Short Stories by John Updike

Abstract

John Updike, Problems and Other Stories. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1980. Cloth $12.95. 260 pp.

This collection of short stories is Updike's first for seven years. More's the pity, as he is a master of this medium, evocative at times of Hemingway and a masculine, space-age Katherine Mansfield. Collections have been sandwiched in among novels like the famous Rabbit series, The Centaur, The Coup, and plays and poems.

The collections are usually spiced with a few short-short stories that are quintessentially Updike and give a strong flavour to the offering. Such, in the present volume, are 'Commercial', 'Minutes of the Last Meeting' and 'Problems'. The latter is well chosen as title story, posing as it does nightmarish examination questions on life. The fmal sentence sets the flavour for the book: 'Problem: Something feels wrong. What is it?'