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3.44 AVERAGE
3.44 AVERAGE
Updike is worth reading for no other reason than his amazing descriptive abilities. His knack for evoking the specific textures, colors, feels, smells, etc. of his settings are second to none. You can truly imagine yourself in the snowy New England fields or the dusty school basements which are his natural habitats, and every detail stands out sharp as day. This part of his work contains a light undimmed. However, the rampant, leaden sexism and racism that pervades his texts does much to obscure that light. You can forgive a writer the blinders of his or her age, but Updike takes a little too much pleasure in it, almost to the point of maliciousness. It dates his writing and badly.
This particular book is an interesting one, but the story works best when he keeps the scope small and focuses on the small-town life and the hopes, frustrations and anxieties of George Caldwell and his son. When the mythological stuff is made explicit, it really weakens the work. Strip that stuff away, and it's a decent, somewhat bittersweet story of an anxious father who fears he was never good enough for his son and his teenage son's own anxious, tentative steps to distance himself from his father and establish his own autonomy, while yearning for the simple hero worship and certainties of childhood.
This particular book is an interesting one, but the story works best when he keeps the scope small and focuses on the small-town life and the hopes, frustrations and anxieties of George Caldwell and his son. When the mythological stuff is made explicit, it really weakens the work. Strip that stuff away, and it's a decent, somewhat bittersweet story of an anxious father who fears he was never good enough for his son and his teenage son's own anxious, tentative steps to distance himself from his father and establish his own autonomy, while yearning for the simple hero worship and certainties of childhood.
