Back then when I read it,almost 40 years ago,this was the sexiest novel I had come across. ( )

Meh. My first dirty novel. I read it as a babysitter. Predictably, it doesn't wear well. I didn't really re-read it; I skimmed it like Jackie Collins or something similar. Did the repulsive Piet leave his wife? (yes and married Foxy w/ no explanation). Most noticeable thing, of course, is that it's always an Updike alter ego and always his POV.

You never get an idea of what these women see in him or in any of the other male characters. What do they enjoy about sex with him or any of the others? Granted, I skimmed the book: but is it possible that none of these men provide oral sex? It appears that Piet's wife isn't even familiar with fellatio. Also, straight out of the movies: these women seem to reach vaginal orgasms awfully quickly. Whatever, Piet et al's appeal is (they're all just terribly bored? Note how no one is reading The Feminine Mystique--and this book was written in 1970?!), we can rule out a gift for foreplay.

Another brief for the case of Updike misogyny.

Gee, were things really like this in the 1960s? No wonder the 'women's liberation' movement began with so much energy and anger and books like Marilyn French's "The Women's Room" changed so many lives (mine included).

This story of a bunch of couples living in the New England region of the USA was painful for me to read in some parts because it reminded me of my own earlier years (although lived around ten years later than the setting of this novel). It's a story of male dominance and female (largely 'willing') submission. Sex drives the men and they don't seem to understand, or wish to understand, why they do it, just as they might go to church without any perceptible impact on their life, except perhaps a vague feeling of nostalgia when the church burns down after a lightning strike. Having sex with lots of women in the group of couples is not a problem unless the woman gets pregnant *and* your paternity is discovered. This isn't much of a problem because this time is one in which the newly marketed contraceptive pill is releasing *men* from that fear.

I'm not sure what Updike wants us to make of this story. I'm going to read another of his books ("Rabbit, Run") before I pass judgment...and maybe the others in the "Rabbit" series which won Pulitzer Prizes. ( )

Excellent writing, but odd story about swinging couples in the sixties. Definitely a time piece. ( )

At the end, the local church is struck by lightning. A judgment on wife swapping and cunnilingus? Or simply divine displeasure with the the marriage of portentousness with fecklessness? ( )