-¿Que te ha parecido la nueva pareja? Pietismos y Angela Hanema estaban desnudándose. Su dormitorio era una habitación...

John Updike sure can write!!
By sally tarbox on 14 April 2018
Format: Kindle Edition
This is the most amazing read; set in a middle-class New England town in the 60s, the couples are married, most with kids; they socialize,live their daily lives and get caught up in liaisons.
This is emphatically not a book to lend your mother, it's outspoken and based around sex, yet it's far from being a shallow, raunchy read. The characters are believable - we might disapprove of their actions but we get their motivations. And while at one point I was thinking "oh, no more!", you have to read it through to the end, the denouement, the ripples from it; the jealousies, broken friendships...
As our adulterous, charming lead character, building contractor (and church-goer) Piet Hanema observes: "God is not mocked."
Despite what you think as you read it, ultimately a moral message; fantastic writing. ( )

John Updike, author of "Couples" died from cancer in 2009 at the age of 76. He never won the Nobel Prize for literature but many critics and writers felt he should have. He wrote 21 novels, including the four famed "Rabbit" books, as well as poems, short stories, essays, children's books, a play and a memoir.

"Couples" was written in 1968; the 458 page story takes place in the early 60's in the fictional community of Tarbox, somewhere outside Boston. Tarbox is a community of 30-something couples, coupling with each others' spouses, not exactly "wife-swapping", nor is the word "swinging" precise. Some characters used the term "adultery", while others were more comfortable with "affairs". There were a lot of affairs, lots of coupling and uncoupling with each other but generally everybody was rather north-easternly civil about it; virtually no punches nor naughty words are thrown. Nor were there whips nor sex toys nor legal abortions - this was the early 60s. While there are about a dozen couples who pop up from time to time, going to dinners, cocktail parties, ski events, etc. "Couples" focuses mainly on a half dozen or so of them.

This was a very racy story for its time, and contrary to some reader reviews still racy for 2017; it's sex scenes are often lengthy and detailed though without being grotesquely graphic. And the writing is just excellent. In the background, Updike reminds us of the political and social upheavals of the day - the Cuba crisis, the Assassination, women's evolving role in the workplace, the Viet Nam war.

Though the book is about couples, it is not a romance. You don't see the word "love" much at all; there are no heroes. There are lots of community flaws exposed - it's about married life, it's about relationships, it's about sex, it's about the 60s. Highly recommended. ( )

באיחור גדול מאוד זה האפדייק הראשון שלי והאמת, הוא עשה חשק לעוד. מישהו אמר עליו כי הוא סופר מינורי עם סגנון מז'ורי וזה ללא ספק נכון. מזמן כבר לא בדקתי כל כך הרבה מילים במילון כמו בספר הזה. אבל יחד עם זאת, אחרי התחלה קצת קשה להיכנס אליה, הספר סוחף מרתק ומעורר געגועים לתקופה שבה העולם היה תמים יותר ואנחנו כולנו היינו הרבה יותר צעירים ומלאי תשוקות. ( )

suffocating, disturbing, funny in places; but ultimately empty and the pacing drops away in the last third of the book, after things between Foxy Whitman & Piet Hanema come to a conclusion, it's all meandering about from there. ( )