More Updike, via GKC ...

James Wood, for one, has disparaged Updike's disingenuous theological staginess. As these stories testify, Wood is right to note the lack of gripping metaphysical debate in Updike's fiction. Belief is too secure, too confident, and—like that retriever—too creaturely to muster up the agonies of a Dostoevsky or the fierce apologetics of an O'Connor. Perhaps Updike's early loves, the benign P. G. Wodehouse and the bumptious G. K. Chesterton, loom too influential.

 Another review of Updike's Collected Stories