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Catlady, I absolutely agree about the first part of the book, where he's just a callow kid who came from a family which failed him utterly in terms of good role models, how to behave with a woman, and so on. But as issybird says, he had his chances to learn from the past, and to redeem himself, and he just failed in all departments.
Victoria, I suppose Malamud is saying that "I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul". We can't always help what happens to us in terms of accidents (or homicidal maniacs shooting us) but we can help what we do with what has happened. Roy seems to have stayed that kid of 19-20 in terms of maturity and judgement. He hasn't grown and learned from his life in the intervening years.
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