A review by wathohuc
The Late George Apley by John P. Marquand

3.0

Well, I guess I can say that this is an interesting book of a type. But I can’t say that it is a great book, or even a good book in terms of literary quality or substantive meaning. It’s simply a portrait of a man’s life among the Bostonian super elites in the late 19th/early 20th century. It’s told through the prism of a biographer who is drawing a lot from the letters and the testimonials of family and friends of the main subject, George Apley. I suppose if someone were curious about the life and context of a very small sliver of elite society in Boston, this might be more than a passing curiosity; but for 99.99999% of all the rest of us, the world and the life presented are just too far out of our world to be seen as relatable at all. There is no great human lesson in the story. And I found the writing to be quite pedantic, stuffy, and uninspiring. I am surprised it won the Pulitzer. It shouldn’t have. But what I can appreciate about the book, especially as part of my goal to read all the Pulitzer fiction winners, is what it reveals about what books and styles of writing appealed to people at certain moments in time. And the book also gives another glimpse into a certain “America” that I don’t know all that much about. [Picked by John.]