The Late George Apley: A Novel in the Form of a Memoir

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Summary: HERE'S TO GEORGE
Review: --one of my favorite fictional characters. Everything you have read about Proper Bostonians is true. George was born with a silver spoon and three strikes against him. He wasn't to grow; he was to be molded. He wasn't to feel; he was to behave. He wasn't to love; he was to honor. That he somehow managed to do all of these things makes him a shining hero.

Marquand uses a brilliant narrative device using two voices: the ever-so-proper Bostonian diarist and George's black sheep son. The two frequently write each other disputing the type of memoir to be written about George. You grow very fond of both these completely different narrators.

This is one of my all-time-favorite novels. Reading it once is not enough

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Summary: A Novel of Subtle, Genteel Power
Review: Hold a mirror up to a mirror. Looking into that reflection of a mirror reflected into itself--conformity into conformity--one sees only how time varies, since the same is being reflected into the same. So is Marquand's novel: a saga of one family's past and future, reflected by and through the protagonist, George Apley.

Whether Marquand intended a pun on this family's name or not, it is an apt, fictional name for a family of Boston. Planted in Boston's fertile cultural soil, this Brahmin family weathers the passage of different ages in American History. Seen through George's eyes, the events shape the people only as much as the people let themselves be shaped, and these Bostonians seriously intend on shaping their lives.

This novel has a more formal, stilted language throughout, but it works here; it is necessary. Read this book to discover an age, to explore characterization, to ride down theCharles River of time. It has a subtle, genteel power: finesse and civility predominate. How refeshing in this age of stark, graphic literalness!

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Summary: Excellent novel by a nearly forgotten author.
Review: J.P. Marquand was well known in his day, both as a serious writer(The Late George Apley won a Pulitzer Prize) and for the Mr. Moto detective series (made into movies starring Peter Lorre as the title character). This novel makes skillful use of the device of the unreliable narrator; it is told from the point of view of a writer putting together a life of Apley who, like his subject, is thoroughly conventional, and thus does not realize that his portrait of Apley reveals the sterility of the latter's life. The novel is also a skillful depiction of a particular class in a particular place and time. I agree with the other reviewers that it is a shame that it is out of print.

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Summary: It is a tragedy that this book is out of print...
Review: John P. Marquand probably was one of the most successful authors of his day and this book, for which he won a Pulitzer prize was the start of his brilliant career. Unfortunately, with Marquand's death in 1960, he fell from favor with the academy who was itself enamoured with tales of life in a university and stories addressing issues of gender and sex. Marquand's stories about middle aged WASPs in Boston coping with trying to come to grips with their lives were no longer in fashion and sadly have not returned to the center place that they previously occupied.

This is a novel about manners and invokes the particular time and place of the WASP ascendency in America, just before the second World War. Marquand's hero is a representative of what used to be known as a "Boston Brahmin." Marquand handles Apley with a mixture of bemusement and foundness. He has clearly met George Apley's in his life and knows the type well. What would have been in less capable hands a mere characture, becomes a full portrait of what was at the time, a dying breed. Marquand sensed this and this provides the point of departure for the book.

"The Late George Apley is a bit of a pastische of privately printed books designed to memorialize a dearly departed loved one. This allows Marquand to use his frequently used flashback technique to describe the particulars of Apley's life. At times this provides Marquand with the opportunity to indulge in both high comedy and low drama, as is the case when Apley falls in love with a girl who is both Irish and Catholic. Although this enables some satire on the subject of the way Boston's elite viewed the Irish, it is also a source of regret that Apley, like so many characters in Marquand's books, did not make a different choice in life. Sentiments that as Jonathan Yardley has observed "are not just limited to the denizens of Backbay or Harvard Square."

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Summary: An Aging World and Man
Review: Mr. Marquand's book does an excellent job of tracing one man's psyche as he ages in a changing world. The mode of writing (little narration; heavy examination of letters written by the characters), was an interesting route to take. Overall, it was a pleasant read, although I cannot say excellent read.

One observation that I found problematic was which letters were including in the pseudo-biography. More of the letters appear to be letters that the late George Apley authored rather than received. Obviously, there is a bias to that that may have served a purpose of the author, but more than that, it seems that if a collection of letters were to exist, it would be the letters that Mr. Apley received, not authored.

In sum, this is a good book about a not entirely likeable person. The novel is easy to read. But what it most excels at is descibing an unfortunately not-quite-bygone era of elitism and entitlement- a community that believes its wealth is it's gift as well as its burden; it's work product as well as it's rightful inheritance.

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Summary: The lifecycle of a gentleman
Review: THE LATE GEORGE APLEY is a departure from my habitual choice of biographical reading, which is usually limited to real-life individuals who've stood astride human history. And George Apley of (merely) Boston is fictional.

Author John Marquand has invented a make-believe chronicler named Mr. Willing to tell the story of the latter's life long friend, George Apley (1866-1933). The biographer's source material is comprised primarily of his own recollections and numerous letters exchanged between Apley and friends and family over the decades. Willing begins with a brief account of George's ancestry, then proceeds through his subject's birth, boyhood, and years at Harvard and law school forward to his marriage, the birth of his children, then his sojourns in middle and old age.

The trouble with this novel is that it seems Marquand didn't have a clear vision of the point he was trying to make. On one hand, Willing's biography is sympathetic. He obviously admires Apley for being a loyal friend, loving husband and father, fair and considerate employer, principled gentleman, and patriotic American. Willing doesn't condemn his friend's gradual alienation from his children and a changing society as he ages. (What a surprise!) And his generally favorable bias doesn't prevent him from mentioning Apley's low opinion of the Irish, Catholics, and Jews, but he doesn't dwell upon these flaws - perhaps because he was of like mind. Taken at this face value, the book is a simple tribute to a good and upstanding life however unprepossessing it may have been.

On the other hand, without any obvious malice, Marquand (through Willing again) manages to convey the fact that Apley takes himself, his family name, his privileged class, and Boston way too seriously. Anything beyond the Boston city limits is held in a frank disregard verging on contempt. He fails to heed the words of an uncle who found it necessary to counsel: "Most people in the world don't know who the Apleys are and they don't give a damn." Also, Marquand attributes to his fictional subject no great achievements on the national or world stage. Rather, George spends a lifetime attending the board meetings of charities, participating in "intelligent discussion" groups and clubs, dabbling in the minutiae of local politics, and dispensing unheeded advice to his offspring. Because of all this, I've decided that THE LATE GEORGE APLEY is, in the balance, more of a gentle satire than anything else. The thing is, it's too subtle for this 21st century reader. (Perhaps it was more appreciated in the year first published - 1936.) It's as if Marquand didn't love or hate the type of man or social class his subject represents with sufficient enough fervor to be truly effective at either.

At the very best, THE LATE GEORGE APLEY is an interesting description of the evolution of a gentleman and society of that time and place. I liked it to that extent, but was left with the nagging regret that my time would've been better spent reading a contemporary account of a real individual whose life had made ripples in a pond bigger than that of the city he or she lived in. Hmm, now where's my unread biography of Captain Kangaroo?

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Summary: One of the best books I ever read
Review: This book masterfully tells the tale of one George Aply. A man born into a world of seeming wealth and power but in reality a little cog in a system he cannot control or stop. Throughout his life George makes attempts to go beyond the limts placed on him but he never has quite enough 'guts' to complete the breakout.

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Summary: Superb use of understatement.
Review: This novel by Marquand won the 1938 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. In this book, a writer named Willing, an old friend of George Apley, is requested by Apley's son John to collect all of the late Apley's correspondence and use them to form a biography. Although Willing is using them to eulogize Apley and to describe the life of upper-class Bostonians, the reader feels pity at the waste of a life and how a man's class and upbringing can quelch his own desires and thoughts. The book is an excellent example of the use of understatement. However, I am shocked to discover that this fairly well known Pulitzer Prize winner is out-of-print. Surely this is the publisher's fault.

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Summary: Beautifully written,
Review: Timely--kept wondering if this is John Kerry's background