I do think that because of its attenuated quality—whether deliberate or not—Joy of the Worm falls between two stools. Material that might have made a fine sketch has been inflated … without acquiring real amplitude in the process. The author has attempted something very difficult: to sustain our interest in two bores, the Rev. James Bohun and his son Jeremy. Bohun senior is a bookworm whose chief joy is savouring Gibbon and Hooker—and reproducing their cadences in flatulent discourse of his own…. Bohun junior is a nonentity. There is something inert about the narrative: the inner action is as uneventful as the external. The relationship between father and son and the marital relationships of each are examined at some length without anything very noteworthy being elicited…. In a recent interview, Sargeson said he intended the book to be "a celebration of the Bohun vitality"; but this quality doesn't come through dramatically enough to convince me. In case I appear to be dismissing the novel as wholly tedious, let me add that there is much in it to enjoy: Sargeson's mimic gift is amusingly displayed in the numerous letters, from various hands, that carry much of the story, and the reader who knows his Catullus and Vergil will relish some incidental allusions. But such things only thicken the texture of the narrative slightly without giving it a full-bodied flavour. (p. 337)