Patricia Abbott’s Feb. 9, 2022 blog entry featured John Updike’s “Wife-Wooing” as the topic. Abbott wrote, “These are some of my favorite stories. You watch a marriage fall apart over the course of the collection. ‘Giving Blood’ is my favorite.

“Favorite line. ‘Courting a wife takes tenfold the strength of winning an ignorant girl.’ How I wish he had used ‘innocent’ instead of ‘ignorant’.”

The post sparked a lively exchange of comments, among them:

“In one of the later Maple stories, the wife wants to have sex with her husband and he says, ‘It’s too far to go.’ That line shocked me when I read it. John Updike was one of the best book critics of his era. Political correctness now relegates Updike to the trash heap,” a person named George wrote.

Rick responded, “It’s all the amateur ‘critics’ on social media who should be reviled and put on the trash heap. I liked Rabbit Run, Of the Farm and The Witches of Eastwick. I haven’t read any short stories by him.”