Books: Prometheus Unsound

THE CENTAUR (299 pp.)—John Updike —Knopf ($4).

Once again Updike's comet—a blazing thesaurus trailed by an incandescence of reputation—is visible against the night sky. What wonders does it portend?

Very much the same kind of wonders as the last time around, the reader is likely to decide. In his third novel and sixth book, this 30-year-old author's prose is more than ever remarkable for its astonishing and somewhat studied brilliance. As before. Updike finds his way more accurately than almost anyone else now writing to the small touchstones of mind and memory; there is the little shock, and then yes, that is how...

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