Word: worthingtons
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...comes as a shock that Coz zens, in his first novel since By Love Possessed (TIME cover, Sept. 2, 1957), has attempted to write a severe anti-novel. Not surprisingly, the result is less than successful. Henry Worthington is like most Cozzens heroes. Society judges him a winner, but on the basis of his own secretly harbored prima facie evidence he wonders if he just might not be a loser after all. A successful management consultant of "sixty odd," Worthington decides with metaphorical directness to examine the management -and meaning-of his own life. His method, however, is indirect...
...writer manque serving as his own narrator, he deliberately imposes no literary controls on history ("I offer little more than a disordered compilation of rough notes"); his unconscious is his only guide. Hence, even before Worthington gets to recall key cameos of himself-as a boy who once foolishly stole, as a young man who was once seduced by an older woman-there are overlong, superficial ruminations and cop-out digressions on the mechanics and nature of memory itself. Finally, in due meandering course, Worthington remembers a first wife who two-timed him and a second wife who two-timed...
...presented in fits and starts, sputters without sparks, unreeling like a Krapp's last tape of random memories. Themes are developed capriciously, then dropped completely like essay answers in a sophomore's exam book. Nor is there a single plot line snaking toward a large revelation. Worthington, for example, is obviously by death obsessed, but he is far too thin-blooded ever to go gently raging toward that good twilight...
Tartabull drew the second walk off Willis to lead off the eighth. Dalton Jones pushed a single past Shannon, and Schoendinst trotted out to greet left-hander Joe Hoerner--the greatest thing to happen to Boston since A1 Worthington. Yaz belted a tape-measure drive some 430 feet into the right field swarm, and the Sox lead 5-0. Boston skies gushed rain, and the lights went on at Fenway
...sound drove Harrelson's weak bouncer higher and higher until Versalles had no time to make the play. Chance was through, and the moment one saw Worthington, a relief pitcher burdened with a big belly, one was sure of victory. He threw two wild pitches. Another run scored. We leaned against each other, laughing, yelling, clapping strangers on the back and shoulders, Killebrew made an error. The fifth run came home, and we were close to our team, close to each other in this communion service...