Word: reproacher
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Such wordploy is the mark of the DeVries oeuvre, at once its most noticeable-and least significant-characteristic. For between the punch lines, DeVries shows himself as a lapsed Calvinist who sees the world as a reproach to that incurable hypocrite, man. Irony is DeVries' weapon, and this collection of fugitive pieces extends his gallery of not always humane inconsistencies. When a worker obeys a "Think" sign, he is dismissed for woolgathering. An executive boasts of an affair he was strong enough to resist. But after his wife's resulting diatribe, he is furtively making plans for consummation...
...rain, thunder and lightning, the most common lingering symptom among the survivors is the uneasiness-in some cases the near panic-that is brought on by stormy weather. Many residents also suffer from insomnia, crying spells, moodiness, and what has been called "survival guilt": unwarranted but painful self-reproach for having lived when others died...
...decision. The police operation was badly mismanaged, and that failure was compounded by a lack of zeal in the task. Bavarian police were seemingly determined to carry off the ambush without loss of German life, though they were unsuccessful even in that. "If you want to know what I reproach myself for," Schreiber told a press conference afterward, "it is that I had to sacrifice one of my officers." He added quickly, "And that innocent Israeli athletes died." Such an attitude made a bold operation impossible. There was also a question of pride. The Israelis have had considerable experience...
...humor of Open Heart runs less to slapstick (perhaps because Bebb already has done most of his turns) and more to De Vriesian one-liners: "I knew that I had to get away that day-their fresh-faced guilt was too great a reproach to my shifty-eyed innocence." Antonio, the narrator of both novels, is five years older in the new one, and he has coalesced to the point where sometimes it is possible to get a look at him. He travels west, returns home, encounters an acquaintance of Bebb who just may be a demon. He accepts cuckoldry...
Nader is not beyond reproach by any means. A 1970 attack by his Raiders (task forces of college students) on the integrity of Senator Edmund S. Muskie because an air-pollution bill fell short of their idealistic standards, was puerile and misdirected. A subsequent study of New York's First National City Bank exhibited remarkable naivete about economic and financial complexities. Nader's often unbridled hyperbole is cause for legitimate rebuke. He once described the hot dog as the most dangerous unguided missile...