So Little Time

by John P. Marquand

So Little John P. So Little Little, Brown and FIRST First Edition, 7th Printing (Aug 1943). Not price-clipped. Published by Little, Brown and Company, 1943. Octavo. Hardcover. Red topstain. Book is very good. Dust jacket is very good with small tears and shelf/edgewear. Lovely copy of John P. Marquand's novel. Seller 327215 Literature

Genres: Fiction, Literature, Historical Fiction, New York

594 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1943

About the author

Pulitzer Prize for Novel in 1938 for The Late George Apley

John Phillips Marquand (November 10, 1893 – July 16, 1960) was an American writer. Originally best known for his Mr. Moto spy stories, he achieved popular success and critical respect for his satirical novels, winning a Pulitzer Prize for The Late George Apley in 1938. One of his abiding themes was the confining nature of life in America's upper class and among those who aspired to join it. Marquand treated those whose lives were bound by these unwritten codes with a characteristic mix of respect and satire.

By the mid-1930s he was a prolific and successful writer of fiction for slick magazines like the Saturday Evening Post. Some of these short stories were of an historical nature as had been Marquand's first two novels (The Unspeakable Gentleman and The Black Cargo). These would later be characterized by Marquand as “costume fiction”, of which he stated that an author “can only approximate (his characters) provided he has been steeped in the (relevant) tradition”. Marquand had abandoned “costume fiction” by the mid-1930s.

In the late-1930s, Marquand began producing a series of novels on the dilemmas of class, most centered on New England. The first of these, The Late George Apley (1937), a satire of Boston's upper class, won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1938. Other Marquand novels exploring New England and class themes include Wickford Point (1939), H.M. Pulham, Esquire (1941), and Point of No Return (1949). The last is especially notable for its satirical portrayal of Harvard anthropologist W. Lloyd Warner, whose Yankee City study attempted (and in Marquand's view, dismally failed) to describe and analyze the manners and mores of Marquand's Newburyport

Reviews

[Marybet Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been reading through books that made it to the #1 spot on the NY Times Bestseller list. I really enjoy reading these "old" novels because of the glimpse into the past that they give you. This book, written in 1943, expresses the tension of the year leading up to our involvement in WW II without the nostalgia that time often gives to those days. The problem was that we needed to go to war, to help our allies and stop the Germans and the Japanese. But the consequences of any war are often too much to contemplate by anyone who has experienced war -- or any parent who has a child that may be swept away. Throughout the book, the theme of time pervades. We have so little time, we should make of it what we can.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel of 1943 may be the masterpiece of John P. Marquand, the distinguished author of many novels, including "The Late George Apley, "H.M. Pulham, Esquire," and "B.F.'s Daughter." The story is both simple and complex and profound, beginning in the months just before the United States entered World War Two, then cutting back and forth in time and across the country, following the thoughts and memories of Jeffrey Wilson, once a lad from a small New England town, a flyer in the first world war, a newspaper man, and a writer who fixes plays and movie scripts in trouble. Generations of men and women and children crowd through his memories as he struggles to find the right path at each stage of his life. At times satirical, often very moving, "So Little Time" carries the reader relentlessly forward to inevitability of the world conflict that takes away Jeff's twenty-two year old son. Jeff never did quite what he wanted to do or what he was capable of doing, but he always was generous with himself, doing his best to do right by the others who came and went, and sometimes stayed, in his life. This is a great and powerful book that deserves to be remembered and read.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another story of the wealthy in New England and New York, in this case a writer, a play and script fixer who feels it is too late to write his own story, both literally and metaphorically. The Connecticut couple Beckie and Fred are one of the scariest couples in literature, and as always with Marquand all the characterizations are wonderful.

[Charles Vella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think you need to be a middle-aged man with children from a certain generation to really appreciate this book. Struggling with career success, a marriage, and adult children is very fulfilling but often painful. I liked Wickford Point but couldn't put this one down.

[Hannah Bush · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I disliked this book; I felt apathetic if not borderline dislike for the main characters, and I strongly disliked the conversation portions of the book. They were rather awful. However, I gave it 3 stars for opening my eyes to the era between the world wars. I have read many, many WWII era books but I’ve never read anything set in America before we actually got into the war; it definitely gave me a perspective I have never thought of before.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off - it's at least a little bit ironic to title a 600-page book "So Little Time." That said, I enjoyed this book a great deal. Took longer to get engaged with it than Point Of No Return but it was worth it. Very interesting portrait of a middle-aged WWI veteran at the cusp of WWII.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

3* Warning Hill
4.5* So Little Time
TR The Late George Apley

What a magnificent book!! Some books we do regret when they reached its end...

[Sevelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reads like a neurotic WASP version of Peyton Place with a dash of Best Years of Our Lives thrown into the mix. A host of background characters, many of them drawn from the theatrical world, irritate the main character, who is just back from WW1 with WW2 looming on the horizon. Here, Jeffrey’s regret and self-doubt and existential wondering and disappointment are all laid out in wonderful dialogue. It’s a dense read best enjoyed with . . . plenty of time to linger through it.

[Muriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeffrey Wilson, Air Corps pilot in WW1, struggles with life expectations and his feelings of having so little time left.

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pesar de que siento que el libro puede llegar a ser muy denso por el carácter repetitivo del narrador, me gusto bastante, no por sus personajes (que me parecieron difíciles de simpatizar por como el autor los presenta) sino por las situaciones de una estados unidos al borde de participar en la segunda guerra mundial y la crisis social que esto conllevó.
Jeffrey ( el personaje principal) se encuentra en el centro de una crisis existencial: la guerra esta cada vez mas cerca y tiene un hijo de edad, lo que lo lleva a considerar su pasado como piloto de las fuerzas aéreas en la gran guerra y tambien su presente en una sociedad que se ve atravesada por este dilema a cada segundo.
Para mi, las mejores partes de la novela se encuentra cuando esta se aleja un poco del momento presente de las páginas y escuchamos el razonar interno del protagonista( como tambien las inferencias del narrador) que parece mas preocupado en enfrentar la ansiedad de la época que ocultarla, a diferencia de muchos otros personajes de la historia. Capaz por el tono sarcástico de la novela resulta difícil simpatizar con la mayoría de los personajes (inclusive con Jeff) ya que a cada rato se nos muestran sus defectos pero, personalmente, creo que es un recurso que el autor utiliza para humanizarlos y mostrarlos como lo que son: seres imperfectos tratando de vivir una vida normal y apacible en tiempos de guerra.
En general, aunque el libro en sí me gustó, creo que mi satisfacción se debe al descubrir como era el sentimiento estadounidense de la época mas que por la historia en sí pero no puedo negar que ciertos momentos y situaciones entre los personajes me conmovieron y por eso le doy 3 estrellas.

[Mervyn E · Rating 3 out of 5]

When this book was written, I guess people had much more time to read since there were was no television or other online distractions. However, I really thinks this book needed an editor (Cut,Cut, CUT!). Lots of run-on detail, which really added nothing and balloons the story out of all decent proportion. Somehow the main character while seeming to appeal to everyone in the book didn’t appeal to me. He seemed rather withdrawn and dysfunctional. However, perhaps that is what men were like in the 1940s. .

[Samantha Glasser]

This book was on the New York Times best-seller list.

[Tom Cowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 1943, this wonderful novel is an excellent example of the way writers used to write-an engrossing story well-told by a master American novelist.

[Jayhawk · Rating 3 out of 5]

these books are rare and hard to find. I stumbled upon them in a used book store in Chicago. I find them really interesting and the writing to be pure

[Scilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is sort of a retrospective about Jeffrey Wilson, a man who grew up in a poor town in MA in the beginning of the 20th century. He went to Harvard, and was an aviator in WWI. He marries a wealthy woman and works in theatre with producers rewriting plays. Most of the book is during the period working up to WWII. There is a lot about Jeffrey's older son, Jim, as he worries about Jim's having to go to war. The book is well done and interesting, but someone slow moving for my taste.

[Laurie D'ghent · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not my genre, not my thing