An intoxicating yet sensitive novel about the sexual experiences of ten couples from Tarbox, New England. Well-to-do, sociable, articulate but dangerously unfulfilled; they play word games in the evening and adultery all year round.
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An intoxicating yet sensitive novel about the sexual experiences of ten couples from Tarbox, New England. Well-to-do, sociable, articulate but dangerously unfulfilled; they play word games in the evening and adultery all year round.
Read Less
Add this copy of Couples to cart. $2.00, fair condition, Sold by Once Upon A Time Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Tontitown, AR, UNITED STATES, published 1981 by Fawcett.
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Seller's Description:
Fair. This is a used book. It may contain highlighting/underlining and/or the book may show heavier signs of wear. It may also be ex-library or without dustjacket. This is a used book. It may contain highlighting/underlining and/or the book may show heavier signs of wear. It may also be ex-library or without dustjacket.
Add this copy of Couples: a Novel to cart. $2.42, fair condition, Sold by Blue Vase Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Interlochen, MI, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Publishing Group.
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Seller's Description:
Fair. The item is very worn but is perfectly usable. Signs of wear can include aesthetic issues such as scratches dents worn and creased covers folded page corners and minor liquid stains. All pages and the cover are intact but the dust cover may be missing. Pages may include moderate to heavy amount of notes and highlighting but the text is not obscured or unreadable. Page edges may have foxing age related spots and browning. May NOT include discs access code or other supplemental materials.
Add this copy of Couples to cart. $2.42, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Austell, GA, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Trade.
Add this copy of Couples to cart. $2.42, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Trade.
Add this copy of Couples to cart. $2.42, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Trade.
Add this copy of Couples to cart. $2.42, fair condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Trade.
Add this copy of Couples to cart. $2.42, fair condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Trade.
Add this copy of Couples: a Novel to cart. $2.46, good condition, Sold by Blue Vase Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Interlochen, MI, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Random House Publishing Group.
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Seller's Description:
The item shows wear from consistent use but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact including the dust cover if applicable. Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs access code or other supplemental materials.
Add this copy of Couples to cart. $2.67, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1985 by Fawcett.
Add this copy of Couples (Fawcett Books #P1252) to cart. $2.94, fair condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published by Fawcett Crest Books.
John Updike once said that the thesis of his 1968 novel is that "sex is the emergent religion," and that point is rather heavy-handedly dramatized with the symbolic conflagration of the small New England town's church at the close of the novel.
Tarbox is the name of the town, and that too is overly freighted with symbolism as a place where exurban young marrieds come to settle, stall in their careers, feel a staleness in their marriages, and cannot escape.
Set in the early Sixties on the cusp of change, before and after President Kennedy's assassination, the novel does well as a tragicomedy of suburban manners--the bibulous dinner parties, the social cruelty of their parlor games, the afternoon basketball games, the neglect of children.
If the novel can be said to have a protagonist, it is Piet Hanema, a building contractor whose affairs are recounted with an astonishing scrupulosity. A critic has said that Couples is Updike's most Joycean book in its sexual candor, but it fails to measure up to the work of that modernist master, because Updike's vaunted prose style--part Flaubert, part Nabokov--falters at moments, and the novel feels airless and claustrophobic in a way Ulysses' encyclopedia capaciousness and prose parodies don't.
Updike's weakness, critic Wilfrid Sheed wrote, isn't too much beauty but "too much precision," and that seems right to me. At times in this novel, the author writes more like a clinician diagnosing a social malady than a novelist fully in love with his characters.
