574317
9780449911907
"[The book can] be read simply as a fiendish compendium of exurban manners--the dinner party scenes, the protocol of adultery, the care and neglect of children. The games are described with loving horror. The incidents of wife-swapping are a nice blend of Noel Coward and Krafft-Ebing. As to that style--it is there in set-pieces, which can almost be read separately...Updike's weakness is not too much beauty but too much precision; he tells you more than you want to know, in words as arcane and exact as old legal language...[In this book] he has written a painful natural history of Man, and it would have been in his interest to make it big with personal tragedy. But this goes against his religion. So instead, it trails off on a note of irony...Existence is tragedy enough for a Calvinist temperament like his own."Updike, John is the author of 'Couples ' with ISBN 9780449911907 and ISBN 044991190X.
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