The Centaur is written in such a way that it results pleasant and easy to progress through its pages. It's an interesting story that revolts around a series of events throughout 3 or 4 days. And yet, the author manages to introduce so many perspectives, both through the eyes of different characters or from different times; sometimes retrospectively, sometimes right from after the events took place. In the novel there is steadily an aura of mysticism by which the reader gets baffled and hesitates as to whether the author was simply narrating the events or there is indeed an intrinsic, transcendental or metaphoric meaning. Especially due to the several parallelisms between the novel and classical Greek mythology.
Given my restricted knowledge of said mythology, I believe I may have failed to understand much of the exquisiteness of this book. And I must confess I couldn't quite explain why the book is called The Centaur. In my humble opinion, that's a much to large name for this Updike's novel. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book altogether. I don't know why but I specially liked the scene where father and son struggle through a rough winter storm to make it back home to their family. I admire how the moral values of both parents prevail in spite of their personality flaws. Although many passages are melancholic, many of them are, at the same time, narrated in a hilarious way. This reveals the talent of the author.
Funnily enough, there is one interesting connection between this book and another one I recently read: The Goldfinch. Peter Caldwell, the kid in this story, is a huge fan of Johannes Vermeer: a pupil of Carel Fabritius, the painter of The Goldfinch.
Given my restricted knowledge of said mythology, I believe I may have failed to understand much of the exquisiteness of this book. And I must confess I couldn't quite explain why the book is called The Centaur. In my humble opinion, that's a much to large name for this Updike's novel. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book altogether. I don't know why but I specially liked the scene where father and son struggle through a rough winter storm to make it back home to their family. I admire how the moral values of both parents prevail in spite of their personality flaws. Although many passages are melancholic, many of them are, at the same time, narrated in a hilarious way. This reveals the talent of the author.
Funnily enough, there is one interesting connection between this book and another one I recently read: The Goldfinch. Peter Caldwell, the kid in this story, is a huge fan of Johannes Vermeer: a pupil of Carel Fabritius, the painter of The Goldfinch.
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