Someone gave that book to me a few months ago, telling me I should read it so I would be much wiser afterwards. At first I didn´t feel like reading it, then I left the book lying about on my bedside table for another three weeks, but finally attacked it and read it rather quickly. The first John Updike I ever read, by the way.
Now I´m quite perplexed, wondering: Is it a good or a bad book?
The language is brilliant, dissecting. Words just fall into place. Waves of descriptive images and little scenes pass by like perfect fluffy clouds in the sky. And Owen is so egomanically absorbed by his sexual longings that I just can´t but like him. But the plot...??
Why does the hero aka Owen Mackenzie leave his wife and his four pubescent children in the end to be with his second wife Julia? Why does his first wife Phyllis have to die in a pseudo-fateful car accident after a last attempt of holding him back? Why does a sex-maniac like Owen (or is he just like every man out there?) more or less lose his sexual appetite and lust after he finally gets and marries the right woman (or: what is Julia to him, in fact?)? Is Updike trying to get a moral message across (um, probably not...)? Or did he just run out of ideas while trying to put an end to a story that has a very strong start, a partly interesting centrepiece but a motley, loose déjà-vu ending???
And finally: How comes that a book that is mainly about a selfish, inventive computer-nerd screwing as much neighbourhood women as possible in most diverse ways and positions all through his married life until he finally divorces and surrenders to monogamy leaves me so completely unaffected? I mean, selfish, inventive computer-freaks usually do stimulate my imagination in some ways, plus drastic and detailed descriptions of how a man and a woman *play around with each other* do quite easily arouse my senses, and this book is packed with that stuff but... it just doesn´t really work on me...
One exception, though: The scene in Chapter IV - Young Owen tries to please nice little Elsie in the car (he´s completely dressed, kissing and licking her naked body in abandon and wonder) - is fairly horny (in my opinion, much more than the ever-more plastic and explicit sex exercises of his grown-up years). Urged me to make love immediately after I read it... Or was that simply due to the fact that I read it during a hot and cosy Sunday siesta?
Well, well, anyway... It´s late now, and too hot again.
Maybe there´s anybody out there who has also read the book and likes to reply?
No comments:
Post a Comment