Books
by John Updike
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Marry Me |
It's so perceptive and honest. It's the story of two couples, Ruth and Jerry and Sally and Richard. One day Sally and Jerry begin an affaire. They think they're in love, they want to marry each other but they are already married to other people! It's a book every person on the verge of divorce should read. It shows the mess it brings to them, to their other halves and to their children.
(Laurence Martin Euler - bwl 27 December 2004) |
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Terrorist |
With his striking powers of observation the author savagely portrays post 9/11 America and a run-down district of New Jersey in which his chief character, young Islamic fanatic Ahmad, lives and works. The story inolves Ahmad's relations with his imam, his black Christian girl friend Joryleen, his Jewish career adviser and his Lebanese employer who manipulates him. A depressing yet dramatic story and I much admired Updike's masterly skill in telling it.
(Jeremy Swann - bwl 46 June 2008) |
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The 'Rabbit' Tetralogy - Rabbit Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest |
Never having read Updike, I intended to try the first but just had to read all four and now understand why Julian Barnes reveres him. Written ten years apart from 1950 these novels capture the zeitgeist of small town, middle-class America. Harry Angstrom, flawed but endearing, attempts to escape the constraints and responsibilities of marriage and family life. With his unique prose style, Updike's portrayal of the human condition is utterly convincing. He said he was attempting "to give the mundane it's beautiful due". Bravo, Mr Updike!
(Denise Lewis - bwl 64 Spring 2012) |
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Villages |
A disappointment. I was looking forward to Updike's latest book but was irritated by Owen Mackenzie's lack of willpower! Here is a man at the end of his life trying to convince you that it was never his fault he was unfaithful to his wife but it was always the 'other' women who initiated the affaires. Who is he kidding?
(Laurence Martin Euler - bwl 27 December 2004) |
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