“THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK,” BY JOHN UPDIKE

If one can get through the first twenty pages of this novel and about ten long, pedantic, nonsensical passages, one might actually like this book. Set at the end of the Vietnam war, in the small village of Eastwick, Rhode Island, three witches (Alexandra, Sukie, and Jane) fall under the spell Darryl Van Horne, a man who is constantly spitting salvia each time he speaks and whose hands are as hairy as a bear’s claws. It is quite unusual for me not to like any character in a book but this novel managers to do just that.

Years ago I made a promise to myself, after I started reading Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake,” that if the first twenty pages of any book became impossible for me to read that I would simply put it down. I have mostly kept to that promise but having read a number of John Updike’s works which I truly enjoyed, I decided to go on and that was a mistake.