I have no issue with Updike’s prose — his style is acute, meandering to small details but nonetheless coherent. My issue with his novels are his characters. I can’t think of a single Updike character I want to go out for a beer with. I really don’t like any of the characters in this book, not even the side characters.
To be honest, I picked up the book as it is considered a “Penguin Classic” and I’ve always collected these if I stumble across a copy in any bookstore. The trouble is, I can’t see the literary merit and I don’t see why Penguin should have published Witches as a modern classic. Towards the end of the book, I just wanted to get this book over and done with so I could pick up my next book to read.
