Couples

by John Updike

Hardcover, 1968

DDC/MDS

813.54

813.54

Publication

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1968.

Original publication date

1968-01

Description

"Trapped in their cozy catacombs, the couples have made sex by turns their toy, their glue, their trauma, their therapy, their hope, their frustration, their revenge, their narcotic, their main line of communication and their sole and pitiable shield against the awareness of death."--Time One of the signature novels of the American 1960s, Couples is a book that, when it debuted, scandalized the public with prose pictures of the way people live, and that today provides an engrossing epitaph to the short, happy life of the "post-Pill paradise." It chronicles the interactions of ten young married couples in a seaside New England community who make a cult of sex and of themselves. The group of acquaintances form a magical circle, complete with ritualistic games, religious substitutions, a priest (Freddy Thorne), and a scapegoat (Piet Hanema). As with most American utopias, this one's existence is brief and unsustainable, but the "imaginative quest" that inspires its creation is eternal. Praise for Couples "Couples [is] John Updike's tour de force of extramarital wanderlust."--The New York Times Book Review "Ingenious . . . If this is a dirty book, I don't see how sex can be written about at all."--Wilfrid Sheed, The New York Times Book Review… (more)

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Collection

Letters

User reviews

LibraryThing member hazelk

I was disappointed by this novel as had really admired Updike's Rabbit trilogy. I found myself bored by these couples and their fornications:perhaps I wouldn't have had this reaction when I was younger and then would have got a kick out of the more graphic descriptions of the sexual act. I realise

that Updike may have meant us to be critical of these self-regarding people but in the end I got bored with them as they seemed to have felt bored with each other. Lost souls?

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LibraryThing member kylekatz

Updike is a strange old coot. I think his writing has these weird flashes of brilliance interrupted by flashy, show-off-y styling, and galling sexism. I kind of enjoy seeing how far he can go. Okay, I've only read Couples, so my statement is made based on a sample of one book.

The review of The

Terrorist in The Nation has this enlightening quote: "Updike [...] cannot introduce a woman without extending the same courtesy to her breasts." I have to admit that his over the top sexuality is part of what I like about him. Why pretend that he doesn't notice the boobs as much as he does? It is a bit laughable the way he describes women and men in Couples.

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LibraryThing member Periodista

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.

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LibraryThing member maneekuhi

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.

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LibraryThing member raphaelmatto

Extremely good. Insiteful in a mean way about marriage. Huge round characters with magnified faults. Earthy -- as in "I am a powerful man." Can't stand the ending.

LibraryThing member BinnieBee

I enjoyed reading this book but I couldn't feel any sympathy for the characters!

LibraryThing member jburlinson

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?

LibraryThing member oldblack

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.

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LibraryThing member alexrichman

Just as the seemingly endless cast of couples begins to make sense in the reader's mind, they all start swapping partners. Bizarre caricature characters populate the perfectly believable town of Tarbox - but don't go hoping for a Sodom-style smiting.

LibraryThing member auntieknickers

For me, Updike is one of those writers whose artistry I can appreciate, but whose subject matter tends to depress me, so I've only read 3 or 4 of his books. I recall this one as being pretty much a downer, but it did hold my interest.

LibraryThing member jkdavies

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.

LibraryThing member starbox

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.

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