The Last Puritan: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel

by George Santayana

Published in 1935, George Santayana's The Last Puritan was the American philosopher's only novel and it became an instant best- seller, immediately linked in its painful voyage of self-discovery to The Education of Henry Adams. It is essentially a novel of ideas expressed in the birth, life, and early death of Oliver Alden. In Oliver's case the puritanical self-destruction that prevented him from realizing his own spirituality is transcended by his attainment of the type of self-knowledge that Santayana recommends throughout his moral philosophy.The Last Puritan is volume four in a new critical edition of George Santayana's wroks that restores Santayana's original text and provides important new scholarly information. Books in this series - the first complete publication of Santayana's works - include an editorial apparatus with notes to the text (identifying persons, places, and ideas), textual commentary (including a description of the composition and publication history, along with a discussion of editorial methods and decisions), lists of variants and emendations, and line-end hyphenations.

Genres: Fiction, Philosophy, Classics, Literature, American

602 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

Philosopher, poet, literary and cultural critic, George Santayana is a principal figure in Classical American Philosophy. His naturalism and emphasis on creative imagination were harbingers of important intellectual turns on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a naturalist before naturalism grew popular; he appreciated multiple perfections before multiculturalism became an issue; he thought of philosophy as literature before it became a theme in American and European scholarly circles; and he managed to naturalize Platonism, update Aristotle, fight off idealisms, and provide a striking and sensitive account of the spiritual life without being a religious believer. His Hispanic heritage, shaded by his sense of being an outsider in America, captures many qualities of American life missed by insiders, and presents views equal to Tocqueville in quality and importance. Beyond philosophy, only Emerson may match his literary production. As a public figure, he appeared on the front cover of Time (3 February 1936), and his autobiography (Persons and Places, 1944) and only novel (The Last Puritan, 1936) were the best-selling books in the United States as Book-of-the-Month Club selections. The novel was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Edmund Wilson ranked Persons and Places among the few first-rate autobiographies, comparing it favorably to Yeats's memoirs, The Education of Henry Adams, and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. Remarkably, Santayana achieved this stature in American thought without being an American citizen. He proudly retained his Spanish citizenship throughout his life. Yet, as he readily admitted, it is as an American that his philosophical and literary corpuses are to be judged. Using contemporary classifications, Santayana is the first and foremost Hispanic-American philosopher.

Reviews

[Roy Lotz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because of my affection for Santayana, I want to give this book a better rating; but this is the internet, after all, and so I must be honest: this is not a terribly good novel. I find this a bit strange. Santayana was an excellent writer—one of the best. Yet, being a good writer is not the same as being a good novelist. Writing novels depends on several specific skills not found in other genres—most obviously characterization and dialogue; and it is painfully evident that Santayana lacks these skills.

Santayana is at least aware of his inability to write convincing dialogue, and so doesn’t even try. Every character speaks in Santayana’s voice, which, because he is such an eloquent author, is often unbelievable. Characters that are supposed to be coarse and dull speak like a famous philosopher, employing learned allusions and copious metaphor, delving into deep analyses and abstruse topics. Here is a more or less random sample from the kind of soliloquizing Santayana has his characters do:

At least you, Mr. Oliver, will be spared. There’s that advantage now in being an American. They can’t drag you into this wicked war, not with all their picture-posters and conscription that they say will have to come in the end. Our young men will drop like apples in a wet year in the orchard, some green and some ripe and some rotten and each with an iron worm in him. But it’s a blessing that you’re safe, and can live to enjoy your good fortune and to help and comfort us who are struck down, as I’m sure you always will.

(Some writers, it appears, are so good that they forget how to be bad.)

Every character speaks in this manner; and as a result, the characters lack sufficient individuation. Santayana, being a true philosopher, instead tries to characterize his dramatis personae by ascribing various quasi-philosophical views to them. This is interesting, and I think is a great example of the philosophical temper at work; but it sucks the lifeblood out of the book. There are no fiery collisions of personality, just collisions of worldviews, which do not so much as collide as slide off one another.

An additional tool of the novelist that Santayana lacks is a sense of drama. Not much happens in this book, either internally or externally. The main character, Oliver, develops his peculiar philosophical malady early on, which merely intensifies as the book progresses; he reaches no epiphany nor suffers any reversals of fortune, but merely carries on, wandering about, wondering why he doesn't fit in. There are several false starts at what might have been more interesting directions for the plot, and the whole thing comes to an abrupt halt at the end with an anti-climatic deus ex machina.

If I may be permitted to speculate for a moment, I think that—aside from all the tricks of the novelist's trade—the reason that such a great writer of philosophy ended up such a mediocre novelist has to do with tolerance of ambiguity. When writing philosophy—or, indeed, science or criticism or journalism—it is the job of the writer to get her message across, with minimal risk of misinterpretation. But a novel, by contrast, is necessarily open-ended; it is up to the reader to like or dislike a character, to approve or disapprove of an action, or to be satisfied or dissatisfied with an ending. In other words, writers of fiction must not only tolerate, but cultivate, ambiguity in their works. This is, I think, the reason why The Last Puritan is so flat-footed: Santayana has a point to put across; the reader is either right or wrong.

What is this point? Well, in truth, the Wikipedia page for this book contains a better summary and analysis than I could hope to provide, so I won’t go into it. I will say, however, that a large part of this point has to do with a critique of American culture—specifically, of puritanism. For me, this cultural critique hasn’t held up, because I think American culture has greatly changed since Santayana’s boyhood. I do not recognize myself or my countrymen in Santayana’s portrait of Oliver; it simply doesn’t ring true for me. I’m not sure anyone nowadays would accuse Americans of trying to be too pure; reality TV has effectively dealt with that problem, if it ever was one. (Considering that this book became a big best-seller—something I find almost impossible to believe—it seems that, at the time, Santayana had touched a cultural nerve; but the nerve has apparently since gone numb.)

This book is not, however, a total failure. The story is sometimes charming, the characters occasionally break out of their monotony, and some interesting observations are made along the way. Santayana includes several aphorisms worth writing down (which are condemned to be repeated), and spins many a handsome line. Santayana also includes, perhaps unwittingly, several insights into his own life. Perhaps most interesting is seeing how Santayana, a very private and reclusive man, saw the world and other people. In his own words, “I hardly see anybody, and I don’t know how people talk.”

Not how you write, George; I can assure you of that.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Conrad Wright said this was the best study of the dying generation of American Unitarianism and he did not lie. What is striking is that affluence was so unhelpful to a young adult who felt he had been born into a life without the meaning his elders ascribed to it. Sort of a partner to Scott Fitzgerald's Beautiful and the Damned in that regard, and ultimately just as bleak. But for a late-in-life boomer wondering what went wrong, there's a lot of food for thought in the dour Professor Santayana.

[Manifest Terror · Rating 2 out of 5]

whew, i finally finished it. most of the book is dreadful and excruciating; i should have guessed as much from the title. however, i thought this would be "a fiction written by a philosopher" but Mr. John Gray seems to have led me astray. lots of reference to Goethe, which i guess makes sense except only one section of the book resembles anything like a bildungsroman; the rest is boring inner struggle: how to define a morality, how to act in accordance with morality once defined, how to revise morality when it does not meet the demands of one's purity, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

there are, however, in defense of the book, many lovely phrases peppered throughout the otherwise deathly boring narrative. "let everything flourish that is capable of flourishing. Let everything bloom that has within it the seed of a flower."

also, if we take this novel as philosophy / social critique, we get a sort of version of henry james' (whom santayana greatly admired*) "the speech and manners of american women" but for men: it is oliver alder's speech and manners that reflect the american man of the time, as he cares more about the football field than anything else (even Wall Street!).

i kind of regret spending so long on this book when i could have been reading g.k. chesterton's book on chaucer ...

*"Two most creditable living americans John Sargent and Henry James both expatriates" (218).

[Eric Byrd]

Bizarrely, the second-place bestseller of 1935, behind Gone With The Wind.

[Ronald · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you prefer your dose of philosophy in a novel instead of a textbook, this is a very good one. Written in 1935 by the pragmatist/naturalist philosopher, George Santayana, and set in the late 19th century through World War I, it centers on the life, travels, education, friendships, and personal growth of the protagonist (Oliver). It's 602 pages in length, but at the end you don't feel like there was anything that should have been cut or reduced.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I didn't know any better and were ignorant of the serial-position effect, then I would rate this book higher; however, because I'm aware that beginnings and endings are most prominent in our memories, I must look beyond the fact that the fifth and final section of the book, comprising the last 100 pages, made the greatest impression on me.

Mr. Lotz, in his review, draws attention to the fact that all the characters in this novel wax philosophical, ad tædium. Having read this review prior to reading the book, I was inclined to dismiss it. And yet it's true as hell!! Santayana is the American Dostoevsky: Every damn character speaks for pages at a time, and is apparently a poet. In the epilogue, this is nakedly acknowledged:

"[Y]ou make us all talk in your own philosophical style, and not in the least as we actually jabber. Your women are too intelligent, and your men also. There is clairvoyance in every quarter; whereas in the real world we are all unjust to one another and deceived about ourselves." (600)

Honestly, I skimmed at least 50% of this book; there were entire stretches of pages that I scanned with my eyes and, deciding they were skippable, skipped, all without feeling anything had really been lost. It's a shame, really, because, just like Moby-Dick or, The Whale, I think this book would be so much more readable if it were trimmed down to half or a third of its length. Call me a lazy, attention-deprived Gen Z reader, but I don't think it's a matter of executive functioning: I really think the book could benefit from some pruning.

I do think there's a purpose to some of the meandering. It isn't until part two of the book, 75 pages in, that the protagonist, Oliver Alden, is introduced. The first chapter isn't even about his parents, but about his uncle. Nonetheless, I see the point to this, and applaud it; for if Santayana wants us to know what kind of a person Oliver is, we need to know what kind of people his parents were, for which we need to know what kind of person his father's greatest influence was. (Presumably, this line of reasoning could be extended as far back as our primate ancestor, but we needn't entertain such absurdity.) All of this I get, and I do think it pays off, since we see get to see the puritan influences that shape Oliver. But much of the plot just feels rather needless, and I'm too lazy to provide specifics.

That being said, I saw quite a few aspects of Oliver in myself, which was at once cool but also worrisome. The fact that Oliver's life is seen in a tragic light does not bode well. Fascinating questions about temperament, freedom, purpose, and a life well-lived are raised throughout the book, and it's provoked genuine thought, which is rare in my readings these days.

[Paul Gaya Ochieng Simeon Juma · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I bought this book, I knew it was going to be great. Personally, I enjoy philosophy very much and appreciate the lessons that are found therein especially about life. Though this is a memoir in form of a novel, it had everything that I set out to expect. Geaorge Santayana, was a philosopher and teacher at Harvard University. It is his experiences that inspired the writing of this book.

At that time when I was reading this books, I was very much disturbed and confused about certain aspects of my life. A fact that plagued Oliver Alden throughout this novel. He does not know how to place his father and mother on the one side and his friends on the other. His father Peter Alden turns out to be a murderer who killed his own father while his mother an overprotective woman who cannot help but watch and judge the suitability of her son's friends.

[Jon Coutts · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting in parts, but mostly a slog. There's a bit of seafaring and the end is ok, but the lengthy backstory accomplishes little. I read it because Bonhoeffer recognized himself in the main character. I have my theories, but am not clear what he saw.

[Shevek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wowie wow wow!

[Russel Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for the second time a decade and a half after reading it for the first, and I must confess I was less impressed this time around. Santayana is a brilliant thinker and in some ways a gifted and perceptive writer, but he is not a magnificent novelist. His style is essentially pre-modern (a less effective Henry James); while he was writing in the interwar years, contemporaneous with dos Passos and Fitzgerald, he was a man of an older era. Santayana is associated with conservatism, but his protagonist seeks to conserve something that is clearly moribund. His most dutiful characters, Nathaniel and Caroline, are clearly fish out of water, and while Caroline is curious and endearing she is a woman whose time has passed. Santayana is not dismissive of religion, but he makes clear his sentiment (as he did in his own life) that while he respected the traditions the dogma itself was untenable. Oliver's great friends Jim and Mario, representing in turn a sort of learned vagabondage and an upper class joi de vivre and unseriousness, are appealing in their own ways, but neither represents to Oliver or to a reader a serious alternative to the life he pursues. As Santayana wrote in the 1930s, Mario must have appeared to presage the Lost Generation and its characters. Jim's father is perhaps the most appealing character in the book, as he represents a thinking and honest man of faith, but even he seems out of place in the early 20th Century. The alternative course, that of business or of politics - that of Maud's fiance - is caricatured and never embodied by Santayana in a likeable character. That is, Santayana suggests in the autumn of his years that for a man of means and a great soul, a life of learning and intellectual curiosity is the appropriate path, and yet such a path is itself a dead end. Before Oliver's (appropriately banal, non-heroic) death in war, he presages a glum future as a professor, a rather autobiographical idea suggesting that for a thinking and dutiful man trapped in a moribund tradition, a life of letters is perhaps the only acceptable pursuit, empty though it might be.

Santayana is a man of a world gone by who is perhaps too old by the 1930s to situate himself in the new one. He paints a portrait of a young man similarly afflicted. His successors have tried to carve out new and viable traditions in the postwar world, but his remains a lament that is difficult to answer. The presentation has not aged well, stylistically or anecdotally (including as it does instances of tepid racism, outdated gender roles, and a rote, genteel anti-Semitism), but the thought underlying it still has something to say to us.

[Kumari de Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book for its scope if not plot. As the other readers noted it is a novel serving as a framework for philosophical ideas. One reviewer complained all the speakers sound too much alike, and don't sound like real people when they talk. This criticism is actually even addressed in the epilogue, where the "author" ruefully admits he is more interested in discourse than dialogue. Personally I did not find the dialogue difficult to imagine. As recently as the 1970s people spoke in paragraphs more often than sound bytes.

As far as plot, the book is relatively thin. It pretends to be a biographical account of our titular character "The Last Puritan." To that end the book is free to present events in a string: this happens, then that happens, then this happens - - without restraint of motif or theme. Characters that figure heavily in the first part may not reappear in subsequent sections except in cameo. So forget about plot. The ideas are interesting, and the prose, at times absolutely stunning. The life of Oliver, which begins and ends before the advent of WWII is a window into a time when the times, they were a-changing. Caste systems were breaking down and social mobility increased. The results are interesting.

This book made me feel reminiscent of my college days when people conversed in lieu of texting. Topics were ideas, not people - I miss that

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here are two confessions of weakness. 1. I can't really believe anyone anywhere has ever really lived in the bizarrely Manichean way the main character and his family is supposed to have lived, trying to pretend to themselves that they don't have bodies or desires or the like, and this despite the fact that Eliot's biographies all say that's his whole situation and the stuff one picks up from Freud and the like. 2. I can't think of Santayana's name without also mentally chanting "Squashed Banana" like the baboon-priest from the Lion King.
Those things don't really matter in terms of this book. But it's not bad. If you're looking for the best novel about self-induced repression and the Discontents of excessive Civilization set in the first World War and written by a philosopher from Harvard, this one might be it.

[Rick Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first encountered this book in the context of a course on Philosophy in Literature taught by Maurice Natanson. I found in Oliver, the protagonist, a deeply sympathetic character with familiar traits -- as familiar as myself.

[Lisa Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

will review later

[Steve Schoenbeck · Rating 2 out of 5]

The characters were interesting, to a point, but I found the book way too wordy and preachy overall.

[Adam Chandler · Rating 2 out of 5]

This follows the life of the titular character, Oliver Alden, from even before he was born. Santayana tried to make this a philosophical and semi-autobiographical novel, but it is frankly not a good novel. Parts of it could get interesting but it plodded along with little being said and there was a fair bit of derivativeness, such as rewriting the Lord Jim character (originally from Joseph Conrad) while stealing the name. In any case, Oliver is meant to be the last Puritan where he alone follows spirit purely. Now, unlike actual Puritans who follow the Holy Spirit and have a well-defined sense of morality and eschatology, Oliver wanders through life and finds his pursuits somewhat empty as he tries to be bold and appealing.

This is what happens when Santayana tries to approximate religious ideals. He cannot hope to match their beauty, despite being an aesthetic philosophy. He appreciates the "beauty" of religion but completely removes the substance, also hating Protestantism which logically and rationally pursues theology because he does not understand there is substance to pursue. But what Santayana is left with is this sad novel where the main character wants beauty to save his soul and can't find it because he actually needs God, something Santayana almost admits himself.

[Alex Poston · Rating 2 out of 5]

“All those preachments, coupled as he could feel with a profound helplessness in the preachers, or with a satisfied ignorance and desperate bluff, fell upon his ears like so much rain beating against the window-panes. One mustn’t quarrel with the weather; one must be cheerful and go out and take one’s exercise just the same: one must grow strong and tolerant and indomitable within oneself, and let the winds and the people blister” (pg 119).

Oliver Alden, the last Puritan, is a sympathetic character. His character development is interesting, and the book has many passages I’d like to revisit. But in general this narrative stunk with the ideas of “natural aristocracy” extending even to spirituality (Jacob’s ladder) that made this read unpalatable. It completely tracks with this narrative, in retrospect, that Santayana believed in racial superiority and elected to live his later years in fascist Italy. With that prejudice in mind, I’m little resentful that he managed to trap me into reading 600 + pages of his philosophy.

[Martin Schmurr · Rating 4 out of 5]

The young protagonist destroys himself, but he followed Santayana's philosophy of self-knowledge, so everything is OK, as the Goodreads presentation says (more or less). Well, I don't like philosophy, and I don't like to destroy myself, but I found this book quite enthralling (skipping all the philosophy, of course).
For the rest, I fully back Roy Lotz's review, except that I didn't find the “several aphorisms worth writing down”, but then I read it in Italian.

[Marty Galligan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed Santayana's forays into details. The Afterward (discussions with Mario in Paris) was crucial.

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Last Puritan is both a novel of ideas and one of personalities--real people living real lives. The places, the backgrounds are accurately depicted while the events of the novel are sketched as dramatic incidents. The scenes evoke an America of a certain age and the characters speak with a language that not only conveys ideas but emotions as well. Some of the sections of the novel that I enjoyed the most were the conversations which were, fortunately, not too terribly impeded by the trappings of the story's structure with its quotidian details of everyday life.
The protagonist, Oliver, is the masterful character whose individual personality is drawn with all of its perplexity, sensitiveness, and youthful seriousness. The other characters are no less real with both women and men exhibiting believable emotions including love that is both platonic and physical. The novel presents a good story in addition to the ideas that are presented. One may enjoy it for its story but the primary appeal for this reader is the novel of ideas in the robust realization that Santayana brought to his creation of a lifetime.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for an american philosophy class at hampshire, either my first or second semester. that's when I decided I didn't like philosophy after all. I have no patience with pages and pages to define consciousness and in the end I don't care! I don't feel a need to understand everything and I don't believe it's possible. and this stuff was boring. this was in the form of a novel, but it was still terrible. in fact, looking at the list I am entering into goodreads I thought, there has to be some mistake, there's no way I read this book twice. then I remembered that I did, because I was considering getting rid of it, couldn't remember it, and thought I'd reread it to see if it was any good. it wasn't.

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Applying critical lenses to this book would be one of the few ways of redeeming the time I spent actually reading the thing, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's BAD...

[Tom Ratliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally finished this tome...recommended by some queen in The Advocate...I could slap him/her! Old fashioned, out of date style, boring in most places, not gay at all!

[Massimiliano Scordamaglia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recensione completa qui:
http://ultimavisione.wordpress.com/20...

[Frank Spencer]

Worth the read, if only for it's uniqueness and descriptions.

[Gene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had read some reviews of this book that were negative. The negative ratings seemed to be due to the fact that Santayana was using it to present reflections on philosophy, so the book was perhaps more involved with the character's beliefs and moral choices than in moving the plot along or providing an entertaining story. This proved to be the case, but it didn't lessen my enjoyment one bit; that is what I like to dwell on in reading fiction.

Yet going into it without much background in the philosophy of pragmatism meant that perhaps I was missing some of what was trying to be expressed. I felt the main character was somewhat lifeless, driven by duty and circumstances and continually frustrated because not in charge of his own life. There was little joy in his relationships in the long term, not much reward from athletics or study, and his romantic engagements never developed as fully as he would have hoped. He seemed honorable, reliable, and reasonable, but missing any great purpose or joy? Maybe that is the way of the Puritan, and perhaps that is Santayana's point, but it certainly didn't draw me to Oliver as a reader. He wouldn't have been someone I would seek for deep friendship.

On the other hand, his Uncle Caleb seemed to be a very interesting and intriguing character. He was completely engaged in his faith, and he had a purpose of furthering the kingdom of God and transforming society. His depth and conversation appealed to me immediately, and I finished the chapter that introduced him feeling that if I had a friend like him, life would be so much fuller. But in the following chapter he is belittled by another character, and it seems that he isn't given a chance to prove his worth. In fact, the entire book has an undercurrent of the assumption that traditional religion is a fantasy, and those that cling to it are fools, but mostly harmless. The only good Christians are those who see past the "mythology" of Christianity and somehow reinterpret it to distill a rationalistic philosophy that is somehow true without the trappings. So Uncle Caleb is a slightly wacky handicapped man using religion as a crutch, and the Anglican liberal pastor is an enlightened wise man. But only Uncle Caleb had a real drive, a real hunger for the good, the true, the beautiful... the things to be conserved and not discarded in an attempt to make things purely rationalistic or scientific. At any rate, I have rarely felt as sad in reading a novel as I did when Caleb was thrown under the bus.

Most readers, I assume, would not enjoy this book, unless they were after Santayana's philosophical ideas. But I think it was still a good novel and worth reading through to the end (about 600 pages) because it caused me to evaluate my own thoughts, goals, values, and friendships.