Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

This is the thread for the January 2025 buddy read of The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike.

I've got a copy coming!

First book starting in 2025. I still am finishing some others ...

I am enjoying the read and while it has similar shortcomings, I am liking it more that the last three Rabbit Novels. I had previously seen the film and I know the area where it is set very well, but I think it is the fantastic imagery Updike manages in his his mix of the fantastic and real.

I will start this soon.

I read this book about 5 years ago. July 2019 Although I still have it on my Kindle I do not plan on rereading. I remember that I had fun reading it. 4* I thought it was much better than the movie.

Just a few pages in and I notice how different is the tone from the Rabbit books. Updike is being so playful with us as he sets the scene!

And the descriptive explanation of Rhode Island is just fantastic, don’t you think?

I am struck once more by how good Updike can describe the American culture at a specific point. In this novel, with a few brand names like “Comet and Calgonite,” Alexandra makes a sandwich of “sliced turkey breast on diet whole wheat bread” and my mind is instantly thrown back in time to a specific decade. Some writers are better at this than others, but Updike is a master at it. His writing causes me to time travel.

I agree Terry and although I sometimes think that authors try to give a feel of locality by dropping a few native associations, Updike's knowledge does seem to extend a bit more. I don't know where you are so I only will mention one thing that stuck out. It was very common for residents of this area and in various localities along the shore to have bottles of vodka in their freezer in anticipation of cocktail hour. These "cocktails," would often consist of vodka martinis or straight vodka over the rocks. It was the area that introduced me to that practice. Updike picks up on that in the book.

I am about 30% into the book, Sam. Since I have seen the movie, I know the story, although there are some difference.

I don’t really know the Eastern Shore or New England that well, but the plants mentioned do ring true to my botanical knowledge. The habit of keeping vodka in the freezer during the 1980s was not exclusively based in that geography. Regardless, Updike uses details to mark time and place really well.

Katy and Annette may be behind us in their progress so we should probably be careful about spoilers.

Agreed and I am at 80%. I was rolling along last night and had to stop to get another day's pleasure. I am loving it.

Terry wrote: "Katy and Annette may be behind us in their progress so we should probably be careful about spoilers."

I'm good - I appreciate that you say where you are in the book, so I read carefully, and honestly, spoilers don't ruin a book for me. I guess I'm weird like that.

I have watched the movies a few times, so like Teery some of of the story I know. Since I am rereading Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, I am looking to see if I will find a variation of (view spoiler)[the Bluebeard story, a variation of the innocent women seduced by a magus (hide spoiler)]

I have finished 2 of 3 chapters, so about 66% through book.

I find this book fascinating:
*as a man's fantasy about women's sexuality.
* as a take off from the witch craze of the region.
* as a description/imagination of women finding themselves able to occupy new spaces, something empowering, messy, and delightful. (Set in early 1970s)

I hope to be able to also read The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike.

Ooh, me too! I wasn’t aware that this was a series. Thanks, Cynda! And yes, your points are right on. There is a large measure of male sexual fantasy in the book. I am not quite half through.

From a Goodreads reviewer, Mizuki, she asks, since Updike doesn’t define what a witch is, what makes these women witches?

Although I think the novel is best read as entertainment than serious literature, I think I see it more satirizing elements of the 70's and 80's than celebrating them. A lot of people read this as misogynistic and patriarchal but I think the Rabbit novels are more misogynistic and this is Updike's idea of comedy which may read misogynistic today but is actually pretty feministic for a male in its time. The males in the novel are portrayed just as negatively as the women and I think maybe Updike was articulating his dissatisfaction with how much the world had changed socially from the period of his youth. I think a good many alive today celebrated the 60's but survived the 70's and early 80's. Divorce was at its highest, the drug of choice was cocaine, sex had gone from free love to AIDS and STD's. and there was a lot of social unhappiness. I think the witches is Updike way of playing with women's empowerment and the trending of Wiccan and witchcraft. Magical realism had become popular as well and Updike offers his version here. He continued to experiment with it in later work.

One thing, Updike seems to be attentive to is competition between women, and I think he captures that pretty well here, though I do not know what inspired it.

Terry, these women discover their powers during an interminable outdoor program. They were all thinking (view spoiler)[ on rain and rain came! If I read correctly, they think women's powers increase as they approach menopause. In traditional thinking, women's powers start picking up as they reach puberty and develop through all their childbearing years and decrease with menopause, instead gaining wisdom. (hide spoiler)]

Here is a nonspoiler answer to Terry's question. There is everyday magic in women. Think of how only momma's kiss will make the owie hurt less, how grandma's bread is best, how Mrs Garcia's tomatoes are the tastiest.

This novel does treat women with more respect than the Rabbit novels and I agree with your other points. These women have power in their independence and they are leading their lives almost completely on their own terms. These women are artists, too. They sculpt, create music snd write, contrasted to Daryl who collects, listens, etc. They have powers which Daryl only envies.

Then, Alexa starts playing with spells early in the novel, and uses her power to bring a storm which rids the beach of annoying people, so there is something of witchcraft or magical realism in there, too. She seems the most powerful of the three. I also think Updike views the ability of women to carry babies in their bodies as magical; possibly it is womb envy.

The other women in the novel, the ones not living independent lives, are treated pretty harshly by the author, and they demonstrate the propensity to hate any women daring to live by their own choices. This echoes the historical witch trials in New England.

The men in the novel are not treated very sympathetically either though.

So, this one wasn't the first book I picked up to read in 2025. Finished Part 1. Can't say that I actually like our characters, but Updike's descriptions of time and place are wonderful. I haven't seen the movie - so I don't know where he is going with this story, but it doesn't seem to be a good place.

I will be interested in your thoughts when you finish.

Katy, I’m so glad you are joining us! I am only a bit over half through. You aren’t too far behind.

The book is a little different from the movie, so you are not working at a disadvantage. After you finish the book, though, I suggest you find the movie and watch it. Jack Nicholson‘s take on Daryl Van Horne is quite a thing to watch.

Terry wrote: "...Jack Nicholson‘s take on Daryl Van Horne is quite a thing to watch...."

I look forward to that.

I took kept picturing Jack Nicholson as Daryl Van Horne!

As much as the women are the expression of male fantasy, Van Horne is an expression of a man's fantasy as well.

Those who have enjoyed or are enjoying the novel, maybe you will join Terry and me for part 2: The Widows of Eastwick. Go check out the buddy read request thread :)

Cynda wrote: "Those who have enjoyed or are enjoying the novel, maybe you will join Terry and me for part 2: The Widows of Eastwick. Go check out the buddy read request thread :)"

I am considering it. It depends on my reading load right now. I have read a lot of Updike in the last year so I may pass. Witches of EastWick was so good, I don't want to spoil it.

Right Sam. There are writer's other books I am loathe to read for the same reason :)

And of course women have fantasies about men--Daryl Van Horne is bad, bad boy something like many women swoon over. . . .Jack Nicholson in the movie version was so obviously and delightfully a fantasy man.

I finished the book tonight. If anyone is still reading, I hope my comments won’t be spoilers.

I thought the play of the witch history of the area contrasted with the late 20th century women was brilliant. The dumbing down of their powers at the start of the novel seemed like it was due to the everyday exposure of modern life with its tendency to isolate women in households of children. Their powers grow as the story is developed. But when the women come together in a coven, their power is mightily increased — although it seems to take its toll on Alexandra.

In writing his books, I sometimes feel like Updike is trying hard to understand women, and feels frustrated because doesn’t quite get there. In this book, the women use men for pleasure in ways usually associated with male behavior. The men, even Daryl Van Horne, are really superfluous to their lives.

I thought those pages where the witches cast their spell were riveting. I could hardly turn my eyes away from the pages I was reading.

The book is definitely a romp and I imagine Updike had lots of fun writing it. But what an exquisitely wrought piece of writing it is! I absolutely loved some of the closing paragraph.

Why do you think the movie had such a different ending? Did Updike like what they did to his story?



I will give this book a 5 star rating. It may not be as significant as his Rabbit books, but there are moments of substance still.
He is one helluva writer.

I can see how this novel could be turned into a spoof movie and still keep going that meditation on women & women and men.

Terry wrote: "I finished the book tonight. If anyone is still reading, I hope my comments won’t be spoilers.

I thought the play of the witch history of the area contrasted with the late 20th century women was b..."

I agree with everything you said Terry, although I can't decide if Updike respects, fears, or mocks women while he tries to figure them out. Bt se certainly is dismissing men and even disparaging them IMO. Jack Nicholson as Horne in the movie doesn't reinforce that thought because of his star power, but Updike's ultimate resolution of his thread does not seem flattering and the hot tub has more character then the rest of the men in the novel.

I agree the depiction of the spells (and their effects) was marvelously done and for me the best part of the book.

I am curious how everyone viewed the competition between the women and ultimate punishment exercised on one. I thought this was again well written, and reflected much of what I saw in the period, but wonder what Updike was trying to say in emphasizing that aspect.

Sorry to all. I am bailing on this book. There are too many other books that I would like to read.