SOURCE: Loose, Julian. “Odd Couple.” New Statesman and Society 4, no. 147 (19 April 1991): 34.

In the following review, Loose commends the comedy and complex ruminations in U and I, noting its examination of the rivalry between Baker and author John Updike.

U and I, an idiosyncratic essay on John Updike (the “U” of the title), is a creepy piece of madness, and its author, Nicholson Baker, an enragingly irreverent smart-ass. If this sounds a little severe, I should explain that these comments come from U and I itself. To anticipate criticism is often to disarm it, as Baker knows well (“Who will sort out the self-servingness of self-effacement?”). Yet this is a peculiarly risky book, and some readers may agree with Baker's assessment of himself as an “enthusiastic, slightly crazed, fringe, no-bullshit idiot-savant”.

For well over a decade, Baker has been obsessed with Updike. U and I starts as a kind...