LESS by Andrew Sean Greer is Less than Deserving of this Year's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

LESS is more or less about a whiny, self-indulgent, angst riddled gay male author bemoaning his faded youth, broken heart and waning literary talents.  LESS is comparable to Philip Roth's self-reflecting novels wherein he laments his youth and aspirations for a literary legacy.  Andrew Sean Greer (b Amer 70) is a n adroit writer but one culpable of appropriating narratives from acclaimed American writers.  Greer has been candid regarding his novel "The Confessions of Max Tivoli" about a man who ages backwards as mirroring Fitzgerald's "The Curious Case of Benjamin".  LESS echoes the sentiments of Roth's novel "Everyman" ('06) of a male writer passed his prime yearning for his youth & recognition for his work.  The main dichotomy between Greer and Roth (who passed earlier this year) is that Greer's protagonist is gay.  We're meant to empathize with the middle-aged, mostly unacknowledged Less, "Arthur Less, once pink and gold with youth, faded like the sofa he sits on."  Less is aware he's becoming invisible and his notoriety is mostly attached to his status as the former lover of Robert, a much older genius poet.  After breaking Robert's heart as the younger, unfaithful partner, Athur is now  feeling the piercing pain of heartbreak.  Arthur portends his ego is unaffected by poor reviews & lack of literary awards.  It's only the rebuke of his younger lover Freddy that torments him.  "Mediocre reviews or careless slights can no longer harm him, but heartbreak, real true heartbreak, can pierce his thin hide."  With the upcoming marriage of Freddy that stings, it sends Arthur on a world wind trip to all foreign countries content to host a middling author.  Much of the humor comes from Arthur's eccentric accommodations & encounters in exotic locations.  The quirky peripatetic travels are delightful diversions from the melancholia that submerge Arthur Less in drink & doldrums.  "Arthur Less is the first homosexual ever to grow old.  That is, at least how he feels at times."  Greer continuously questions, as does Roth how to contend with letting go of vanity, anxiety and desire.  Perhaps, Greer received this Pulitzer Prize because he eloquently encourages the reader to consider love and music and poetry, things everyone forget as important.  Arthur has an epiphany that prizes do not constitute love because people whom you've never met don't proffer love.  I regard LESS with high esteem for its comic portrayals of narcicissm and love's folly.  I contend, Greer's earlier novel "The Story of a Marriage" ('08) to be a more original and captivating story of innocence, love and heartbreak.