As in his previous books, the tension here is in the style and
words as well as in the narrative, and the worlds of George
Caldwell and his 15 year old son Peter are heightened and illumined
by them. This threads the legend of Chiron, the "noblest of all the
Centaurs" who begged for death as an atonement for Prometheus'
theft of fire, through the cumulative frustrations of the school
teacher who knows the fury of living as well as the fury of
failure; it reflects the effects on Peter as his orbit, physical
and spiritual, closes in and stretches away from his father whom he
senses needs a defender and an avenger; it encompasses a few days
in which recall of the past and a look into the future inform the
present. Wounded by an arrow- as was Chiron, George is further
wounded by his principal's apparent humiliations; certain that he
is harboring a fatal disease, he is not comforted when X-rays prove
him wrong; increasingly ridden by guilt when he and Peter are
caught in a near-blizzard, he returns home to the certain freedom
of death. Peter's psoriasis, his love for Penny, his alerted
sentience to his father's mounting despair are in counterpoint to
his father's intense response to reality and equally strong sense
of fantasy in which he is the Centaur....Poorhouse and Rabbit have
won Updike critical acceptance and designation as the most
conspicuously talented younger writer of the decade and there is a
warmth here which may well admit and attract a wider audience. The
transition of the relationship between father, no longer demigod,
and son, comes through with a signal tenderness and implements
Updike's established virtues, the glittering and polished prose and
the mature alliance of form, function and symbol. (Kirkus Reviews)
In a small Pennsylvania town in the late 1940s, schoolteacher
George Caldwell yearns to find some meaning in his life. Alone with
his teenage son for three days in a blizzard, Caldwell sees his son
grow and change as he himself begins to lost touch with his life.
Interwoven with the myth of Chiron, the noblest centaur, and his
own relationship to Prometheus, The Centaur is one of John Updike's
most brilliant and unusual novels.
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