John Updike once more revealed his remarkably brilliant powers of description in the novel Brazil. Updike shares his uncanny ability to portray the setting and landscape that surround his characters in order to highlight their nature and their roles. However, Updike's greatest gift is the manner in which he is able to crawl inside the characters to reveal their restless and frantic struggles to discover themselves. The principal characters in Brazil are Tristao and Isabel. Their love for each other survives a tormented parade of trials forced on them by family, nature, society, and the economy. Yet the end for them is as tragic as for Tristan and Isolde, whose names and whose roles are so similar. Purposefully, the reader is left to wonder a great deal about the significance of such …