Prospect: The leading magazine of ideas, published an essay in their March 2000 issue (posted online 20 March 2000) by Edward Pearce titled, “You’re not so vain: In praise of John Updike.” In it, Pearce considers Updike-as-reviewer.
“Notoriously, the author of the Rabbit tetralogy, the delectable Bech stories and a compendium of superlative writing, is a kind reviewer. He shares the view of Anthony Burgess (also a victim of loftiness from below) that writing a book is a great toil underground and that to be smashed on the head afterwards—even with a cardboard shovel—is a rotten experience. Decent fellow writers should withhold such smashing.”
Later, Pearce writes, “Updike as a critic has the gift of interest. His scope is continental . . . . Updike is intelligently nostalgic. He is sufficiently independent of the arts community’s requirements to be able to field the latest buzz topic—then turn back to a film star of his childhood, or indeed a mediocre novel of 30 years ago, and write about it with affection.”
“There is also,” Pearce maintains, citing a review of Camille Paglia, “a delightful cross-over from Updike the moviegoer and 1950s nostalgist” in Updike the reviewer.