The scenes set here are unnerving—wealthy students discuss summer resorts as servants flitter about and septuagenarians crack racist jokes over schnapps.

Though jealous of the fact that Douthat nearly broke into the ranks of the Porc while I was summarily rejected from the lowly Spee, I must concede that Privilege offers a remarkable primer on the particularities of the punch process.

At times, Douthat demonstrates the consistency of dining hall frozen yogurt.

He pines for hook-ups while condemning the culture they represent; he blasts the classroom shortcuts of undergraduates while reminiscing about his own corner-cutting; he faults Harvard for taking too many upper-middle-class, white Northeastern males—a demographic he conveniently fits into himself.

A subtle sense of guilt runs throughout the book. “My thirst for wealth and achievement is as great as any of my classmates,” Douthat writes in his conclusion. “Even this book has been written as much in ambition as in idealism.”

At least he’s willing to admit it.

ALMA MATTERS

Why single out Harvard for lambasting? It certainly isn’t the only school with lazy students and lax grading, random hook-ups and social cliques. And college isn’t the only milieu in which a culture of unscrupulous ambition is endemic.

For Douthat, Harvard is what he knows—not to mention that dropping the H-Bomb can never hurt a book’s bottom line. But even if Harvard College is a sufficient springboard for a cutting cultural commentary, what Privilege fundamentally lacks is the suggestion of a viable alternative.

In nearly 300 pages, Douthat offers us no solution, no recourse for reforming the system he finds so corrupt. The question hangs over the book like a dagger: Where do we go from here? Our current meritocracy doesn’t work perfectly, but it works well. After all, Harvard got Douthat where he wants to be—he’s currently a staff writer at The Atlantic Monthly and the author of a potentially bestselling book. He can’t be too upset about it.

Ultimately, Douthat never emerges as a particularly funny narrator, nor an especially dynamic one. His tales of romantic travails and adolescent awkwardness are accessible, but never unique. The claims of complacence among the privileged are nothing new. We’re left with tired arguments and wistful nostalgia.

Privilege works as a memoir. It is technically proficient, well-written, and an easy read; enjoyable, but certainly nothing transcendent. In other words, Douthat emulates the very qualities he excoriates: hit the highlights just right, do what’s needed to make the grade, move onto the next step.

Privilege may be a launchpad for Douthat’s career, but it lacks the intellectual passion he spends the book searching for—the authenticity and originality he expected at Harvard but never found.

—Staff writer Michael M. Grynbaum can be reached at grynbaum@fas.harvard.edu.