[In Problems and Other Stories] divorce is like a more profound kind of marriage. The relationship is purified by distance, ennobled by nostalgia. It becomes a tragedy, instead of a comedy of errors. Divorce releases a desire for the former husband or wife that can be neither defined nor satisfied.

Someone said about James Joyce that he gave up his religion, but kept his categories. Mr. Updike's husbands and wives keep their categories, too. Their future is framed by their past. They struggle to find new mistakes to make. (p. 539)

Not all the stories work in "Problems." Sometimes Mr. Updike merely toys self-consciously with the short-story form. Other times he tries to force the lock of our feelings with empty virtuosity. His characters have always had a weakness for portentous remembering. Once in a while, in rehearsing their sorrows, his divorced husbands are like men retelling old army stories.

But is some of these pieces are forgettable, others are not. At his best, John Updike stitches his stories into our skins….

While Mr. Updike has become the poet laureate of domestic life and divorce, the children in "Problems" are oddly boring. Perhaps this is because they were born and bred in a world where divorce is a commonplace. Their needs and their range of gestures seem limited and predictable, as simple as tropisms. (p. 540)