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“the idea here, and i can only guess, is about the possible adventure that's allowed materialization once one frees oneself from the societally dictated "should be's". the ladies of small, quaint, out-of-the-way eastwick, rhode island, to one extent or another, have found their freedom with the dissolution of their respective irksome marriages.
and power, too, viola, with some interesting turns here and there along the way in the demostration of the same.
but let's not get too excited, okay?
actually it's a book already dated and perhaps dated when written. the implication that women do not need marriage, or that marriage is not what it's cracked up to be certainly sets no new milestones in thinking. and hey, sleeping around with a lot of guys (who themselves are sleeping around) didn't really seem all that shocking when it actually was (the 60's) and so it hardly constitutes liberating behavior insofar as i'm concerned.
it's a interesting premise perhaps, that witches are in actuality simply free spirits, but it's not too well played here for my tastes.
i will say that updike has a way, certainly, with words, but his habit of setting up an situation only to change focus just as the payoff arrives ---just like on television how the commercial comes on just as things get interesting --- well, it got pretty old to me pretty darn quickly.
i wonder if i didn't give this 3 stars only in memory of the actresses in the film version (cher, michelle pfieffer and susan sarandon) who added depth of character to their parts, though the book is again better than the movie for the atmosphere created by updike...”
