Since 1960 the novelist and poet has been reviewing books for the "New Yorker", and the reviews of the last eight years make up the bulk of this volume. Authors include Edmund Wilson, Vladimir Nabokov, Franz Kafka, Muriel Spark, Anne Tyler, Italo Calvino, Henry Green, Robert Pinget, L.E. Sissman, R.K. Narayan and Roland Barthes. He also writes of actresses Louise Brooks and Doris Day and golfers Sam Snead and Arnold Palmer.
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4.8 out of 5 stars
4 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
You'll read parts of it again and again. Superb!
Feb 3 1999
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
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.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The true American man- of - letters
Oct 19 2005
By Shalom Freedman
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
What Updike Does Best
May 25 2000
By Alex D. Groce
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
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 striking insights (Doris Day as an American Pelagian) and widely ranging topics make this collection worth reading again and again.
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4.8 out of 5 stars
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