There are two stories in this collection that are incomparable: "Enoch Soames" and "Savaranola Brown". For the story of Enoch Soames alone, this collection is perhaps worth the price. Enoch Soames is a disheartened poet who is unappreciated. One day he becomes fed up with his inability to court fame (his second book sells 3 copies) and so makes an agreement with the devil to travel to the future to learn what's been written about him in return for an eternal trip to the Devil's home. I can't reveal what happens next, but suffice it to say that the story revels in metaphysical twists and fascinating character sketches.

Most of the other stories were disappointing (John Updike admits as much in the introduction). But if you've never read Beerbohm, this is a good place to start.

I first read "Seven Men" a few years back when Harold Bloom listed it as essential reading in his book on the Western canon.

The book consists of short fictional portraits of various characters in the world of Edwardian arts and letters. Beerbohm was a satirist with a nimble touch -- he had the ability to poke fun at the pretensions of the art world while maintaining a gentle, bemused humanism.

Sir Max seemed to view the vanity and foibles of human nature not so much with scorn as with an endless amusement, and reading any of his essays or parodies or satires is like spending the evening chatting with a wise and witty friend.

Beerbohm once wrote, "How many charming talents have been spoiled by the instilled desire to do 'important' work! Some people are born to lift heavy weights. Some are born to juggle with golden balls." Beerbohm was an admitted juggler, and yet his seemingly "light" work is ultimately more insightful than most so-called serious projects. And often much funnier.

Beerbohm was also quite a caricaturist, and his theater reviews (many out of print) are still great to read all these decades later.

Get hold of this book and start off with the classics "Enoch Soames," the story of a third-rate poet who, convinced of his own greatness, makes a deal with the Devil in order to travel to the future to enjoy his posthumous success (with comic results), and "Savonarola Brown," a hilarious sketch of a frustrated playwright and his great "unfinished" opus.

Beerbohm's contemporaries referred to him as "the incomparable Max," and it's a title that fits. I wish I could've met him.

Bernard Shaw called Beerbohm "the divine Max," and this collection of short pieces will tell you why. The book consists of short character sketches of six men (Beerbohm is the ever present seventh), and each one is a small masterpiece of Edwardian parody and humour. Beerbohm's line sketches of each one of his (imaginary?!) characters are included at the end of the book. Some of the tales have an unexpectedly supernatural twist (the neo-Faustian bargain struck by Enoch Soames being the best of the lot). Three cheers for the NYRB Press for bringing these forgotten gems back into print.

I like this book very much. It helped me to understand the other works and outlook on John Updike. His style of writing is not complicated for foreign readers, and here in Ukraine, this novel is very popular

This Stackpole Books edition is virtually a photocopy facsimile of the first Knopf edition in 1974, dust jacket and all. Updike's new Foreword recounts the two productions of the play, in abbreviated form, by Franklin and Marshall College (April 28-May 8, 1976) and San Diego State University (March 1977) and reminds us of the fact that "Leadership of any country but one in a comic operetta involves some decisions whose consequences are bloody" and that this book is his attempt was "to extend sympathy to politicians, as they make their way among imperfect alternatives toward a hidden future" (p. ix). Once again there, as in his memoir Self-Consciousness, he observes how for him this sympathy applied to Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War.

He also observes from this writing experience how "history" is constructed in the fragility of the writer's judgment in weighing and interrogating the disparate data forms from which descriptive writing emerges. A wise scholar named Van Harvey in his book, The Historian and the Believer, once observed that what we call "history" is a field-encompassing field and requires from the historian the skillful interpretation and weaving together of information from many disciplines--psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, geography, religion, and politics, including some awareness of their important sub-disciplines. Such difficulties notwithstanding, Updike warns that "the effort to delve into history left me convinced of the unconscionable amount of bluff, fraud, and elision that any allegedly historical account, labeled fiction or not, entails." This is precisely the sort of wizened sensitivity which we have come to expect and appreciate in Updike's work.

To be successful as a writer today (and I use the word succesful in its most vulgur form) it often seems that one must be either horribly mediocre or overly self-indulgent. As such, it is always a pleasure to find a book that is, at its heart, a well-writen page turner. Updike's developed wit and ability to offer concise but insightful descriptions elevate his work above much of the fiction that is popular today. The Witches of Eastiwck is a novel that is both light and heavy; the intriguing characters and slightly quirky plot twists compel one to turn the pages quickly, but the underlying messages about sexuality, love, and the human need for approbation will likely weigh on the reader's mind for quite some time

The Witches of Eastwick takes a touchingly funny jab at the concept of witchcraft. As well written as Updike's other novels, Witches allows us to cringe, laugh, scream, and fall in love. (And, according to male friends, is definitely not a "chick book.")

Three days ago I opened "The Witches of Eastwick" and immediately fell in love. Updike's language, his uncommon imagery, and his *knowing* of "what women think" is astonishing. He so beautifully captures the underlying currents of living in a New England seaside town, with its shifting tides and changing seasons merging with the mood and purpose of its inhabitants. The dialogue is sharp, accurate and scathing. His characterizations of the three women/witches shows he has done his homework, ( only straying a wee little bit in a few scenes for dramatic/comic effect.) His depiction of the "Devil" is laugh out loud funny, ironic, and satirical. This book was pure pleasure. I only wish he would write about witches more.

I thought that "S" was a strange book - a novel in which Updike experiments with a different (for him) format. "S" is comprised of a series of letters, mostly from and to Sarah Worth ("S"), and the transcripts of taped conversations.

Sarah Worth leaves her husband to join an ashram in Arizona, ostensibly to to find a new meaning to her life (or a better way of living). However, Sarah's past life, habits, and ways of thought prove difficult to shake off. The members of the ashram do not live up to their billing. Things begin to deteriorate rapidly.

"S" is a deeply acerbic satire. Little escapes Updike's criticism: the ashram; those Americans and Europeans who form the ashram's membership; the leaders of the ashram; the forces of conservatism that oppose the ashram; and the middle-class American female as exemplified by Sarah Worth. But I felt that Updike was moving beyond satire or comedy into contempt - as if to say that he washed his hands of the whole self-indulgent and hypocritical lot.

Another difficulty I found with "S" was that it was very predictable. There's not much in the plot to surprise, not much that you feel you haven't seen or read somewhere before. But the main problem was Updike's apparent unease with this style of epistolatory writing. At best it creaks along, only to fall apart with Updike resorting to inserted "taped conversations". As a result, it felt very contrived.

Updike has written far better novels than this.

G Rodgers

Ever since Rabbit, Run, Updike has been attracted to the idea of writing a story that feels as if it is actually happening while it is being read - rather than, as is almost inherent in the form of the novel, communicating an impression of recorded history. By way of attempting to put the idea into practice, Updike has both experimented with present-tense narration (see Leaf Season in Trust Me) and - in S. - given us his take on the venerable (if not antiquated) genre of the epistolary novel. From this point of view the fact that S. is made up solely of letters is an attractive feature of the book: one's sense of anticipation (how will events unfold?) is indeed sharpened. What makes the epistolary form work in this novel is the naturally loquacious and confiding disposition of the protagonist and author of the letters, Sarah Worth (or 'S' as she signs herself to her husband).

Sarah has in fact left her husband and gone to join a religious commune in Arizona. Through her dispatches to various friends, family and acquaintances we follow the fortunes of the community and her role within it through to its surprising (?) conclusion.

The novel has been criticised for its satirical presentation of Buddhism, yoga, etc. in the context of commune life. I'm not sure Updike would accept the charge. In fact I found quite a lot of fair-mindedness in the book - it actually left me with an improved rather than diminished opinion of what Eastern ideas are actually aspiring to - although I don't think Updike can excuse himself from drawing on certain stereotypes. But this is essentially a light, comic novel - although I don't see why it necessarily had to be - and probably shouldn't be taken too seriously.

What I missed most was Updike's typically well-observed dialogue, which in this case is mostly paraphrased in retrospect by the narrator. I had a similar problem with A Month of Sundays, in some ways this book's companion volume. Updike may also have found himself missing this type of writing since half-way through he suspends the strict rules of the epistolary genre and has Sarah include a cassette recording of some tapped conversation in with one of her dispatches. This moment was a welcome relief from her up-till-then uninterrupted monologues, but its breaking the rules of the genre made me wonder about the point of the form in the first place.

Overall he's done it very well, of course, as he does almost everything very well, but I doubt he'll revisit the experiment.

S. is the story of Sarah Worth, a New England matron who flees the confines of midcentury feminine affluence to seek spiritual (and sexual) enlightenment in a religious commune. She chronicles her adventure in letters to her best friend, daughter, and estranged husband, as well as short notes to her former dentist and hairdresser, tapes of conversations with the commune's leader, and a selection of the letters she writes on behalf of the commune's business office. The story unfolds briskly and subtely, with Updike employing his satirical skill to show a woman who, in leaving her life behind, manages to take it all with her.

A benefit of the letter format is that it allows a full exploration of the narrator's voice, to excellent effect. It also suppresses Updike's tendency to rely too heavily on his (excellent) descriptive language and instroduces an element of suspense that makes the story quite absorbing.

S. has been criticized by other reviewers for its perceived mockery of Eastern religions, but I don't think this is intended. Updike has obviously done extensive research - if not into Eastern religions themselves, then at least into their Western offshoots - and presents the characters with what, for him, is considerable sympathy. Of course he mocks the narrator's blind devotion to the commune - that's part of what the book is about - but he's mocking the misdirection of her efforts, not the ideals to which she aspires.

The one element of the book that frustrated me was Updike's treatment of his narrator. Sure, it's fun to read a book about an arrogant and slightly hysterical woman who is always just slightly out of her league - a Bridget Jones for our mothers' generation. But it would perhaps be more interesting to watch a character really grow through the course of the novel and transcend, or at least recognize, her own bias. Of course that kind of revelatory change would be anathema to Updike, whose thesis - popping up, appropriately, in book after book - seems to be that life is a cycle, endlessly revolving, lush with beauty and without escape. And this book is - first and foremost, like all his books - Updike.

Oh God, more of this snotty New Yorker kind of humor. Grab some Perrier and chuckle at these Babbitlike witty amusements.

"Bech is Back," is the middle entry in a series of novellas in which John Updike exposes a bit of the personal- and professional-doings of the contemporary writer's life. It's light, and he's only willing to take us so far with what we guess must be re-worked anecdotes and foibles from his own experience. The writing is classic Updike, having the rich word choice, wonderful descriptive detail and unique observation we've come to expect -- along with the usual amount of sexual reference to keep the reader engaged, even when it all gets tedious. Like so many of Updike's other works, it concludes with a mixed bag of outcomes for his characters, and for the reader with thin skin, it comes off simply as a jaded unravelling of fortunes. Updike mixes the hilarious with his usual dose of cynical self-absorption, and the currency, sex and humor make for a good afternoon's entertainment.

First write a short story (all the time making sure it will be published in The New Yorker or Playboy); if it works, write another one, using the same character or characters; when you have written three or four of these, start thinking about grouping them together in book-form (remember: publish and republish your work as much as possible); then write a couple of cementing 'chapters' and offer it to the public as a novel. This is how John Updike has written (among other things) Bech is Back - his second book about a Jewish-American literary novelist prone to writer's block. The advantages of using the compositional method described above are clear: instead of that heavily programmatic, overdetermined, obsolete thing we call 'plot', one gets instead a sequence of snapshots, or a gallery of pictures. We get a book that has obviously evolved organically over time, pushing out roots into only the most fertile soil. We loose old-fashioned unity of design, but we do not miss it. This is writing like a cubist: the by turns judicious and whimsical assembling of fragments of truth, rather than the facile pursuit of an impossible illusion of coherent 'wholeness'. Not a word is wasted in this short, smart, clever, muscular punch of a book.