Spoiler-Free Summary…

Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie are witches in a small Rhode Island town. Their lives are uneventful and petty, their magic mischievous and self-serving. When a mysterious man moves into town, they are instantly and inexplicably enamored of him and their witchy will takes a deadly turn. Updike captures the flavor of a northeastern small town in little interactions and vignettes. He also takes the time to write out the mechanics of witchcraft and includes specific spells or recipes for achieving certain goals. This lent a definite air of legitimacy and realness to his tale. But I feel many modern readers will find this book did not age well. I get the sense that it was understood at the that time that it was not a feminist book, and now there can be no doubt.

A Work of Feminism or a Condemnation of Feminism?

A key plot point of The Witches of Eastwick is that all of the women of Eastwick obtain powers after leaving a man or being left by a man. It sounds like a feminist premise—the men were holding them back and only without them can the women assume their true power, or something like that? Not at all what happens. The women we meet in Eastwick are crippled by pettiness, selfishness, and a severe lack of imagination. By design. Here is an informative quote from Updike from an interview with New York Magazine:

The era in which I wrote it [the 1980s] was full of feminism and talk about how women should be in charge of the world. There would be no war. There would be nothing unpleasant, in fact, if women were in charge of the world. So I tried to write this book about women who, in achieving freedom of a sort, acquired power, the power that witches would have if there were witches. And they use it to kill another witch. So they behave no better with their power than men do. That was my chauvinistic thought.

John Updike, from article Updike and the Women, Emily Nussbaum, New York Magazine

But women behaving “no better than men,” as Updike puts it, is not a chauvinist thought at its core: we are all people, we are all capable of deeds both good and evil. No, The Witches of Eastwick is chauvinist for a different reason. Updike puts on a show of elevating women by freeing them from the confines of their traditional housewife role and making them the main characters. But his task for the entirety of the novel is to undercut these women, by making them the most miserable, petty, dumb, racist, and evil people you’ve ever met. And the other female characters don’t escape his judgement either. As Atwood notes in her review of the novel, Updike “provides no blameless way of being female”.

Witchy Fun Waylayed

We always enjoy choosing a fun Halloween book, and this year one of the girls surprised us all with Halloween beverages on our porches (which we all dubbed ‘porch wine’ and now she is our ‘porch booze goddess’). We all walked into this novel with the expectation that it would be fun for Halloween because it was about witches and the book summary suggested it would be sexy too. Despite its extremely sexy set-ups, we agreed these are some of the most unsexy sex scenes you’ll ever come across.

Spoilers Ahead…

Overwhelming Obtuseness and a Shining Frenetic Tirade

A major issue with the novel is its obtuseness. We are meant to understand right away that Darryl Van Horne is the devil and that he has beguiled the witches, but in seeking ambiguity Updike over-achieved. For much of the novel I was trying to understand why these women were pursuing this offensive, disgusting, and off-putting man. Another place where ambiguity reigned is the plot surrounding the parasites towards the end. All three witches experienced strange symptoms like weight loss and pain in chest near the ‘duodenum’. Then Darryl gives a sermon at the church in his wild, frenetic style in which he describes three parasites and their unique symptoms…the precise symptoms the witches have been experiencing. This plot point abruptly comes to nothing when Darryl moves away with Christopher and the witches find new husbands and also leave Eastwick. Regardless of its irrelevancy, I loved Darryl’s tirade, which can be read as a free-form poem independent of the novel. I adore its cosmic musings of a creator’s intentions and the Devil’s professional, persistent jealousy. It was a shining moment in the novel.

[The roundworm parasite] is as real a creature as you and me. He’s as noble a creature, designwise—really lovingly designed. You’ve got to picture that Big Visage leaning down and smiling through Its beard while those fabulous Fingers with Their angelic manicure fiddled with the last fine-tuning of old Schistosoma’s ventral sucker: that’s Creation. Now I ask you: isn’t that pretty terrible. Couldn’t you have done better, given the resources? I sure as hell could have. So vote for me next time, O.K.? Amen.

The Witches of Eastwick, John Updike

Surprisingly, all three witches are unchanged at the end of the novel. We have often noted in our book club that being able to observe change in a main character gives a feeling of conclusion and natural progression to a book. Ie, if there is no change in our main characters, what was it all for? Even Darryl is the same, just as embittered and seeking, moving on to the next town. Maybe that was why the movie decided to…

In Summary

Updike’s version of witchcraft is unsexy, unfun, and unoriginal in its critique of independent women. Updike crafted rather unforgettable characters and depicted northern small town living with great attention to detail, even as he clearly loathes every person in it. Not a single character escapes his grim view of humanity and he saves the majority of hateful characteristics for the three witches. Many readers will be able to tell that this book was intended as a “response to [Updike’s] feminist detractors”…and not in a good way. Check it out and make your own conclusions…

---

Wine Selection & Tasting Notes

Cupcake Pinot Noir. Scent: jammy vanilla. Flavor: green bell pepper, raspberry and blackberry. Light-bodied, slightly sweet, almost no tannins.

---

The Witches of Eastwick Discussion Questions

• Coming soon!