John Updike | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 6 pages of analysis & critique of John Updike.

John Updike | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 6 pages of analysis & critique of John Updike.
This section contains 1,681 words
(approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Review by Jay Parini

SOURCE: “All His Wives Are Mother,” in New York Times Book Review, November 6, 1994, p. 7.

In the following review, Parini offers praise for The Afterlife and Other Stories.

A writer as prolific and variously gifted as John Updike is bound, eventually, to frustrate readers. How does one absorb a body of work that includes 16 novels, 6 volumes of poetry, 5 fat compilations of essays and reviews, a memoir, a play, 4 books for children and now—after a pause of 7 years—his 11th collection of short stories? Were all this writing mediocre, one might still wonder at its mere volume. What is perhaps more striking is that so much of it is good, even dazzling.

I remember stumbling on Pigeon Feathers, his second (and, for me, finest) book of stories, 30 years ago I was a teen-ager in a small Pennsylvania city not far from Mr. Updike's Reading, and it thrilled me to...

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This section contains 1,681 words
(approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Review by Jay Parini
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Critical Review by Jay Parini from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.