This novel is set in 2020 after a war between China and the USA, where protagonist Ben Turnball remains wealthy despite a highly unstable economy and a breakdown of social order. That major element aside, it is still John Updike doing what he does best – tracking human relationships and perceptions with uncanny precision, and musing upon how it feels to grow older.
There are several odd "alternative reality" digressions in which Ben imagines/believes he is someone/somewhere else. I'm not entirely sure these work, but Updike seems to be exploring the idea that experience is subjective. This makes for interesting plot twists: for example, it's suggested at one point that Ben kills his wife, only for her to return later as if nothing had happened. The writing is clever, and always vivid and perceptive, so why was it less enjoyable than it should have been?
Perhaps because John Updike draws his characters with such brutal realism that they are impossible to like. Or perhaps the bleak world in which Ben lives seems stripped of meaning, just as the "oceans are as exhausted and mined-out as the land".
It's a fascinating book and one that will leave you feeling uneasy and possibly rather disturbed.
