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Villages

A Novel

A novel

A Novel

By John Updike

By John Updike

By John Updike

By John Updike

By John Updike

By John Updike

By John Updike
Read by Edward Herrmann

By John Updike
Read by Edward Herrmann

Best Seller
Paperback $16.00

Sep 27, 2005 | ISBN 9780345477316

Hardcover $25.00

Oct 19, 2004 | ISBN 9781400042906

Ebook $12.99

Dec 18, 2007 | ISBN 9780307417640

Audiobook Download $19.98

Oct 19, 2004 | 583 Minutes

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    Villages by John Updike
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    Sep 27, 2005 | ISBN 9780345477316

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      Sep 27, 2005 | ISBN 9780345477316

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    • Hardcover $25.00

      Oct 19, 2004 | ISBN 9781400042906

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    About Villages

    In this wry novel of sentimental education and sexual pursuit, we follow Owen Mackenzie, a representative man of the author’s generation, from cradle to grave, and from bed to bed. His life and relationships are shaped by three villages, warm-lit communities that keep the darkness at bay from within and without. In Willow, Pennsylvania, the young Owen is transfixed by his first glimpses of female beauty. In Middle Falls, Connecticut, he marries, becomes a first-wave computer programmer, and discovers the very grownup pleasures of serial adultery. Finally, married for a second time, he retires with his memories, illusions, and fantasies to the somewhat geriatric community of Haskells Crossing, Massachusetts. John Updike turns Owen’s personal odyssey into a radiant, sensual fable of the seasons of a man’s life—and of the getting of wisdom in America.

    About Villages

    John Updike’s twenty-first novel, a bildungsroman, follows its hero, Owen Mackenzie, from his birth in the semi-rural Pennsylvania town of Willow to his retirement in the rather geriatric community of Haskells Crossing, Massachusetts. In between these two settlements comes Middle Falls, Connecticut, where Owen, an early computer programmer, founds with a partner, Ed Mervine, the successful firm of E-O Data, which is housed in an old gun factory on the Chunkaunkabaug River. Owen’s education (Bildung) is not merely technical but liberal, as the humanity of his three villages, especially that of their female citizens, works to disengage him from his youthful innocence. As a child he early felt an abyss of calamity beneath the sunny surface quotidian, yet also had a dreamlike sense of leading a charmed existence. The women of his life, including his wives, Phyllis and Julia, shed what light they can. At one juncture he reflects, “How lovely she is, naked in the dark! How little men deserve the beauty and mercy of women!” His life as a sexual being merges with the communal shelter of villages: “A village is woven of secrets, of truths better left unstated, of houses with less window than opaque wall.”

    This delightful, witty, passionate novel runs from the Depression era to the early twenty-first century.

    About Villages

    In this wry novel of sentimental education and sexual pursuit, we follow Owen Mackenzie, a representative man of the author’s generation, from cradle to grave, and from bed to bed. His life and relationships are shaped by three villages, warm-lit communities that keep the darkness at bay from within and without. In Willow, Pennsylvania, the young Owen is transfixed by his first glimpses of female beauty. In Middle Falls, Connecticut, he marries, becomes a first-wave computer programmer, and discovers the very grownup pleasures of serial adultery. Finally, married for a second time, he retires with his memories, illusions, and fantasies to the somewhat geriatric community of Haskells Crossing, Massachusetts. John Updike turns Owen’s personal odyssey into a radiant, sensual fable of the seasons of a man’s life—and of the getting of wisdom in America.

    About Villages

    John Updike’s twenty-first novel, a bildungsroman, follows its hero, Owen Mackenzie, from his birth in the semi-rural Pennsylvania town of Willow to his retirement in the rather geriatric community of Haskells Crossing, Massachusetts. In between these two settlements comes Middle Falls, Connecticut, where Owen, an early computer programmer, founds with a partner, Ed Mervine, the successful firm of E-O Data, which is housed in an old gun factory on the Chunkaunkabaug River. Owen’s education (Bildung) is not merely technical but liberal, as the humanity of his three villages, especially that of their female citizens, works to disengage him from his youthful innocence. As a child he early felt an abyss of calamity beneath the sunny surface quotidian, yet also had a dreamlike sense of leading a charmed existence. The women of his life, including his wives, Phyllis and Julia, shed what light they can. At one juncture he reflects, “How lovely she is, naked in the dark! How little men deserve the beauty and mercy of women!” His life as a sexual being merges with the communal shelter of villages: “A village is woven of secrets, of truths better left unstated, of houses with less window than opaque wall.”

    This delightful, witty, passionate novel runs from the Depression era to the early twenty-first century.

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    Buchanan Dying
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    See all books by John Updike

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    Selected Poems of John Updike
    Olinger Stories
    S.
    Buchanan Dying
    Hugging the Shore
    See all books by John Updike

    Also by John Updike

    Selected Poems of John Updike
    Olinger Stories
    S.
    Buchanan Dying
    Hugging the Shore
    See all books by John Updike

    About John Updike

    JOHN UPDIKE is the author of more than sixty books, eight of them collections of poetry. His novels won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle, and the William Dean Howells Medal of the American… More about John Updike

    About John Updike

    JOHN UPDIKE is the author of more than sixty books, eight of them collections of poetry. His novels won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle, and the William Dean Howells Medal of the American… More about John Updike

    About John Updike

    JOHN UPDIKE is the author of more than sixty books, eight of them collections of poetry. His novels won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle, and the William Dean Howells Medal of the American… More about John Updike

    About John Updike

    JOHN UPDIKE is the author of more than sixty books, eight of them collections of poetry. His novels won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle, and the William Dean Howells Medal of the American… More about John Updike

    Product Details

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Paperback | $16.00
    Published by Random House Trade Paperbacks
    Sep 27, 2005 | 336 Pages | 5-1/2 x 8-1/4 | ISBN 9780345477316

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Hardcover | $25.00
    Published by Knopf
    Oct 19, 2004 | 336 Pages | 5-1/4 x 7-7/8 | ISBN 9781400042906

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Ebook | $12.99
    Published by Random House
    Dec 18, 2007 | 336 Pages | ISBN 9780307417640

    Category: Literary Fiction | Audiobooks

    Audiobook Download | $19.98
    Published by Random House Audio
    Oct 19, 2004 | 583 Minutes | ISBN 9780739315439
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    Praise

    “Updike in top form, every sentence a marvel of insight and imagery . . . wise and elegiac and warmed by the sense of reconciliation with the most vexatious elements of Updike’s fiction: women and sex.”—People (Critic’s Choice)
     
    “As powerful as anything to be found in Updike . . . full of pointed, humorous and occasionally acerbic remarks on contemporary life.”—Chicago Tribune
     
    “Eloquent, erotic . . . a gorgeous geography of desire.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

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