Customer Reviews

John Updike Revisited

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James Schiff's book on John Updike is the best I've read. Schiff seems to know everything about Updike, and his ability to discuss such a range of novels in so few pages is impressive. His chapter on Updike as a man of letters is a brilliant, well-researched, and eloquent argument for Updike's place as one of America's finest critics. In addition, he offers the finest criticism I've seen on The Poorhouse Fair, the Scarlet Letter novels, The Witches of Eastwick, Buchanan Dying, Memories of the Ford Administration, Brazil, and In the Beauty of the Lilies. His chapter on the Rabbit novels is also intelligent and articulate, one of the better summaries of that great multivolume achievement. All in all, Schiff's book is a must read for anyone interested in Updike.

How can anyone in 228 pages possibly get a genuine feel for Updike's huge oeuvre? Mr. James A. Schiff can and does by giving the Updike fan and student a nice rehashing of most all of his works to date. The author surpasses the seminal critical works by the Hamilton's, Elizabeth Tallent. Rachel Burchard, Robert Detweiler, and others I've read by including some critical reviews never before in print.

He begins by discussing and memorilizing family and community in THE POORHOUSE FAIR and THE CENTAUR. This gentleman critic from the University of Cincinnati looks at Rabbit Angstrom as an American icon and then thoroughly discusses the Rabbit teralogy. The marriage novels, COUPLES and THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK are taken together. In chapter five he discusses the much rehearsed Hawthorne trilogy of S., ROGER'S VERSION, and A MONTH OF SUNDAYS. A section on recreating American history is discussed in the rather obscure BUCHANAN DYING, MEMORIES OF THE FORD ADMINISTRATION, and Schiff recreates a renewed (or perhaps original) interest in IN THE BEAUTY OF THE LILIES in an unbiased review of perhaps Updike's "greatest work" according to Schiff.

A chapter on his short stories which a lot of people consider Updike's forte (a master of the small canvass) and even the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist's expertise as "the contemporary independent critic" are explored in his three and soon to be published fourth book on criticism not to mention his frequent stints as editor, Intro, and Preface writer. JOHN UPDIKE REVISITED is a thoughtful, knowledgeable, and highly readable book that must receive a five star--but of course I'm an Updike fan.

This is a well-informed volume with a few strong chapters but also significant weaknesses. James Schiff is devoted to Updike's work and in particular offers vigorous appreciations of recent works of Updike - particularly notable is his strong defense of *Brazil*, which has been critically lambasted. Also noteworthy is a lengthy discussion (12 pages) of *In the Beauty of the Lilies*, which is one of the best things in the book, and a final chapter that evaluates Updike's accomplishment as a critic. Unfortunately, the interest of the volume is limited by Schiff's rather pedestrian belaboring of the obvious and a non-Updikean conception of artistic work that naively and unreliably judges works to be either "successes" or "failures." If the author were less preoccupied with arguing whether a work succeeds or fails and studied in detail some of the qualities of diction, syntax, and metaphor that make almost every page of Updike's prose (and poetry - unfortunately not treated here, despite the recent publication of Updike's *Collected Poems, 1953-1993*) a marvel, the volume would be of greater value to readers. Other flaws: the author underestimates Updike's cosmopolitanism, seems to lack the necessary subtlety to appreciate Updike's philosophical and religious themes, and fails to appreciate the degree to which Updike's embrace of an ethic of *craftsmanship* binds together the disparate aspects of Updike's oeuvre. Chapter 5 shows signs of having been hastily reworked from an earlier volume of Schiff's on the '*Scarlet Letter* trilogy.' This reader finds the view that *The Witches of Eastwick* "may be Updike's finest novel" unconvincing - only a reader who finds the character of Freddy Thorne in *Couples* appealing could think so. The volume includes a useful selected bibliography of other volumes of criticism. Worth reading, but should not be considered to be among the best works on John Updike.