Reviews for The John Updike Audio Collection

The average rating for The John Updike Audio Collection based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-05-06 00:00:00 Kevin Massie Well narrated by several voices including that of the author who also reads the introduction. I've heard a lot about Updike over the years & read a little back in school. He's a good writer & all of these short stories show that. He can paint characters, scenes, & evoke emotions well, but I didn't really care for the subjects. Nothing wrong with them, but nothing terribly compelling about them either. For instance, there is the couple that have a gal over for drinks & the husband walks her home afterward. She invites him up to see her place. He goes, kind of knowing he shouldn't. What follows is one of those awkward times. She may want him to make a pass at her, but he doesn't want to & leaves after a bad joke too well received. Been there, done that. It's one of those things that happen; nothing desperate or sordid about it although it might have become so had he accepted. It could have also been inconsequential, fun, or slightly embarrassing quickie. One of those "We'll agree never to speak of this again." kind of moments. It was anyway. In the end, it just was a well described null moment that life is full of. The story of the pool might have been the best simply because of the quirky way the story was told. It was sad, a divorce told through the eyes of the pool from the mess of its construction, the energetic & sexually charged early days, & its rather sordid decay and destruction. A mundane cycle of life. I think his reputation was better deserved in the time (1950s-70s) & media (The New Yorker) in which it first appeared. Now they're just blasé stories.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-11-07 00:00:00 Florian Otto Jane Alexander and Edward Herrmann are perfect choices to narrate Updike stories, with their proper Yankee voices and inflections. They know just how to read this great writer's work, and do an even better job than Updike himself, who reads a few of them also, which is not to say that he is a weak narrator. It is interesting that a female narrator does not detract at all from the stories; Updike's point of view was clearly male but he was no macho dude. Any fan of his work should appreciate this collection, and when you listen to his writing, it brings out the flowery, finicky, yet richly expressive character of his prose. I suppose I could complain about the selection, which seems a bit random, but does cover a few of the different things that he does. A couple of the Maples stories are included - they are the young couple that Updike followed from youthful marriage through infidelity and divorce. I still can't get a handle on the character of Richard Maples; he is an odd duck, proper and successful, but also impulsive, emotional, and a little feminine. Another thought that crossed my mind as I listened to this: Updike was not really a story-teller. There is the occasional dramatic moment, but he was primarily a literary portraitist (and wordsmith). He created witty, often humorous portraits in words - of families, of struggling couples, of men, of homes, of gatherings, and of the times and places in which his characters lived (which were the same times and places that the author lived in). And as a literary portraitist, he probably had/has very few peers.