NP Updike's new novel

[jbor]

Seek my face
Reviewed by Andrew Riemer
February 8 2003


http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/07/1044579924575.html

[...]

There seems little doubt about where Updike's sympathies lie. Yet he resists
picking off easy targets. Kathryn is a fully realised character in her own
right - a disconcerting mixture of self-confidence and vulnerability, of
true discernment and second-hand theorising - and far from a fool.

The ideas and preconceptions she has in her capacious tote bag may be no
more than a compendium of shop-soiled notions derived (remotely) from French
gurus. But Updike is astute and principled enough to know that they cannot
be dismissed, swept under the carpet with a contemptuous gesture - as many
of our own cultural conservatives are liable to do when the dreaded word
"postmodernism" rings out.

[...]

best