wife Phyllis, was "accidently"
(suicide?) killed driving to meet her divorce attorney.I don't think Updike was fond on his main character, Owen, and the writing reflects it.
I enjoy a good read, and this wasn't one.

Another beautifully written Updike..Perfect Prose!!......
..But this would have been banned not so long ago as pornography! An MIT Enginner hits it big in the softwear field, marries, procreates, and is engaged in near endless adulterous escapades and fantasies..Some wonderfull stuff on the beginning and growth of computers, post war suburbia, families, all so well written you can practically see the words shining like diamonds on the pages..But, enough already of the very explicit erotic passages, so numerous that they are about 1/3 of the book!..One wonders why such a phenomenal and wonderful author must seem so obsessed!

Vintage Updike
Once again Mr. Updike delivers an insightful story of life in suburbia and what lurks in the hearts and minds of men and women- love, lust, betrayal, self doubt.Villages relates Owen's life as only John Updike can.The last chapter gets a little too long and not as enjoyable as the rest of the book, but I will certainly recommend it to all my friends. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Updike's eighth novel, subtitled "A Romance" because, he says, "People don't act like that any more," centers on the love affair of a married couple in the Connecticut of 1962. Unfortunately, this is a couple whose members are married to other people. Suburban infidelity is familiar territory by now, but nobody knows it as well as Updike, and the book is written with the author's characteristic poetic sensibility and sly wit.Book Description
"It is, quite simply, Updike's best novel yet." NEWSWEEK

A deftly satirical portrait of life and love in a suburban town as only Updike can paint it.


From the Paperback edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Sally and Jerry, Jerry and Ruth, Ruth and Richard, Richard and Sally
In the Updike oeuvre, MARRY ME is not unlike COUPLES and even VILLAGES, as it explores infidelity and the search for happiness in Northeastern commuter towns. Like COUPLES, MARRY Me features thirty-somethings with young children who gather for weekend drinks and weirdly ecstatic volleyball. Like VILLAGES, it has a selfish and unfaithful male protagonist and even a wife in car accident. These books, like the RABBIT novels, share a lot--in this case, a sensibility, a suburban setting, and an underlying social vocabulary. They are somewhat different looks at the same jewel.

In MARRY ME, there are many fine sections. For example, in the second chapter, "The Wait", Updike perfectly captures the frantic helplessness of trying to get on successive planes as a standby. Likewise, in the third chapter, "The Reacting of Ruth", there is an absolutely pitch-perfect picture of a family in crisis.

But within these two chapters, there is also what I experienced as two mediocre plays. In "The Wait", this is the snippet conversations between the lovers Jerry and Sally. These alternate between confusion (deliberate by Updike) and empty rhetoric about love and fate (also deliberate). Likewise, in "The Reacting of Ruth" there is brilliant dispute between Jerry and Ruth, his wife, with Jerry often making exactly the perfect point to further or justify his position. But for me, these conversations were unreal in their hair-splitting precision.

I'm not a professor. But it's my impression that in the mid-seventies, when MARRY ME was published, Updike, Roth, and other literary authors employed such dialogue. Here, these authors would create realistic social settings with believable dynamics between the characters. This was real. But then, their characters were mouthpieces, not for ideological purposes but so that the author could identify the subtleties in their actions and beliefs. Even now, some of Philip Roth reads this way, with Roth, basically, holding your face to his conclusions. What I'm saying is that this is a literary style that, in retrospect, doesn't look too successful.

Similarly, the fourth chapter of this book, "The Reacting of Richard", also has the elements of a bad play, but for different reasons. In this case, Updike unwinds an affair, showing its angry consequences. Here, his story and interaction seem absolutely true. But this chapter is also only about this unwinding, with Richard, the cuckold, ranting, and others adjusting to his fury. In this case, the chapter has all the qualities of real life--that is, a situation dominated by a loud bore. After a while, it gets tiresome.

Nonetheless, MARRY ME is an engaging book. This is because narrative is an art and Updike is definitely a master at involving his readers and getting them to turn pages. Actually, this is an attribute of Updike's work that I depend on. You see, whenever my reading is stalled, I pull a Flashman novel or something by Updike off the shelf. Somehow, Fraser and Updike renew my pleasure in reading and I'm ready for more.

Admittedly, MARRY ME is not Updike at his best. But it's as good, if not better, than most of the highly hyped new novels that publishers say show the promise of greatness. With Updike, even in his lesser work, greatness is always apparent. For example:

"Beyond the green railing of the promenade a beach curved into a distance where what appeared to be a fort of a fragile pink overhung the glistening steel of the sea; the beach was entirely of pebbles, loose washed pebbles in whose minuscule caves and crevices the ocean musically sighed as through the gills of an organ."

Or...

"The clouds materialized earlier than usual; little upright puffs at first, like puffs of smoke from a locomotive starting its run around the horizon, then clouds increasingly structural and opaque, castles, continents that, overhead, grew as they moved, keeping the sun behind them..."

Updike has faults. But, how can you not like the guy?

Marital dilemma (4.2 *s)
This book is remindful of the author's earlier "Couples," which too involved adulterous relations among suburban couples. However, the focus of this book is far more narrow involving only two families and is much more dialog intensive giving a clearer window into the full range of emotions experienced by these people.

Jerry and Ruth Conant and Richard and Sally Mathias are thirty-something's with three children in each family. The focus of the book is the affair of Jerry and Sally. At times they seem certain of their love and eventual marriage. Yet others are involved for whom genuine affections exist and doubts continually arise, not only as to practicalities but also as to understanding their true and long-term feelings. Some of the scenes are lengthy and it is fair to say can be tedious. The dialog seems endless and repetitious, constantly reviewing the same points and feelings - and it all seems very realistic. The dialog really draws the reader into their dilemma.

The book is really quite insightful concerning marriage in so far as it goes, but it is inconclusive. What to do when a seemingly better marital fit arises after many years is a subject far larger than one novel can solve.

Hard to Read, Extremely Un-Enjoyable
I rarely write negative reviews, or feel compelled to, but this novel seems to have inspired me to do so.I find the plot structure boring.Reading how each member of each couple battles out their mid-life insufficiences by wrecking each others' marriages and friendships, while hearing vapid ramblings and thought-processes of middle-aged rich white people, often put me to sleep.

There are better ways to write about the intricasies of infidelity and complexity of relationships than found in this book.It's like Updike became afraid of really going deeper into each character, into their histories, their surroundings, their connections, their true motives.Yes, the dialog is often clever, but there is no real connection to the larger societal picture in which the characters live.No spiritual strivings beyond Jerry's religious fanaticism.No attempt to figure out what a good relationship really means, or takes, or is worth.

Trying to do much, Updike has left me with almost no last emotion, and feeling like I've wasted my time.

*** spoiler ***

What really disturbs me is how the title, "Marry Me", makes readers think this is some kind of grand romance, when it is really anything but.It should be called "Divorce Me, Ruin Our Family".That would have been much more honest.

Couples Reheated
I'm not sure if "Couples" or "Marry Me" came out first, but I'd already read Updike's "Couples" and so "Marry Me" seemed like almost the exact same story except with fewer couples.One of my complaints with "Couples" was that there were so many characters it required a scorecard to keep track, so at least Updike simplifies it in "Marry Me" with only two couples.

The plot of the story is that Jerry and Sally are having an affair on their respective spouses, who have had an affair with each other previously that no one else knows about.When Jerry reveals the affair, his wife asks him to stay with her for the summer, which makes a miserable time for all.I won't say how it ends, although the last chapter kind of confused me as to how it ended anyway.

At any rate, this book as I've mentioned above is similar to "Couples" in that it takes place in the early '60s in a small eastern town, features couples cheating, and does not have a particularly happy view of humanity.It features Updike's great writing, but it doesn't cover any new ground.The reason I give it three stars is because while the writing may be terrific, it isn't saying anything that's NEW.If you decide to purchase and read this book, understand that you're getting a well-written book, but not one that is much different than "Couples" or John Irving's "158-Pound Marriage" or a host of other books about people cheating on each other.

That is all.

Updike is the Expert of American Soul
An expert of marriage institute, exploring the deepest fears, anxieties.Very painful but necessary catarsis reading.Loved Updike from the very first book of stories I have read for his sad, thought-provoking writing, because the world is not like in a commercial, bright and beautiful, it is dark, sometimes ugly and painful.Interesting to see the USA: America where marriage is ideologically the center, but it is crashing under the cover of neat two-storey houses."Marry Me" is a very Updike book that should be read for us to see our sufferings put in precise words. ... Read more

Book Description
In this classic novel by John Updike, we return to a character as compelling and timeless as Rabbit Angstrom: the inimitable Henry Bech. Famous for his writer's block, Bech is a Jew adrift in a world of Gentiles. As he roams from one adventure to the next, he views life with a blend of wonder and cynicism that will make you laugh with delight and wince in recognition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Didn't Wear Well Over Time
Having read the well-crafted and interestingly expressed story in Bech's own voice in the latest collection of short stories, "Licks of Love", it made me want to go all the back to the original collection of Bech stories.Unfortunately, they're all told in the third person and so aren't nearly as charming.And the experiences of Bech in Communist Europe have little resonance to our time and are not terribly profound.Perhaps the later Bech output is better.This one though is a disappointment.Three stars, of course, because Updike can only be so bad...

Bech's Odyssey
While reading Updike's novel (the "short stories" contained within are in reality semi-connected chapters in Henry Bech's literary life) I could not help thinking about the some of the best serio-comic films of Woody Allen. Like Mr. Allen's films, the book presents the angst, self-doubt, and insecurities of a Jewish writer in an often humorous manner. In Henry Bech's case, his continuing fame rests largely on the popularity of his first novel. His literary output since then contains an experimental second novel, a critically bashed third novel (whose title is often confused with the work of another more consistently successful American Jewish novelist), and miscellaneous essays and poems. What happens next when the creative juices fail to flow, you are starting to drink too much, and you are close to fifty and may be nearing a self-perceived death? Are you reduced to having a series of aborted interviews with an intrusive British reporter in which you say very little, but are neverless reduced to a figure of gossip and derision in thereporter's ensuing article. I felt myself laughing, while suffering along with Bech, in his tenuous affairs with women, and in his "less than heady" experiment with marijuana with a 1960's college-type, who Bech suspects has run off to tryst with his then-mistress. We follow Bech travelling at the behest of his publisher to several Soviet bloc countries where Bech experiences a series of comedies of errors, annoyances, and misunderstandings on his and his hosts' side. A highly recommended book.

Side-splitting humor!A great read!
I'm a little disappointed by the poor reviews below.This is classified as one of Updike's short stories (check out his list of publications in the front) and as such is not a serious novel.I have read plenty of his other works and no, this does not have the character depth or serious plot of the Rabbit series or his other books.It is what it is: a very funny collection of stories about Henry Bech, an overweight 50'ish Jewish writer (there's some very good Jewish humor sprinkled throughout) currently suffering from writer's block.He travels throughout the book; each chapter to a different place (The Soviet Union, the New England beach, a women's college in the Southern USA).Women find Bech fascinating and he seduces several during the story (leading to some very funny scenes).There's several Updike themes I found in his other books that make their way into "Bech", but they are written to be humorous rather than serious (wife/mistress swapping, recreational drug use, worries about death/old age).Updike's prose, as usual, is unbelieveably well written and makes the book worth reading by itself.My advice is, try this book, don't take it seriously, and have a good laugh.You may not want this to be your first Updike book; if you've never read him before I'd suggest starting with "Rabbit, Run" and working your way through that 4-book series.

bech if you have nothing else to read
It was a tiresome book. The chariter of Bech had no depth.His world was bland as he was.This was my first Updike book and it was a big dissapointment.It is a bath room book for when you have no where else togo.

Bech is a beautiful book
Bech: A Book was a great group of stories.Updike mixes humor with highly emotional moments and philosophical ones. I'm looking forward to reading all his other Bech stories. I can't imagine anything Updike writing being abore. ... Read more

Book Description
When, in 1989, a collection of John Updike’s writings on art appeared under the title Just Looking, a reviewer in the San Francisco Chronicle commented, “He refreshes for us the sense of prose opportunity that makes art a sustaining subject to people who write about it.” In the sixteen years since Just Looking was published, he has continued to serve as an art critic, mostly for The New York Review of Books, and from fifty or so articles has selected, for this richly illustrated book, eighteen that deal with American art.

After beginning with early American portraits, landscapes, and the transatlantic career of John Singleton Copley, Still Looking then considers the curious case of Martin Johnson Heade and extols two late-nineteenth-century masters, Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins. Next, it discusses the eccentric pre-moderns James McNeill Whistler and Albert Pinkham Ryder, the competing American Impressionists and Realists in the early twentieth century, and such now-historic avant-garde figures as Alfred Stieglitz, Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove, and Elie Nadelman. Two appreciations of Edward Hopper and appraisals of Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol round out the volume.

America speaks through its artists. As Updike states in his introduction, “The dots can be connected from Copley to Pollock: the same tense engagement with materials, the same demand for a morality of representation, can be discerned in both.”

On Just Looking

“Some of these essays are marvelous examples of critical explanation, in which the psychological concerns of the novelist drive the eye from work to work in an exhibition until a deep understanding of the art emerges.”
—Arthur Danto, The New York Times Book Review

“These are remarkably elegant little essays, dense in thought and perception but offhandedly casual in style. Their brevity makes more acute the sense of regret one feels to see them end.” —Jeremy Strick, Newsday ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

The Language of American Art
I love John Updike's essays. His perspicacious critical writing is, more often than not, a joy to explore. However, I have to agree with a previous review, which wonders at the lack of female representation. In a country with giants like Jenny Holzer, Kara Walker, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, and Helen Frankenthaler pushing the bounderies of art; it's impossible to think of this book as anything other than a reflection of Updike's personal preferences. Therefore, don't expect a comprehensive collection of essays about "the best" (whatever that means) American art.

An art critic's prime articles on American art
In 1989 a collection of John Updike's writings on art appeared under the title JUST LOOKING, providing a refreshingly different viewpoint on the art world: in the last sixteen years he's continued his career as an art critic and has selected eighteen prime articles on American art for this edition. From eccentric artists and unusual American art history influences to portraits of historic figures, Updike's literary and historical review touches upon a range of mediums, artists, and emotional and spiritual influences, making STILL LOOKING: ESSAYS ON AMERICAN ART a vivid, lively consideration.

Excellent Sampler of American Art History
John Updike is a prize-winning novelist, but he was also trained in fine art and has written a number of gallery show reviews, especially for the New York Review of Books.His reviews are always interesting and point out many aspects of the artist's work being shown."Still Looking: Essays on American Art" is a collection of his reviews and that collection is quite eclectic, covering such artists as Whistler, Copley, Ryder, Eakins, Homer, Hopper, Nadelman, Dove, Hassam, Pollack and Hartley, as well as the photographer Stieglitz and two theme reviews on storms and landscapes in his eighteen chapters. While all of his highlighted artists are male, he has good things to say about Mary Cassatt (p. 118) and he does reproduce two of O'Keeffe's watercolors (p. 142) and one of her oils (p. 143).I think his relative lack of female artists in this volume may have more to do with the shows he reviewed for the various publications than any especially strong male bias.

That said, this book is magnificent!The articles are well done and the art work is reproduced in vibrant color. I found a number of works I had never seen as well as "discovering" several artists that were essentially new to me, and was fascinated by the depth of the art produced by them. If you want to begin to learn about American artists, this collection of reviews is a very good place to start.

Insightful prose, insightful images
Updike makes for a keen and amiable exhibition companion in this collection of essays on American art, and there's little I can add to the positive editorial reviews. The illustrations, however, deserve note: they are extraordinarily sharp, despite their size. As one example on p. 50, the lightning bolt in Heade's "Approaching Thunderstorm" (1859) razors down on the left side of the canvas--a detail I have never seen captured in any other book, including those devoted to Heade and containing much larger reproductions of this memorable work. The publisher's technical staff deserve credit and the appreciation of art lovers who, for this reason, will enjoy Updike's guided tours even more.

Why does Updike ignore women artists?
I find it disturbing that John Updike can apparently find no female artist worthy of mention in his book...beyond one artist who is practically unknown. And she is included only because his family owned a piece of artwork created by her. Updike seems very dismissive of even this one female contributor.

He does find room in his book to include a nude photo of the great artist Georgia O'Keefe, but no actual artwork created by O'Keeffe. That should give you a clue what the rest of the book is like.

Disturbing, too, are Updike's dismissive comments about Edward Hopper; he claims that Edward Hopper can't paint faces very well.

So even though I purchased this book, I don't recommend it to others. Give this one a pass. ... Read more

Book Description
Twelve poems follow a family and their friends through the seasons. A Caldecott Honor Book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Lovely but very holiday-specific
This book, which features a racially mixed family, has soothing text and charming illustrations, but the calendar year is highly dependent on American cultural and Christian religious holidays. Thus many of the months revolve around those holidays (July, November, and December in particular). If you are looking for something based on the seasons alone, this book is unfortunately not the right one.

"A Child's Calendar"
I'd recommend John Updike's "A Child's Calendar". Many readers associate Updike with his award-winning "Rabbit" series, which is not about cute little bunnies. Nevertheless, Updike scores big with this lovely collection of poems for children. Each month has a beautiful illustration and a timely poem.

Author of "Hobo Finds A Home", Editor,"Of A Predatory Heart"

Grow young with this book
I purchased this book for a child a few holidays ago, and before wrapping it I read every page to make sure it was appropriate. The reading transformed me. With each page I turned,I grew a little younger. The words and images peeled back the years, page after page, layer after layer. Memories rushed in of a younger self who looked at the world more intently and felt colors and images more deeply.

Reading Updike's words is like sitting on your loving grandmother's lap listening to her tales of days gone by.Gazing at the illustrations is even better--so much to see!

A week later I bought a copy for myself. Had to. I simply couldn't be without it anymore.I start each new month with a glance at what these two artists say about it, and with it comes a rush of childlike joy, appreciation and anticipation for what's to come. I've had the book for years, and never tire of it.

One caveat:If you didn't grow up in a four-season enviroment, the book might not have the same appeal for you. The images are very New England-based, specifically, Vermont and New Hampshire.

It would make a wonderful gift for any child, or adult for that matter. And I mean wonderful. The book is full of wonder.

The Heart of New England
A friend recommended this book for my grandbaby. What a beautiful second birthday gift for my lucky little girl. Most of us are familiar with John Updike. He is a contemporary, well known author from New England, Massachusetts to be exact. John Updike has written the poetry of each month. The poetry reaches into and grabs us all but particularly the child-the rhymes and rhythm so graceful.Trina Schart Hyman has drawn the illustrations. Trina Schart Hyman was from New Hampshire, right up the road from me. She was one of the most glorious illustrators and painters.It was not until Trina's daughter married a man of color that Trina realized her illustrations were all of white people. She has rectified that and these illustrations are magnificent.

This is May in New England- John Updike has written:
"New children may
go out of doors
Without their coats
to candy stores

The apple blossoms
and the pear
may float their blossoms
through the air."

Trina Schart Hyman has drawn a Vermont General Store with a sign that says Vermont Cheeses; Maple Products, Homestead Bacon- children are shopping in the store as we can see through the open doorway, a young boy is licking his ice cream on the steps as his dog watches hoping for a falling icy piece.

The rest of the book is similar- from January through December, a poem for each month and a beautiful vivid illustration to match. What child would not love this book- I love this book! Each month shows the change of season in New England- you can almost feel the leaves crinkle and the soft snow on your eyelids.

This children's book has won a Caldecott Honor. The front cover shows two children at the top of a big hill facing a little village. It is winter and they have a sled and and look like they are ready to go down... nnn the hill.This is a keeper book, one to be read over and over and loved by the child who owns it. Highly recommended. prisrob

Hung thin between the dark and dark.
I propose that we invent an entirely new category of children's literature.In my life I've had the pleasure of discovering, usually through complete accident, fabulous picture books that use poetry to convey seasons.Tasha Tudor's, "A Time To Keep" was the first of these and remains a favorite (if only because it is intricately tied into my own childhood).The second such book was Charlotte Zolotow's breathtaking, "Seasons: A Book of Poems".Words cannot convey how much I enjoyed that book.And now, lo and behold, I've found a third leg to this unlikely triumvirate.And who could have dreamed it would have sprung from the pen of writer extraordinaire John Updike?In "A Child's Calendar", Updike's 1965 poems have been given a lively update, all thanks to illustrator Trina Schart Hyman.The result is a book that truly embraces diversity, change, and how kids react to the natural ebb and flow of the seasons.It is one of the loveliest books for children I've ever had the pleasure to page through.

The book begins in January, and we meet a family of four.An interracial couple and their two sons live in the country, and sometimes the neighbor kids come by.The cold winter months freeze the earth so that, "The river is/ A frozen place/ Held still beneath/ The trees' black lace".With the arrival of spring, the family is out in the yard (with the toddler sometimes "helping" by plucking daffodils from the earth, bulbs and all) and "We still wear mittens/ Which we lose".Summer shows us various idyllic childhood scenes involving ponds to explore, roads to bike down, fireworks, and beachside adventures.Though, as Updike is quick to point out in August, "The trees are bored/With being green/ Some people leave/ The local scene".So autumn comes and school begins.There are costumes and changing leaves as, "Blue ghosts of smoke/ Float through the town".And then winter again and Christmas and a feeling of having gotten through quite an interesting year.

It is difficult not to admire the pictures in this book.Hyman has done an exquisite job.I've adored her work over the years (check out "The Fortune Tellers" by Lloyd Alexander, if you can) and this book is a great example of what she's capable of.Her watercolors capture the spirit of the outdoors as well as the comfort and coziness of staying within.I loved the pictures that accompanied January's poem.Outside the kids stare, with sleds in hand, at the small town and the momentous grey/pink sky above (as seen on the book's cover).The other picture is from inside the home.You can see where the boots, removed after stomping about outside, lay with semi-melted snow still scattered on the rug.Hyman especially gives a great deal of attention to her lighting.That way, a spring morning looks nothing like a summer evening or the winter holiday season at night.The book makes you want to pack up your things, buy a house in the middle of nowhere (possibly in Michigan), and live with your nearest and dearest with all the beauties of nature about you.It's a book that makes you yearn for a time and place you've never known.

And the poems.Ah, the poems.I don't think Mr. Updike needs me to compliment him any.He's already acquired his fair share of praise.So all I will say is that for those that love him, this book will not disappoint.For those who do not know him (or do not know him well), I'll just quote some lines of his describing November: "The stripped and shapely/ Maple grieves/ The loss of her/ Departed leaves. The ground is hard/ As hard as stone/ The year is old/ The birds are flown. And yet the world/ Nevertheless/ Displays a certain/ Loveliness - The beauty of/ The bone. Tall God/ Must see our souls/ This way, and nod".

So there we have it.One of the nicest additions to the world of seasonal poetry books (accompanied by watercolors) for children.Children will find themselves oddly soothed by the poems and pictures.Grown-ups will be mildly surprised to find themselves feeling the same way.
... Read more

Book Description
Artwork by John Updike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Delightful and Beautiful Book
In the 23 essays in JUST LOOKING: ESSAYS ON ART, John Updike is a delightful guide and insightful companion as he reviews art across the centuries. Throughout, Updike's voice is totally engaging, informed but never pedantic, respectful but not reverential. Here is a sample:

o "From his art, we might imagine him [Renoir] a plump, rosy, placid man, but in fact, he was bony-faced, nervous, reactionary, and restless."

o "This painting of Wertheimer tells us what we have been missing in even the more admirable of Sargent's portraits: an at-ease emotional possession of the subject that enables him to concentrate on making a painting. Where no warming familiarity exists, a certain distancing finesse takes over."

o "In 1944, Robert Motherwell wrote of his friend Jackson Pollock, `His principal problem is to discover what his true subject is. And since painting is his thought's medium, the resolution must grow out of the process of his painting itself.' Three years later, in sudden full stride, Pollock could state, `When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing.' Pollock painting is the subject of Pollock's paintings."

o "[Modigliani] ...drank while he painted and liked to complete a canvas in one sitting."

o "As his eyes increasingly dimmed, Degas perforce experimented with roughness of execution, never losing his underlying integrity of drawing."

o "Faces gave [Fairfield] Porter a lot of trouble and his paint thickens as he worries over them."

JUST LOOKING: ESSAYS ON ART is also beautiful book with great reproductions. These tie seamlessly to Updike's commentary and enable the reader to fully appreciate his wonderful insights.

If you can't get to your local museum to visit the Vermeers (thank you, New York), this book is a superb alternative.

A Fine Art Critic Too!
Painting is to Updike what music was to Anthony Burgess: not so much asecond love as a parallel infatuation. One always knew it from his prose:from the references to painters and painterly styles, and from theconspicuously visual quality of his description. It is good, then, to havethis collection of the writer's thoughts on selected artists and art-works.He is neither too academic nor too personal in his opinions, and speakswith authority but without jargon. Of the longer essays, 'SomethingMissing' struck me as particularly good - a tentative, penetrating, carefulpondering about what it is in John Singer Sargent's work that misses themark of great art. The shorter pieces offer bite-sized reflections onsingle paintings or objects: 'Some Rectangles of Blue' discusses anabstract work by Richard Diebenkorn in such a way that one not only feelsenlightened about the particular work but about abstract paintinggenerally. As a critic, Updike has a refreshing freedom from academicorthodoxy - 'We are on the verge here of poster art', he reflects on someof Renoir - and as a (verbal) artist himself has licence to entertain aswell as instruct with his prose. The book is lavishly illustrated withuncompromising colour reproductions and, of all his books, the mostpleasant simply to hold in the hands. ... Read more

Book Description
Edward Gorey's off-kilter depictions of Yuletide mayhem andJohn Updike's wryly jaundiced text examine a dozen Christmas traditionswith a decidedly wheezy ho-ho-ho.This long out-of-print classic is theperfect stocking-stuffer for any bah humbug. 32 pages, smyth-sewn caseboundbook, with jacket. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Hilarious Humbug
Bah to those who found this book slight and unfunny. This is the anti-Christmas cold pricklies for those who don't enjoy the warm fuzzies of the season (and even for those who do). This is a sarcastic, cynical look at some Christmas traditions, and I found it funny and even a little insightful. I thought the illustrations were gloomy and in keeping with the tone of the book. Ebenezer Scrooge would have kept this book on his coffee table, but he was probably too cheap to buy it. A nice gift for someone who prefers hemlock to holly and avoids mistletoe.

Really like Edward Gorey's style of writing
I really like Edward Gorey's style of writing-kind of dark and quirky-not really for children. Very tongue in cheek and funny.I buy all his book I can get andf also like his drawings.

Delicious like terrified plum pudding
A lovely volume of pure Gorey-esque mystique. If you are familiar with Mr. Gorey's fashion of examining the world, you will not be disappointed. If you have not tasted the decadent simplicity of evil delight that feeds the macabre monster, this, my friend, is your Christmas goose.

Wonderfully quirky
Updike gives a unique point of view about Christmas in this book that made me smile as I was reading.The late Gorey's drawings are, as usual, one of a kind.

The Twelve Terrors of Christmas
This was a stocking stuffer that everyone in this all adult family loved. I have shown it to three neighbors who also thought it was great. How can you go wrong with John Updike and Edward Gorey? ... Read more

Product Description
Winner National Book Award. Novel. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Hugging the Shore
In John Updike's collection of essays and criticism, Hugging the Shore, it takes the author until page six to delve into the varied wonders of the female sex organ.I am unsure whether this is a record for Updike, but knowing his work as I do, I suggest not.Still, sex, wit, clarity, insight, cleverness and a tendency towards dazzling prose tell us all - Here is John Updike.

The collection begins, to my mind, very weakly indeed.The first seventy pages are scattered pieces of writing that are neither essay nor story, review nor criticism.One twenty page section is simply interviews, with such non-entities as the Golf Course Owner and the Undertaker.A brief piece on book envelopes taking over the world is bizarre, and one wonders whether the rest of the collection will come across as the droppings of a writer accustomed to seeing his work in print.

Happily, this is not the case.Updike's reviews, while predominantly of Americans and absolutely focused on an American, Protestant outlook, are conversational and enjoyable, while also possessing great intelligence and creativity.He is unafraid to sprinkle his writing with metaphors and smilies and other tricks of the author's trade, allowing his reviews the sprightliness of prose and side-stepping the possibility of churning out tired, staid non-fiction.On Charles Citrine, the hero of Saul Bellow's novel Humboldt's Gift, '...the sleep of his soul, as he thinks of it, is disturbed but not shattered.He rolls over, amid the rumpled sheets and untied threads of the plot.'This is wonderful writing, imagery which could easily find itself nestled within the cosy bosom of an Updike short story.

Because the fiction ranges from roughly the early to late 1970s, and because John Updike has reviewed a great many books by the same authors, collected together by theme (if there are multiple authors considered) or the writer's name (if only one), we are able to watch the rise, or fall, or Updike's opinion of their writing.Of Anne Tyler's writing he is very impressed, until perhaps about 1980 when he begins to realise that the quality of her work has plateaued, and does not seem likely to increase.Iris Murdoch is at first warily appreciated, then wearily disliked, while the French nouveau roman authors are, for the most part, technically applauded while simultaneously derided for their lack of humanity or relevance.

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the collection for me was the hundred and fifty or so pages in the first half which focused on the letters and journals of some of the greatest writers of the twentieth century - Nabokov, Edmun Wilson, Hemingway, Joyce, Kafka.Perhaps because of his own knowledge of writing and the writer's life, Updike brings to his analysis of these works a tender, indulgent understanding of the difficulties and the pleasures of being a writer.Updike is of course was nothing like Hemingway, who boasted of killing men and lions, and who drank and drank and drank; nor was he like Kafka, who couldn't escape the shadow of his father.But he shares with them the passion of the word, which allows an illumination of artistry that perhaps a lay reader would not discover.

Often when reading a collection of reviews it becomes clear to the reader that perhaps only the works they are familiar with should be read.This is not the case with Updike's writing.He does not admonish the unaware reader, and nor does he lord his great knowledge.The plot of fiction is explained gently, calmly, with few interludes, and then he comments on the work.With non-fiction Updike simply comments, and there is a very real sense that he appreciates, admires and respects non-fiction, but that it is not really for him.Reviewing fiction causes his own prose to shine, for example when he calls Calvino's Invisible Cities 'a consummate book, both crystalline and limpid, adamant and airy, playful yet "worked" with a monkish care.'Of the magic realists he is most impressed with Calvino, though he is, as a whole, duly envious of the masters in a genre he cannot himself master.

Which leads Updike, finally, into a kind of removed contemplation of his own oevre, which did not yet include Rabbit at Rest, but was studded with the worthy minor gems of The Centaur, Couples, and, of course, the preceeding three Rabbit novels.In an interview with his own fictional creation Henry Bech, Updike says of literature: 'let [it] concern itself, as the Gospels do, with the inner lives of hidden men.'He 'distrusts books involving spectacular people, or spectacular events'.Other pieces collected under the heading 'On One's Own Oeuvre' include forewords to other books, snippets of poetry, essayistic asides and notes.

Updike's reviews are neither cutting when he is disappointed, or gushing when he is impressed with an author's talents.He remains curiously calm, overall a genial, jolly writer who enjoys reading books and likes to talk about them, but who is perhaps not attuned to the endless passionate craving of a bibliophile.But could this be true?Of a man who has written over twenty books, many short stories and poems, as well as the very book of reviews that is being reviewed?Strangely, it seems to be the case.He is pleasant, not pressing; urging, not urgent.This is both his strength and weakness as a reviewer.We catch the spark but not the flame.

The true American man- of - letters
Updike 's great fictional output is accompanied by hundreds of occasional pieces he has written through the years. He defines the difference between the two kinds this way. "Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.''
So for him the non- fictional pieces are the less -adventurous ones, the ones in which one must stay closer to the world of fact and observation.
Nonetheless in these pieces he almost invariably brings his great intelligence and aesthetic sense into play in addressing a tremendously wide variety of subjects.

What Updike Does Best
I've always felt that Updike is better as a critic and essayist than as a fiction writer; not that he isn't superb at both, but the fiction is (sometimes) too smooth, paradoxically too well-written.Updike's strikinginsights (Doris Day as an American Pelagian) and widely ranging topics makethis collection worth reading again and again.

You'll read parts of it again and again.Superb!
From a brilliant essay on Melville to great book reviews to presenting the works of other writers (such as Yevtushenko), this volume is entertaining, enlightening, and wonderful. ... Read more

Book Description
Ben Turnbull, the hero of John Updike's eighteenth novel, is a sixty-six-year-old retired investment counselor living north of Boston in the year 2020. A recent war between the United States and China has thinned the population and brought social chaos. The dollar has been locally replaced by Massachusetts scrip; instead of taxes, one pays protection money to competing racketeers. Nevertheless, Ben's life, traced by his journal entries over the course of a year, retains many of its accustomed comforts, as supervised by his vibrant wife, Gloria. He plays golf; he pays visits to his five children and ten grandchildren. Something of a science buff, he finds his personal history caught up in the disjunctions and vagaries of the "many-worlds  hypothesis derived from the indeterminacy of quantum theory. His identity branches into variants extending back through history and ahead in the evolution of the universe, as both it and his own mortal, nature-enshrouded existence move toward the end of time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (53)

a vastly disappointing read
wow... just finished it, and can i just say that this is one of those books i have finished out of spite alone, so i can say the book didn't get the better of me.
i have heard john updike described as "a penis with a thesaurus", and i can tell you this book illustrates that comment perfectly. if you are not averse to reading pages devoted to golf games, or accounts of an aging man doting on his penis for paragraphs on end, read this book because it delivers. there are short bursts of beauty, but it is all so incredibly brief and so quickly disregarded that it is irritating more than engaging. so self-indulgent, so crass - - i have also heard it said about the author, concerning his overexposure in the literary world, that "the new yorker seems to publish everything but his income taxes". i think he pieces together a few things, throws it all into a manuscript and says "here you go", evidenced by the great ideas he presents, and does nothing with. For example, FedEx taking over the government, a moon-sized manned satellite abandoned by the people on earth, the fallout after a "sino-american conflict"... a more competent writer could work absolute wonders with these ideas i feel, and he just seems content to mention them in passing and describe ad nauseam his long-term trist with a foul-mouthed crack whore, or his second wife's flower beds over and over and over and over again. john updike is written proof that if you are a sexist, classist prick with a single influential novel, a big vocabulary and a bit of money, you can turn out endless amounts of crap and people will eat it up.

Flora and Fauna can make a man yawn-a
While the book is a brilliant work of sexagenarian introspection and obliquely described dystopian SF and the prose is lyrical, the dense descriptions of flowers, trees, birds, leaf shapes which serve as prologue to each chapter and section are stultifying.After about the 10th round of these long passages of horticultural effervescence, I found myself skimming over them to get to the story.

A similar but milder impatience with all the descriptions of sexual acts and their accompanying odors and effluvia.It all gets a bit boring without some story to propell the book forward.And there is a story, and it's a great story, but the book could have been about 50 pages shorter.

Not among his best
Set in the near future (c.2020) in a semi-rural area not too far from Boston in the aftermath of a nuclear war with China, this basically unsatisfying novel is the ruminations of main character Ben Turnbull as he contemplates the world around him - one in which law has just about ceased to exist and extortion has taken its place. His domineering wife has gone away on a trip - or perhaps he's killed her - it's hard to say. Turnbull meanwhile appears barricaded in his house dealing with a gang of extortionists who live in the woods on his property. Not a whole lot happens in the book, though central to the story is Updike's criticisms of a world ruled by technology and a lack of any kind of moral stamina. Turnbull seems trapped between the barren, mechanistic world outside his window and his nostalgic recollections of the pop culture he believes has defined him as a person. It's a sad book, saturated with a feeling of hopelessness and life not worth living. I consider myself a great admirer of the works of John Updike (I believe that 50 years from now his books, especially the Rabbit series, might be the only fiction from our time period still being read), but I find this novel among the least satisfying of his books.