Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Updike, John (Vol. 139) - Barbara Kingsolver (review date 6 February 1994)
Updike, John (Vol. 139) - Barbara Kingsolver (review date 6 February 1994)
Barbara Kingsolver (review date 6 February 1994)
SOURCE: “Desire under the Palms,” in New York Times Book Review, February 6, 1994, pp. 1, 26–7.
[In the following review, Kingsolver offers a positive evaluation of Brazil, but objects to racial stereotypes and elements of misogyny in the book.]
Tristão and Isabel, the hero and heroine of John Updike's 16th novel, Brazil, never quite realize the epic valor of their name-sakes of medieval legend and Wagnerian drama. They mean well, but they just can't seem to resist silk shirts and kinky sex.
The knight-errant, Tristão is strutting the Copacabana beach in his shining armor of night-black skin when he first lays eyes on pale Isabel, in her bikini and rich-girl languor. “This dolly,” he declares, “I think she was made for me.” With a razor blade in his pocket and the vague sense that he has outgrown a life of crime, Tristão makes his way to her, pledging...
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Criticism
- Joseph Epstein (essay date January 1983)
- Gail Godwin (review date 4 June 1984)
- Katha Pollitt (review date 23 June 1984)
- D. J. Enright (review date 2 February 1987)
- Edward Abbey (review date 28 March 1987)
- Richard Gilman (review date 20 June 1988)
- Denis Donoghue (review date 5 March 1989)
- Elizabeth Hardwick (review date 18 May 1989)
- John F. Fleischauer (essay date Summer 1989)
- Victor K. Lasseter (essay date October 1989)
- George J. Searles (review date 1–15 October 1990)
- Anthony Quinn (review date 26 October 1990)
- Barbara Leckie (essay date Spring 1991)
- Matthew Wilson (essay date Spring 1991)
- Martin Amis (review date 10 November 1991)
- Barbara Kingsolver (review date 6 February 1994)
- John Bayley (review date 12 May 1994)
- Jay Parini (review date 6 November 1994)
- Julian Barnes (review date 28 January 1996)
- A. O. Scott (review date 12 February 1996)
- Margaret Atwood (review date 12 October 1997)
- Tom LeClair (review date 3 November 1997)
- Robert Boyers (review date 17 November 1997)
- James Shapiro (review date 25 October 1998)
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