Reviews

• For the first 25 or so pages of this wonderful novel, I didn't know what to expect. In truth, I felt a little negative. Why was I reading a book about a man who seemed to be a fusty Boston Brahmin? As much as I love Boston, I don't have much patience with those for whom Harvard (and certain clubs, and the Athenaeum, and so on) are the center of the universe. And they were certainly at the center of George Apley's universe. As I read on, I was hooked, despite myself, on the story of this upright and well-meaning man for whom a rich life, at least as he comes to understand it, seems always just out of reach. Marquand narrates the story through the use of fictional letters by Apley's family members and friends (along with his replies). This technique lends a quality of delicate formality to the "biography," as if one were reading one of those old books whose pages must be cut. Not only are the man and the world he inhabited lost to us, but also the very way in which men and women of his time expressed their thoughts and hopes. Its twin is William Dean Howells' "The Rise of Silas Lapham." This is a tale of a man from the provinces (Vermont, then) who makes a fortune in paint manufacturing and comes to take his place among the wealthy inhabitants of Gilded Age Boston. One can imagine Lapham and Apley meeting in some velvet-draped drawing room, and one can imagine as well their mutual incomprehension. The seemingly crass new world that Apley deplores is the sphere of Lapham; the snobberies and fingerbowls that so confuse Lapham is the sphere of Apley. Both of these novels give great pleasure and desire a wider readership. M. Feldman

• Danke

• The novel, largely an epistolary one, gives a deep and thoughtful overview of the life of George Apley, a scion of Boston during the last half of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th. What made this book memorable for me was the fact that I have known people like George Apley -- people who are wealthy and yet full of conviction about doing the right thing. I found a lot of messages in this book that we today might do well to heed, such as Apley's insistence that rich people who flaunt their wealth by building ostentatious homes or getting-and-spending are missing the point (of life) entirely. He is so full of conviction that the wealthy have deep and almost eternal obligations -- he derived this notion from his father, John, who in turn derived it from his father, Moses Apley. I was at first put off by the inherent snobbery of the Apleys and their friends/consorts. "You must join the Province Club," or, "You must join the Berkley Club," or "Son, you must not be seen with people who are not of our class," and what-have-you. All of this seemed at first like artifice to me. And in a way, it is -- but taken along with Apley's character, which is lovingly developed in this book, these strictures fit perfectly with the Apley family (and many other intellectual New Englanders) and the morals of what may have been America's only expression of nobility, the people of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Apley, despite how much he cuts himself off from the more sanguine aspects of society, is a noble man, with the purest intentions and a far-seeing mind. As he says near the end of the book, "There must be a class which sets a tone, not for its own pleasure, but because of the responsibility it owes to others." I ended the book with a bittersweet feeling -- I actually had come to feel tenderly toward this gentleman (indeed he was a gentleman) in the closing chapters, and no longer saw him as a stuffed shirt confined to an outdated morality. Marquand developed him beautifully, and brought to me, as the book ended, a very endearing old fellow who had a sense of his own shortcomings yet had done all he could to leave the world a better place.

• That "The Late George Apley" is so little read is amazing and saddening for it indicts publishers, book sellers and readers. This is a great book that is far too well written to be appreciated by modern readers who seem satisfied by books that feature explicit sex, or violence or whatever but not by great writing and intelligent characterization. The commercial side of the book business is, apparently, interested only in making as much money as possible and so produces mostly trash designed to lure the innocent readers of the 21st century. A striking example of this can be found in the books available on the Kindle list where there are virtually no classics or books worth reading. To get back to my review of "The Late George Apley", I will start by saying that it is a very careful and thoughtful study of a man who was a victim of his heritage. As the son of a Boston Brahmin, his future is settled by his parents' manipulation of how he saw the world. While this is a very different rearing than most of us alive in 2009 have had, it was described in delightful detail by Mr. Marquand. That George Apley was unprepaired to deal with his times provides the real humor that Marquand brought to the story and also broadcasts a message to parents about the dangers of falling too far behind the times. With this book John P Marquand won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The award was richly deserved, and that so few have read it supports my contentions about the failings of all aspects of modern literature.

• The Late George Apley was a wonderful read. I have known folks like him who are third or fourth generations of inherited wealth who don't seem to know what to do with themselves. With no motivation or need to "test themselves", they seem to suffer from a lack of competence or mastery. This makes them shrink into a defensive posture, where they retreat back within the castle walls and pull up the draw bridge. Only familiar routines and surroundings provide comfort. They become more and more inflexible, conservative and afraid of change. Though George is a fictional character, he is so subtlely drawn and so sweetly flawed, he is quite believable, as are the secondary characters. Marquand's writing, now 70 years old, still is vigorous and appealing.Our book club enjoyed reading it and talking about it.

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