S by John Updike

by John Updike

john Updike, the acclaimed author of The Witches of Eastwick, pens hisfunniest novel yet. S. is Sarah Worth--doctor's wife, loving mother, and now an ardent follower of a Hindu religion. She abandons everything to dentist expound on the horror, hilarity and hope of her experience.

Genres: Fiction, Literature, American, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Religion

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

John Hoyer Updike was an American writer. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered). Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest both won Pulitzer Prizes for Updike. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike is well known for his careful craftsmanship and prolific writing, having published 22 novels and more than a dozen short story collections as well as poetry, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems have appeared in The New Yorker since the 1950s. His works often explore sex, faith, and death, and their inter-relationships.

He died of lung cancer at age 76.

Reviews

[Cody | CodysBookshelf · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguing yet strangely deflating epistolary novel, S. is minor-league John Updike, the narrative never able to free itself from the bounds of its own gimmick.

At times successful as a satire, this is the examination of a “modern” (mid-80s) Wasp housewife leaving her emotionally undutiful husband and comfortable suburban lifestyle to head west, to Arizona, to join a spiritualist group (cult?) in search of higher fulfillment.

This is Updike: spiritual and sexual longing taking precedent here, driving the narrative, but the author always keeps the reader at bay, perhaps because the narrator is locked out of her own self. Updike utilizes the classic “unreliable narrator” tool quite well, only giving the reader her side of things. What of her abandoned daughter, old friends?

S. is never able to transcend, to escape the bounds of itself, which is ironic given the subject matter—and one can’t help feeling tempted to think Updike did that on purpose. This novel is a failure, but an admirable failure, one sure to leave the reader in contemplation.

[brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

well, S is another entry in updike’s saga to try and figure the lengths people will go to fill the god-shaped hole. this one concerns a wealthy new england housewife who leaves it all for a hindu ashram in arizona.

the epistolary nature of S. causes a massive unraveling mostly b/c the man behind the curtain is just a bit too visible. updike feeds the reader exposition and subtext that the writer of the letters herself just doesn't/couldn't know. he further shoots himself in the foot b/c said writer of letters writes with such clarity, wit, and erudition (one could almost argue she writes as well as, say, john updike) it's tough to believe she'd be such a chump...

so, yeah, the novel never jumps (as does the best of updike) from the mundane to the transcendent. It kinda hovers between the mundane and the ‘kind of interesting.'

oddly enough, montambo (who loathes updike) gave this book five stars while i (who love updike) give it two. huh.

[kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yuppie Hester Prynne leaves a doctor and a guru and goes off to read textbooks on a Carribean island. People don't read enough feminist lit. anymore. And Updike writes women well, fuck whatever anyone else says.

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before getting to the bottom line on John Updike’s S. a little background on me. In reviewing a novel, I try to consider two major, if conflicting aspects. Great art is universal. The better a book is the less bound to its day and time. The basic problem and approach to resolution should be applicable to many people and eras. Against that standard, the artist cannot be held to social standards, conventions and language not known in the writer’s time. A 16th century writer cannot be faulted for failure to equip characters with cell phones, nor can they be expected to be sensitive to 21st century social conventions, like never use the ‘N’ word.

As this applies to S., the question of Universality eludes me. Marriages break up, sometimes it is the woman who leaves and many of the things our narrator and sole voice, S. (Sarah P. Worth) endlessly complains about might verge on universal, but her essentially shallow problems hardly makes of her an everywoman. Why are her problems shallow? Updike may not have known it, but every one of her problems is covered under the terms, “First World”, “White Woman “problems. Born and raised to privilege, married into what will become a well to do family, never has she faced discrimination any existential threat, poverty, or food insecurity. She can barely complain about the therapy or dentistry she has received. She does, however have lots of negative things to say about her gardeners.

Many reviews indicate that this is a laugh out loud satire. Maybe, but I never got the joke. Best guess is that Sarah, leaves her New England life and family for a Buddhist cult in Arizona. Her stated goal is to achieve enlightenment. Especially she wants to overcome ego and achieve moksha (salvation, release from illusion). Being a one-time language major (French, which she never got to speak in practice) she takes to the huge and convoluted language of the detailed many sided narrative of Buddhism. However, she never applies any of this loss of ego to anything other than herself. It may just be that all Sarah need is Tantric sex. And that too maybe part of the joke.

My reservations aside, this is a well written book. The consensus among the female reviewers is that Updike has written a believable female protagonist. I take their word. Sarah’s faults are will within the possible. She is a mass of typical WASP prejudices and readily invents others. For some one seeking to surrender ego, she is highly and sharply judgmental towards her friends, of course her abandoned husband and especially her daughter and mother. All of this is generally credible, but tends to paint her as harsh, unfair and well the ‘B’ word came to mind early and often. None of these traits are not believable and it goes to Updike’s skill to write the many people inhabiting S. such that they are consistent within a single character.

[Lena · Rating 3 out of 5]

S. is a novel which uses the letters and tapes of a middle-aged WASP woman to chronicle her time in a Rajneesh-style Arizona ashram. While I was intrigued by the concept, I had mixed feelings about the work. The epistolary structure offered an unusually intimate view into the main character’s world, but because S. was not a woman I found very sympathetic, her monologues didn’t speak to me personally.

This book is supposedly a satire, and I will agree that it is entertaining on that level. But I do think Updike crosses the line from satire to cynicism in a number of places. Still, it’s an interesting read.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this first when I was very young. Re reading today.. the book is supposed to be a satire but somehow reading about a 42 year old suburban white yoga enthusiast mother of one daughter on a quest for enlightenment and freedom didn't really register that way for me this time! :p

[Ryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

If not for Terrorist this would easily be Updike’s worst novel.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have to say no other acclaimed author has rubbed me the wrong way like John Updike has.

[Hamish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why do I do this to myself?

[Kyle D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this (my first Updike novel) as part of my journey reading books published in 1988 throughout 2018. And oh boy, is it 1988: it's full of yoga spiritualism just a couple of decades post-hippy, and includes perfect little mentions of the Golden Girls, slow computer modems, Bill Cosby, and the California Condor. Mix that with an unapologetically rich anti-hero (hero?), and it went just right with the movies and TV shows I've been watching.

Even more than those little things, I've been thinking about how the novel's basic structure feels so unlike communication today: we get to know Sarah only through the letters she writes to various people in her lives and the transcripts of the recordings she makes on cassette tapes, designed to send to others for them to then record over and send back to her. Yes, she's in a guru's desert commune in Arizona far from major cities, but still, the slowness of the communication is striking. The idea that if you, say, failed to return a rental car, or took money from your husband that you believed belonged to you, you could rather comfortably live your life without too much bother, because you're really only hearing complaints through print letters--well, that's just not how I imagine things would go today.

Is it good? I mean, yes, sure. I'm glad I read it. Updike's eye for beautiful, perfectly fresh details and metaphors make their way into Sarah's speech and writing throughout, so the prose is often good enough, all on its own. And I'm intrigued by the way my dislike for Sarah seems to be part of the point, how I'm supposed to be investigating what exactly makes me dislike her, and why, and if I'm really comfortable with that. But still, I'm not going to go out recommending others read it, and I'm glad I got it from the library instead of buying it.

[Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

“S.” is a genial, wry, very funny satire. One of the considerable pleasures of the novel has to do with a neat little cross-dressing act on the part of Mr. Updike, for “S.” is an epistolary novel, and its eponymous heroine is one Sarah P. Worth, a middle-aged, privileged North Shore housewife with an irrepressible gift of gab and a frequently irresistible way with a letter. (Such a lost art – one can’t imagine getting emails like these.) This descendant of Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne is on the run – in a rush of independence and soul-searching, she’s left her husband, a successful surgeon, and joined an Arizona ashram, where she submits herself to the sage wisdom of an Indian guru and takes on the new name of “Kundalini.” Sarah’s quest for nirvana --- as described in her vivid and vivacious letters (and tapes) to husband, mother, daughter, best friend, hairdresser, lawyer, and dentist – allows Updike to hilariously explore the jargon-filled, mumbo-jumbo culture of New Age, faux-Eastern “spirituality” as well as typically Western hot-button topics like marriage, sexual liberation, feminism, materialism, and the proper way to protect heirloom silver from the salt air of Boca Raton, FL. Sarah is great company – alternately earnest and acidic, game for anything, and often very touching. As she finds herself, she finds much more than she bargained for along the way, and her misadventures and triumphs add up to a highly entertaining novel.

[Diana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Макар и афиширан на корицата като "най-смешният американски роман от края на ХХ век", в него няма никакъв хумор. Тотално разочарование от Ъпдайк!
На 42 години Сара решава да напусне богатия си съпруг и вървящия с него охолен, уютен, спокоен, но еднообразен и без емоции живот. Прибира значителна сума от общите пари и заживява в ашрам някъде в пясъците на аризонската пустиня, където се надява да намери блаженство за душата си и да се извиси.
240 стр. с нейните излияния, обвинения и обяснения, изпълнили тъпички, скучновати писма до роднини и приятели, сякаш безкрайни записи на касети с убийствено досадни подробности от ежедневието й + малко служебна кореспонденция между живеещите в ашрама и външния свят.

Цялата тази блудкава будистка нелепица ми дойде в повече. Никога не съм разбирала доброволното напускане на нормалния свят в посока манастири, комуни, ашрами и други подобни, където изсипваш камара лични пари, работиш като р��б, съществуваш почти животински и през цялото време се кланяш на някакъв измислен гуру, учител, просветител, на още по-измисления им бог и нелепите им правила за живот.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious, surreal, and somehow believable, John Updike manages to write from the feminine perspective in a far-reaching and honest way. In a manner that is tinged with a masculine strength, a tender intelligence, and a kind of alarming accuracy. Recommended to me by a favorite professor, this book paralleled many of my recent experiences: I know the women in this story, the men too, and I know Sarah. "S." is a joy to read. Crafted entirely through Sarah's various forms of correspondence, Updike masterfully carries us along for the ride - and what a ride it is.

[Gregory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some critics called this book an anti-feminist author's attempt at writing a feminist character - Sarah (S). Bull-pucky. This is just pure satire using the bizarre 1980's "drop out and join a cult fad" as the backdrop. A playful and sly Updike at work and it's a very humorous read.

[Tim Petersik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not Updike's best, but even his less-than-best is well worth the read. This is a mostly humorous story of how members of the privileged classes seek meaning through passing religious fanaticism. It's fun if you like Updike. I do.

[Marie Theron]

Enjoyable...lots of sniggering from me and I often laughed out loud!

[Carol Storm · Rating 3 out of 5]

As Updike novels go, this one is actually pretty good. His privileged heroine gets a taste of freedom, has a lot of sexual adventures and doesn't take herself too seriously.

[Karla Huebner]

I hadn't happened to read any John Updike prior to finding this at the book-exchange, so I thought perhaps the time had come to see if I like his work. Whether this novel is typical of his writing, I don't know, however. It's an epistolary novel set in 1986, in which an utterly WASP 42-year-old wife from New England leaves her husband in favor of living at a large Hindu commune in Arizona, which is headed by a fellow known as the Arhat. It's decidedly satirical, but also based pretty closely on some of the ways supposed gurus and other religious leaders have formed cult communities around themselves in recent decades. It definitely brought back memories of the period for me despite my never having had the slightest desire to join such a community.

The book is well-written, although the narrator Sarah sometimes seems too clever and even perhaps too self-aware to fall for some of what she's falling for. She's definitely bright enough to write in very different styles to husband, daughter, mother, friends, dentist, creditors, and so on, and proves to be a skilled manipulator as well as the subject of others' manipulative strategies. Updike intends her to be a modern Hester Prynne, but I really do not find that connection at all--it's not enough that she's from New England, transgresses social norms, and has a daughter named Pearl. The book reads easily, and if you're in the mood for it you can read it quickly; I'm rarely in the mood to read about wealthy New England WASPS (even in Arizona communes), so I took a fairly long time to finish it.

Note to writers: while perhaps titling a book S. worked in 1988, I wouldn't recommend this sort of title today. In order to find this on Goodreads, I had to search by author rather than title, and as Updike is prolific, this was clumsy. And we all want our books easily located online by title, here and elsewhere, don't we?

[Judith Shadford · Rating 3 out of 5]

If S. had been written by anyone else, it would have been labored, though readable. But Updike. I read it very differently than by an unknown author. Updike said it was his version of Scarlet Letter. Apart from S being Sarah, with a daughter named Pearl, I really didn't get much resonance. Sarah isn't too smart and Hester Prynne was SMART. At any rate, Sarah leaves her (boring) husband and wealthy New England cluster of friends to explore her inner self at a commune in Arizona. She has brief affairs with male and female members and the Arhat himself. She also embezzles a fair amount of money, just in case. The narrative is interesting because it is a series of letters, transcripts of tapes, memos, official correspondence, all written by Sarah, with a generous amount of Hindi (glossary provided). And because it is Updike, the conclusion is somewhat open-ended. Kind of fun--reminded me of Ravel's Bolero--a craft composition that went on and on and on and became popular. Sort of.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had heard so much about John Updike I was super excited to read this book. Maybe I should have read Couples instead of S. S. Was an exacerbated version of a woman’s time in a cult. What I did like was the way the book was written. The story is told through letters S. writes to numerous people from her former life. Everything about S. is exaggerated and I get it we are suppose to believe in this woman’s desperate search for answers. The biggest concept I took away from this book is sometimes while searching for freedom all you really find is oppression. The book was kind of presented like S. was on a constant search for god; but to me it was a false sense of freedom. She liked what the cult was preaching but she didn’t realize all that was being taken away from her. I probably won’t be reading much Updike in the future but I’m glad I experienced one of his novels.

[Natalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was like if Eat Pray Love starred Diane Keaton instead of Diane Lane.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sarah Worth leaves her comfortable New England life and successful but philandering doctor husband to join a commune in Arizona led by Hindu leader Arhat. The entire book is told in the form of Sarah's letters and tapes to her friends, family, bank, and dentist; she's also writes response letters to those asking something of the commune (usually for their money back). Sarah is not shy, and reading letters intended for someone else immediately sets the reader on an intimate, almost voyeuristic, foray into the mind and character of our protagonist - first person in its most alive. Sarah is opinionated, hilarious, brutally honest, and humanly, comically flawed. She completely lacks guilt; she is stoic and matter-of-fact. Yoga as a gateway to eastern religious conversion. - Updike is bold. Sarah is disenchanted with her world - she has no place in it, her daughter is grown up, her husband has coldly betrayed her, her mother is dating a sailor - and she turns to Buddhism as an alternative to materialism that seems to be all she has left. It is interesting/ironic that her ability to take half of what she deems hers in the process of running off to the commune is what frustrates her husband most; her greatest power is in the taking, not in the leaving, even though to take could be viewed as materialistic. Buddhism recommends eschewing material goods; in the middle of taking up this philosophy she is in the middle of a messy divorce.

A man writing a woman's letters could read as false, but Updike seemed to feel very compassionate towards his Sarah. It has been written that he used letters as the best way to minimize the narrator's voice. The book is also very comic, ironic. Humor is a clear separator between the author and serious topics. Updike has said in an interview that the older he gets, the harder he gets, the more separated from "earthly struggles", and thus the more comic. Updike has stated that he wrote S. in response to criticism that his women were generally weak, silent; Sarah did move from the control of one man (husband) to the control of another (Arhat); both disappoint in their imperfection.

The book flap describes Sarah as a latter-day Hester Prynne - the unusual title is a nod to Hester's "A", is also how Sarah signs some of her letters, and is a reference to the snake in the garden of Eden. "The Scarlett Letter" is a classic novel of religious concerns: sex, sin, conscience, morality. Critics consider three of Updike's novels to be investigations into Hawthorne's themes. "S" turns Hawthorne on his head: Dimmesdale is the villain; Arhat is a charlatan. In Puritan society, women are temptation and are thus fonts of evil; in Buddhism, women are goddesses. Hester's forest is a foil to Sarah's desert. Like Hawthorne, Updike was concerned about religion and sexual transgression; in one interview, Updike stated, "there is some deep alliance between the religious impulse and the sexual. Both are a way of perpetuating our lives, of denying our physical limits." In the Bible sex = knowledge; this was clearly also Sarah's assumption in her various sexual explorations.

**spoiler alert**
At the conclusion of the novel, Sarah was not taken to lunch by the commune nor by her husband. She is living life on her terms.

[Hello There! · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first time I've read any of Updike's work. I had very high expectations. Despite it being well-written and having so much "to say" (if you know what I mean), I actually found myself annoyed while reading it. Is it a good book? Absolutely. One of my criteria for a book or movie or any kind of art being worthwhile is that it really gets into my mind, and I have a lot of feelings and thoughts about the ideas presented and the choices of the characters. ABSOLUTELY! This book definitely accomplishes this in spades. BUT, if you asked me did I "like" the book? I'd say No.

There are just some books I read, and I want to read everything the author has written. I feel like when I finish the book, I've experienced something first hand--you know that I-was-in-the-book feeling. I feel energized and alive or moved or SOMETHING. This book didn't have a lot of that for me. I find this a really weird and kind of annoying reading experience. I'm not used to being so picky about books--especially one that is so well crafted and with such obvious merit. I googled the phrase annoyed by Updike and found this Goodreads page and remembered I had an account that I set up and wrote this review.

Am I just in a bad mood or something? Are the other Updike books I might read that will give me a better feeling about the author? Honestly, he seems like the kind of writer I would dig, but I just didn't.

[Amin Jorati · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book tell the journey of a woman leaving her marriage to join an Ashram led by a guru in Arizona as told through a number of letter and tape recordings (it' 1988) he sends to her ex(?)-husband, daughter, mom, and friends and other people from her previous(?) affluent life in New England. Although it' a work of fiction, it's borrowing heavily from the sequence of events that transpired in the formation and fall from grace of the cult movement around the Indian guru Bhagwan and the town they formed in Oregon. The similarity is so striking it jumps at you already from reading the blurb and the author slips in a note in the beginning of the book to remind the reader that although the story was inspired by the real-world event as reported in the papers at the time, the characters and events are fictional. This already detracts from the originality of the work, if you have already heard of the true yet-still unbelievable history of the movement around the late guru Bhagwan; especially likely given the myriad documentaries around it. It's still interesting to get a peek into the mind of one real person joining the movement. The text is also enjoyable to read at times. However, I felt like the accompanying character, both inside and outside the Ashram are not well developed. We only learn of them through Sarah/Kundalini' letter to them and her replies to what they may have written. Also, her anguish and mental struggles pushing her to make such a life changing decision are not fully explored, though on the surface apparent from how her tone changes in correspondence with different people. All in all, still interesting read, especially her prose peppered with spiritual Hindi/Sanskrit words, yet fully conscious of her family's socioeconomic and trying to preserve it through various means, e.g. by trying to deter her daughter's budding relationship with her new partner.

[Sofie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this satire, Sarah Worth - S. - liberates herself (from her husband, among others) by joining an ashram in Arizona, where there is a strict sunset-inspired dress code, and where "work is worship". Very quickly, she is indoctrinated as a member of and ambassador for the Arhat Ashram. Is she getting ripped off? - perhaps. S. becomes increasingly spiteful and unsympathetic in her tone - and is ever the man-hater. I was not thrilled by the ending, and found the Sanskrit glossary in the back somewhat of an annoyance - why not footnotes? Food for thought. But this was a really fun read! (rounded up to four stars)

-
'Having contributed your microscopic ridiculous sperm with its bullet head and wriggling tail, you can stand there all you wish, clucking and wringing your hands and telling her to hate me. She won't. I am her mother.' (54)
'my colleagues are not outmoded flower-children and drug-dazed losers as you sweetly put it' (96)
'Of course, he is a jivan-mukta, which means he's really in nirvana and is staying on earth only to be polite' (102)
'In India women are worshipped and degraded. It is a good combination.' (115).
'My brother is part of me but I have no more to say to him now than to my own left foot.' (143)
'I am fat, yes. My belly is in layers like a cake.' (159)
'a college degree is the invisible tiara a woman must wear now, otherwise people write her off as a bumpkin, an ignoramus, a throwback, an archaic creature.' (177).
'Most pregnancies, like most wars, are totally silly, and aren't intended at all' (180)
'[She was] always asking after my parents as if she knew them, and as if they weren't a pair of insufferable Wasp pricks.' (211)

[J. Alfred · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a retelling of The Scarlet Letter set in late twentieth century America. It is astonishing. The sensitive reading Updike gives the classic text and the living characters he creates with it as a base, together with the apparently effortless textured complexity of landscape, politics, dialogue-- all of this combines to give another strong item of evidence for Updike being about twenty times smarter than the rest of us. He's just got whole categories of thought that other novelists, even great ones, don't even touch.
At one point, the Hester-character writes-- it's an epistolary novel-- she doesn't want to feel like "a sad old story buried amid the rubbish in the custom-house attic." Brilliant. And she, assuredly, isn't. She's really remarkably alive; considerably more so than many other people one reads about, maybe more so than oneself.
Then there is, of course, the caveat with all my enthusiasm for Updike: the sex. Seeing as Hawthorne was writing about sexual guilt in the Puritan age and this is transported to the very un-repressed 1980s, there is just lots and lots of sex stuff. But, as Hawthorne would be the first to tell you, what we do with our bodies matters quite a lot to our spirits. I think this book is a fair and really interesting growth from Hawthorne. Read it! (maybe).

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had some difficulty getting into this book. There’s no real STORY in the classical sense, as this is written in epistolary form. We also only get Sarah’s side of things and do not get to read the responses. Sarah has obviously been pulled into one of these cult communes and is blinded by faith to it. She’s abandoned her cheating husband and her adult daughter. The ashram is a free love kind of place and just wants everyone to donate all of their worldly possessions to it. It’s interesting how Sarah tells everyone not to act certain ways and to be careful or whatever and she can’t follow her own advice, just like how she tells her daughter not to listen to what her father says about her when it seems the dad is more supportive and Sarah is badmouthing him. She’s also very TMI. For God’s sake, she sends Midge an audio tape where she’s having sex with the ashram leader. She does become disillusioned with the ashram and apparently siphons quite a bit of money from it, hidden with shoddy bookkeeping and decides to live out her days in a tropical island. Yet, she still can’t let the past go. She still can’t decide if she’s going to divorce Charles. All the reader can do is raise their eyebrows at her and move on.

[Laetitia]

Une jeune femme � qui la vie para�t avoir souri jusqu'� pr�sent, �crit ses adieux � son mari (bient�t � ex �) et � sa fille ch�rie. Il semble qu�elle veuille changer de vie, bazarder tout ce qu�elle a construit, mais pour cela, elle doit d�abord donner quelques instructions � ses proches� Une fois arriv�e � destination, elle commence � enregistrer une bande pour raconter sa nouvelle vie � Midge, une de ses meilleures amies apparemment. On d�couvre alors que Sarah a d�cid� d�int�grer un groupe de vie et de travail bien particulier� Mais je vous laisse le soin de d�couvrir lequel, il faut que le suspens reste entier !Cela n�est pas tr�s clair ? Le d�but du livre nom plus. Compos� de lettres plus ou moins longues et de �retranscriptions d�enregistrement vocaux �, l�intrigue de l�ouvrage se d�ploie lentement mais surement, et je ne m�attendais pas � entrer dans l�univers particulier de ce genre de � communaut�s � en empruntant � S �. J�ai aim� le style et l�originalit� de la mise en forme mais le r�cit de Sarah m�a lass� trop rapidement...

[Lara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I’ve decided that I didn’t really like this book. It was certainly well-written, and even amusing at times (I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “funny”), but when all is said and done, just a tad too misogynistic for my comfort. What Irving did here was to satirize his fantasy of what an affluent, middle-aged woman’s awakening might be like. He satirized his own bitter and misogynistic imaginings. But for satire to be effective and meaningful (not to mention funny), it has to be based on something that is true, not on some sexist fantasy. Interesting that I read S. right after reading Tom Perrotta’s novel Mrs. Fletcher, because in retrospect, I think Perrotta may be guilty of the exact same thing.

[Amar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evidently, I'm in the minority here, but I quite enjoyed this one. On account of it’s largely epistolary structure, you get to see a different side to Updike; there’s less inter-personal dialogue, statements are made, reactions appear with a lag- the friction just feels more dispersed - and just passages and passages of bloody good (and sardonic) prose, sprinkled with dollops of Buddhist/Indianized references (with a glossary to boot).

Dropping this...

“People get over everything, and that’s the secret of all the persisting religions- God or whatever they call it gets credit for our animal numbness and reflexive stoicism and antibodies and healing processes, or else we die and that shuts us up as effectively as an answered prayer.”- John Updike