Updike: Great Taste, More Filling

A perhaps overly generous review I wrote some years ago on John Updike's More Matter. It was a book with Updike waxing endlessly on way too much, and in that regard proved something of a boon for reviewers (James Wood and David Foster Wallace) who never liked him anyway. What they missed -- and what I hope this review restored, if only a little -- is that the bulk of the book is not devoted to a lot of ephemera, but to his criticism, which like all the best criticism is as personal as it is shrewd and smart.