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Loving / Living / Party Going
Henry Green explored class distinctions through the medium of love. This volume brings together three of his novels contrasting the lives of servants and masters (Loving); workers and owners, set in a Birmingham iron foundry (Living); and the different lives of the wealthy and the ordinary, (Party Going).
528 pages, Paperback
First published February 10, 1945
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About the author
Henry Green
53 books205 followersHenry Green was the nom de plume of Henry Vincent Yorke.
Green was born near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, into an educated family with successful business interests. His father Vincent Wodehouse Yorke, the son of John Reginald Yorke and Sophia Matilda de Tuyll de Serooskerken, was a wealthy landowner and industrialist in Birmingham. His mother, Hon. Maud Evelyn Wyndham, was daughter of the second Baron Leconfield. Green grew up in Gloucestershire and attended Eton College, where he became friends with fellow pupil Anthony Powell and wrote most of his first novel, Blindness. He studied at Oxford University and there began a friendship and literary rivalry with Evelyn Waugh.
Green left Oxford in 1926 without taking a degree and returned to Birmingham to engage in his family business. He started by working with the ordinary workers on the factory floor of his family's factory, which produced beer-bottling machines, and later became the managing director. During this time he gained the experience to write Living, his second novel, which he worked on during 1927 and 1928. In 1929, he married his second cousin, the Hon. Adelaide Biddulph, also known as 'Dig'. They were both great-grandchildren of the 1st Baron Leconfield. Their son Sebastian was born in 1934. In 1940, Green published Pack My Bag, which he regarded as a nearly-accurate autobiography. During World War II Green served as a fireman in the Auxiliary Fire Service and these wartime experiences are echoed in his novel Caught; they were also a strong influence on his subsequent novel, Back.
Green's last published novel was Doting (1952); this was the end of his writing career. In his later years, until his death in 1973, he became increasingly focused on studies of the Ottoman Empire, and became alcoholic and reclusive. Politically, Green was a traditional Tory throughout his life.
Green was born near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, into an educated family with successful business interests. His father Vincent Wodehouse Yorke, the son of John Reginald Yorke and Sophia Matilda de Tuyll de Serooskerken, was a wealthy landowner and industrialist in Birmingham. His mother, Hon. Maud Evelyn Wyndham, was daughter of the second Baron Leconfield. Green grew up in Gloucestershire and attended Eton College, where he became friends with fellow pupil Anthony Powell and wrote most of his first novel, Blindness. He studied at Oxford University and there began a friendship and literary rivalry with Evelyn Waugh.
Green left Oxford in 1926 without taking a degree and returned to Birmingham to engage in his family business. He started by working with the ordinary workers on the factory floor of his family's factory, which produced beer-bottling machines, and later became the managing director. During this time he gained the experience to write Living, his second novel, which he worked on during 1927 and 1928. In 1929, he married his second cousin, the Hon. Adelaide Biddulph, also known as 'Dig'. They were both great-grandchildren of the 1st Baron Leconfield. Their son Sebastian was born in 1934. In 1940, Green published Pack My Bag, which he regarded as a nearly-accurate autobiography. During World War II Green served as a fireman in the Auxiliary Fire Service and these wartime experiences are echoed in his novel Caught; they were also a strong influence on his subsequent novel, Back.
Green's last published novel was Doting (1952); this was the end of his writing career. In his later years, until his death in 1973, he became increasingly focused on studies of the Ottoman Empire, and became alcoholic and reclusive. Politically, Green was a traditional Tory throughout his life.
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February 7, 2024
Loving - 3 stars
I've only read the first novel, Loving, in this Green compendium - and have to say I'm left puzzled. Green is often talked of as a writer's writer but I'm not seeing where that label comes from. This book is gently stylised in that it's predominantly dialogue with a bare minimum of exposition or authorial intervention - but rather than that seeming to me to be modernist or experimental in making the old idea of an omniscient narrator disappear, it reminds me of the standard technique of drama, including scene switching and multiple conversations taking place at once with people misunderstanding and talking over each other.
Set during the second world war in a 'big house' in Ireland, there's a gesture towards the 'upstairs, downstairs' genre but Green doesn't seem overly interested in analysing class in any innovative way. A valuable ring disappears and reappears, the two young housemaids conduct love affairs as does the married daughter-in-law of the mistress, there are peacocks, and unrequited desires and some gentle fiddling of the household books and a drunken cook. Fear of a German invasion and what that might mean for the women is balanced by a fear of Irish Republicans. It all unrolls without urgency and the most vivid scene, replayed repeatedly, is of Mrs Jack being discovered naked in bed with her lover when the housemaid brings in the morning tea.
In contrast to writers like Virginia Woolf (who published Green via her Hogarth Press), Katherine Mansfield or Jean Rhys, this is concerned with exteriors, not interiority: what people say and do is paramount, we don't know what they think or feel other than through these external actions. And the end is summed up with an ironic (?) they 'lived happily ever after' despite our eloping couple going to an England at war and suffering, it seems, the Blitz where Charlie will be called up on landing.
I'm left puzzled both by what this book thinks it's doing and why Green aficionados adore him...
I've only read the first novel, Loving, in this Green compendium - and have to say I'm left puzzled. Green is often talked of as a writer's writer but I'm not seeing where that label comes from. This book is gently stylised in that it's predominantly dialogue with a bare minimum of exposition or authorial intervention - but rather than that seeming to me to be modernist or experimental in making the old idea of an omniscient narrator disappear, it reminds me of the standard technique of drama, including scene switching and multiple conversations taking place at once with people misunderstanding and talking over each other.
Set during the second world war in a 'big house' in Ireland, there's a gesture towards the 'upstairs, downstairs' genre but Green doesn't seem overly interested in analysing class in any innovative way. A valuable ring disappears and reappears, the two young housemaids conduct love affairs as does the married daughter-in-law of the mistress, there are peacocks, and unrequited desires and some gentle fiddling of the household books and a drunken cook. Fear of a German invasion and what that might mean for the women is balanced by a fear of Irish Republicans. It all unrolls without urgency and the most vivid scene, replayed repeatedly, is of Mrs Jack being discovered naked in bed with her lover when the housemaid brings in the morning tea.
In contrast to writers like Virginia Woolf (who published Green via her Hogarth Press), Katherine Mansfield or Jean Rhys, this is concerned with exteriors, not interiority: what people say and do is paramount, we don't know what they think or feel other than through these external actions. And the end is summed up with an ironic (?) they 'lived happily ever after' despite our eloping couple going to an England at war and suffering, it seems, the Blitz where Charlie will be called up on landing.
I'm left puzzled both by what this book thinks it's doing and why Green aficionados adore him...
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December 15, 2018Read:Living
Series of extended metaphors in Living orchestrate feelings with image of sea and ships with bright flashes of tropical birds or coral reefs, shoals of flying fish, dolphins playing. I would hope to set sail on Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, but that would be false hope. This is far more Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, and for longest time coaster fails even to clear harbour wall. It isn't until old Mr Dupret pops his clogs that events begin to engage my interest, to see how young Mr Dupret, arrogant and uninstructed, would get on with prickly foundry workers and over-sensitive works manager. (There's also Lily and love interest, which helps a bit.)
Green rarely uses determiners. Effect at start is poetic, dreamy. But later comes to irritate. It drops and reappears and begins to feel as though the narrator is someone whose native language is not English, but one of those like Polish where determiners are added on to ends of nouns, and whose speakers thus occasionally forget to put them in front.
What went through my head more than once: there's a widely-held prejudice about women working together, that atmosphere can become bitchy. Hmmm. Well read about these Brummagem foundry workers in 1920s slump. Maybe it's not gender thing, but job insecurity thing.
I had one junior moment. Craigan put on his wireless headphones and for a moment I did think Bluetooth. Stoopid. Wireless=radio. Duh.
Series of extended metaphors in Living orchestrate feelings with image of sea and ships with bright flashes of tropical birds or coral reefs, shoals of flying fish, dolphins playing. I would hope to set sail on Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, but that would be false hope. This is far more Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, and for longest time coaster fails even to clear harbour wall. It isn't until old Mr Dupret pops his clogs that events begin to engage my interest, to see how young Mr Dupret, arrogant and uninstructed, would get on with prickly foundry workers and over-sensitive works manager. (There's also Lily and love interest, which helps a bit.)
Green rarely uses determiners. Effect at start is poetic, dreamy. But later comes to irritate. It drops and reappears and begins to feel as though the narrator is someone whose native language is not English, but one of those like Polish where determiners are added on to ends of nouns, and whose speakers thus occasionally forget to put them in front.
What went through my head more than once: there's a widely-held prejudice about women working together, that atmosphere can become bitchy. Hmmm. Well read about these Brummagem foundry workers in 1920s slump. Maybe it's not gender thing, but job insecurity thing.
I had one junior moment. Craigan put on his wireless headphones and for a moment I did think Bluetooth. Stoopid. Wireless=radio. Duh.
October 3, 2011
Henry Green is (like Dawn Powell) one of those famously forgotten writers, whose oeuvre is brought back into print every 15 years or so, with dust jacket encomia from writers who have achieved more sustained renown.
"Loving", from 1945, has a kind of "upstairs/downstairs" structure in which the doings and conversation of the servants and the gentry on an Anglo-Irish estate are contrasted. The former are baudier but ultimately probably more conventionally moral than their masters - not sure if Green even cares about that, since cadences of speech and diction seem to be his predominant interests. The whole thing is in a slightly brittle tone highly reminiscent of Ivy Compton-Burnett, though ultimately less cynical.
"Living" is one of his earliest, from 1929; it is set entirely among Birmingham steel-workers and the economic and political angle to the story would be hard to ignore, but again linguistic audacity is paramount. The tendency of Northern dialects to make sparing use of definite and indefinite articles is observable in naturalist writers from D.H. Lawrence to Stan Barstow, but Green takes it to an extreme, rendering every utterance a telegraphic series of nouns, verbs and adjectives, piled up like blocks with a minimum of connective tissue. As the longest of the three in this collection, that makes it a bit tough going at times.
Finally, "Party Going" has quite a classical unity and an economy of means that would make it an effective play. A dozen upper-class characters are trapped for an evening in a railway hotel by a dense fog which is preventing their scheduled departure. Forced into close quarters, people's social anxieties, insecurity and manipulativeness are magnified. The depiction of them is satirical but not mercilessly so - the characters retain an amusingly sympathetic quality.
"Loving", from 1945, has a kind of "upstairs/downstairs" structure in which the doings and conversation of the servants and the gentry on an Anglo-Irish estate are contrasted. The former are baudier but ultimately probably more conventionally moral than their masters - not sure if Green even cares about that, since cadences of speech and diction seem to be his predominant interests. The whole thing is in a slightly brittle tone highly reminiscent of Ivy Compton-Burnett, though ultimately less cynical.
"Living" is one of his earliest, from 1929; it is set entirely among Birmingham steel-workers and the economic and political angle to the story would be hard to ignore, but again linguistic audacity is paramount. The tendency of Northern dialects to make sparing use of definite and indefinite articles is observable in naturalist writers from D.H. Lawrence to Stan Barstow, but Green takes it to an extreme, rendering every utterance a telegraphic series of nouns, verbs and adjectives, piled up like blocks with a minimum of connective tissue. As the longest of the three in this collection, that makes it a bit tough going at times.
Finally, "Party Going" has quite a classical unity and an economy of means that would make it an effective play. A dozen upper-class characters are trapped for an evening in a railway hotel by a dense fog which is preventing their scheduled departure. Forced into close quarters, people's social anxieties, insecurity and manipulativeness are magnified. The depiction of them is satirical but not mercilessly so - the characters retain an amusingly sympathetic quality.
October 29, 2009
Three great novels. Poetic, mysterious, true. Not for everyone though as the style (different in each one) can be difficult. This piece of description from 'Loving' has stayed with me for many years:
(The saddleroom)was a place from which light was almost excluded now by cobwebs across its two windows and into which, with the door ajar, the shafted sun lay in a lengthened arch of blazing sovereigns. Over a corn bin on which he had packed last autumn's ferns lay Paddy snoring between these windows, a web strung from one lock of hair back onto the sill above and which rose and fell as he breathed. Caught in the reflection of spring sunlight this cobweb looked to be made of gold as did those others which by working long minutes spiders had drawn from spar to spar of the fern bedding on which his head rested. It might have been almost that O'Conor's [Paddy:] dreams were held by hairs of gold binding his head beneath a vaulted roof on which the floor of cobbles reflected an old king's molten treasure from the bog.
OK quite conventional, but how about this from 'Living' -
Mr Craigan smoked pipe, already room was blurred by smoke from it and by steam from hot water in the sink. She swilled water over the plates and electric light caught in shining waves of water which rushed off plates as she held them, and then light caught on wet plates in moons. She dried these. One by one then she put them up into the rack on wall above her, and as she stretched up so her movements pulled all ways at his heart, so beautiful she seemed to him.
If you don't like the latter you won't like Henry Green.
(The saddleroom)was a place from which light was almost excluded now by cobwebs across its two windows and into which, with the door ajar, the shafted sun lay in a lengthened arch of blazing sovereigns. Over a corn bin on which he had packed last autumn's ferns lay Paddy snoring between these windows, a web strung from one lock of hair back onto the sill above and which rose and fell as he breathed. Caught in the reflection of spring sunlight this cobweb looked to be made of gold as did those others which by working long minutes spiders had drawn from spar to spar of the fern bedding on which his head rested. It might have been almost that O'Conor's [Paddy:] dreams were held by hairs of gold binding his head beneath a vaulted roof on which the floor of cobbles reflected an old king's molten treasure from the bog.
OK quite conventional, but how about this from 'Living' -
Mr Craigan smoked pipe, already room was blurred by smoke from it and by steam from hot water in the sink. She swilled water over the plates and electric light caught in shining waves of water which rushed off plates as she held them, and then light caught on wet plates in moons. She dried these. One by one then she put them up into the rack on wall above her, and as she stretched up so her movements pulled all ways at his heart, so beautiful she seemed to him.
If you don't like the latter you won't like Henry Green.
March 15, 2016
Living, Henry Green's first novel, published in 1929 when he was twenty-four, is wisely and wonderfully written in a minor key about minor characters who demand major attention through their flawed, stumbling, enduring humanity.
The setting is Birmingham, England, where men work at a foundry that is foundering. The owner is about to die, but not yet, and the son is about to take over, but not yet. Meanwhile the workers sing and chatter to one another, gossip and comment,and have womenfolk and children at home with just enough cash on hand to make it through the week.
Lily Gates is the moral center of the tale. She's in her early twenties and must stay at home and take care of it for her father, Joe Gates, and her grandfather, Mr Craigan (as he is called). She'd love to have a job, love to live the kind of life she sees in the movies, love to be able to decide who is the better bet for marriage, Mr Dale or Mr Jones, both foundry workers. This ensemble reminds me of Colm Toiban's Brooklyn but the delicacy and ingenuity of the prose, its spontaneity, reminds me more of the flight of pigeons, an airborne motif throughout the novel.
Living is half overheard, a quarter lyrical exposition, another quarter striking, quick-paced encounter. At the same time it is curiously phrased not only in Birmingham dialect but also in a kind of notational style wherein articles and prepositions are deliberately omitted creating stumps of sentences that are pleasant to trip over. Some passages read like Dubliners, others like Ulysses, and then others like the sweeping montages of John Dos Pasos's U.S.A. trilogy, capturing public houses, the fizzing, foaming fury of molten metal, football match jousting, and the unexpected intrusions of the foundry owner's son's romantic disappointments. If he were not necessary to the unfolding of the plot, he would be more than expendable.
For reasons that are not always clear, Green divides this text into chapters. The chapters themselves dart everywhere with no transitional language to remind us that something that once was happening is happening again and is further along toward the police station, the sickbed, or a desperately unhappy elopement that cannot be other other than it comes to be. Mr Jones wants to do right by Lily; he simply can't; he doesn't have the money, the professional skills, the knowledge of the world, or the support of his parents (now lost somewhere in the maw of Liverpool, where he cannot find them.
In many ways Green illustrates the rule that there are no rules for writing fiction--only that whatever you are doing, you have to know how to do it, which he does.
The setting is Birmingham, England, where men work at a foundry that is foundering. The owner is about to die, but not yet, and the son is about to take over, but not yet. Meanwhile the workers sing and chatter to one another, gossip and comment,and have womenfolk and children at home with just enough cash on hand to make it through the week.
Lily Gates is the moral center of the tale. She's in her early twenties and must stay at home and take care of it for her father, Joe Gates, and her grandfather, Mr Craigan (as he is called). She'd love to have a job, love to live the kind of life she sees in the movies, love to be able to decide who is the better bet for marriage, Mr Dale or Mr Jones, both foundry workers. This ensemble reminds me of Colm Toiban's Brooklyn but the delicacy and ingenuity of the prose, its spontaneity, reminds me more of the flight of pigeons, an airborne motif throughout the novel.
Living is half overheard, a quarter lyrical exposition, another quarter striking, quick-paced encounter. At the same time it is curiously phrased not only in Birmingham dialect but also in a kind of notational style wherein articles and prepositions are deliberately omitted creating stumps of sentences that are pleasant to trip over. Some passages read like Dubliners, others like Ulysses, and then others like the sweeping montages of John Dos Pasos's U.S.A. trilogy, capturing public houses, the fizzing, foaming fury of molten metal, football match jousting, and the unexpected intrusions of the foundry owner's son's romantic disappointments. If he were not necessary to the unfolding of the plot, he would be more than expendable.
For reasons that are not always clear, Green divides this text into chapters. The chapters themselves dart everywhere with no transitional language to remind us that something that once was happening is happening again and is further along toward the police station, the sickbed, or a desperately unhappy elopement that cannot be other other than it comes to be. Mr Jones wants to do right by Lily; he simply can't; he doesn't have the money, the professional skills, the knowledge of the world, or the support of his parents (now lost somewhere in the maw of Liverpool, where he cannot find them.
In many ways Green illustrates the rule that there are no rules for writing fiction--only that whatever you are doing, you have to know how to do it, which he does.
Read
November 1, 2023Living didn't do much for me but Loving and Party Going are astonishingly good. It's not every day you read something that changes your understanding of what literary art can do.
***
I should add that Loving is the most experimental novel I have ever read for the simple reason that it contains two separate characters with the same exact first name; of course in real life it's the most common thing in the world to meet different people with the same name, but the conventions of literature absolutely forbid it. Henry Green seems to have transgressed this convention without a second thought.
***
I should add that Loving is the most experimental novel I have ever read for the simple reason that it contains two separate characters with the same exact first name; of course in real life it's the most common thing in the world to meet different people with the same name, but the conventions of literature absolutely forbid it. Henry Green seems to have transgressed this convention without a second thought.
January 3, 2019
These three books are certainly among the finest Green wrote. No library in the English language could be complete without them
March 1, 2009
I really loved Concluding,and I'm enjoying the first novel in this collected three, Loving, even more, for its "life below stairs" perspective. Green is a master of a kind of narrative strategy that excises all the fluff and chatter and lets the dialogue do the work, like a play, without sacrificing a sense of interior for the characters, in that uncanny way with speech and gesture that playwrights have. His narrators cannot enter into the body, but what is said by our guide, in conjunction with the speaking cast, more than suffices. What I love best is Green's shifts in perspective, the eye-as-camera: we go wherever a character may look, from time to time, very fluidly without a cut, stage direction or narrative announcement.
For example (I'm paraphrasing a scene here),"Look, now, Kate, there's Mrs. Tennant out with her Violet for their morning walk," Edith's face pressed against the cold class.
"My, these peacocks do follow one so. But they are beautiful."
"Yes, it's true. Now, Buzz, come here!." Violet bellows at the dog as Mrs. Tennant turns her distaste for loud voices towards the sky, inspecting the clouds.
I totally understand why Brian Evenson had us read Chekov's short story, "Ward No. 6" and some selections from Colette's shots, with Henry Green's Concluding, in our fiction workshop at Brown. In terms of narrative strategies and innovation, they are kindred spirits.
I especially admire the mileage Green gets out of his titles, ironically engaging and juxtaposing them with the content of each book.
Curious: Henry Green was born into a wealthy family, but his ear for dialogue, eye for domestic/class drama, and perhaps sense of injustice (or mere fascination) during WWII immersed him in working class speech and concerns. I'll be reading his autobiography next, Pack My Bag.
For example (I'm paraphrasing a scene here),"Look, now, Kate, there's Mrs. Tennant out with her Violet for their morning walk," Edith's face pressed against the cold class.
"My, these peacocks do follow one so. But they are beautiful."
"Yes, it's true. Now, Buzz, come here!." Violet bellows at the dog as Mrs. Tennant turns her distaste for loud voices towards the sky, inspecting the clouds.
I totally understand why Brian Evenson had us read Chekov's short story, "Ward No. 6" and some selections from Colette's shots, with Henry Green's Concluding, in our fiction workshop at Brown. In terms of narrative strategies and innovation, they are kindred spirits.
I especially admire the mileage Green gets out of his titles, ironically engaging and juxtaposing them with the content of each book.
Curious: Henry Green was born into a wealthy family, but his ear for dialogue, eye for domestic/class drama, and perhaps sense of injustice (or mere fascination) during WWII immersed him in working class speech and concerns. I'll be reading his autobiography next, Pack My Bag.
February 28, 2014
Well, just Loving but I liked it lot and plan to read the other two, just not right away. Good for folks who like their modernist lit with a bit of Downton Abbey. I liked the subtle humor.
June 23, 2008
This book is allegedly one of the top 100 books of the century. It is hideously terrible and completely unreadable. It is basically a transcript of complete mundanities. I can see how, perhaps, it was innovative when it was written (but surely he wasn't the first to write about the "downstairs" of a great house), but it is ungodly awful. In my opinion, this is an Emperor's New Clothes kind of book. It can't possibly be as stupid and pointless as it seems, smart people say it's awesome, and so everybody says it must be brilliant literature. I am totally willing to say that the Emperor has no effing clothes here.
March 5, 2016
Loving: Four Stars
Living: Three Stars
Party Going: Three and a Half Stars
Each of these three novels follows multiple characters representing different social strata: the servants and the served in an Irish country house during WWII (Loving), generations of steel foundry workers and owners in Birmingham (Living), and wealthy travelers stuck in a train station hotel (Party Going). The stories can be a little difficult to follow at first: in each, characters are referred to by several names, the narrative jumps around from one situation to another much like a soap opera, and important plot points and aspects of character development are (artfully) revealed through dialogue. These stories are not mysteries (though Loving has what could be called a mystery element), but reading them is a little like solving a puzzle. At first, you have to get your bearings. You are presented with many different pieces, and it takes a little while to figure out what you’re looking at. The further you progress, the clearer the picture becomes and the more quickly it goes. By the end, you have something that seems much more than the sum of its parts. I guess this is true of most books to some extent, but I found it especially true here.
My individual ratings for each of these novels are based partly on the author’s craft—which is admirable, partly on how enjoyable they were to read, and partly on how rewarding they were. I don’t mind doing a little bit of work when I’m reading if there’s a great payoff. Loving rates highest on all three of these criteria. As I got further into Loving, I found myself thinking that it’s begging to be made into a film, and wondering if perhaps maybe it HAS been (as far as I can tell, it has not).
The best ad I can give for any and all of these novels comes from Green himself. Of his inspiration for Loving, he told The Paris Review: "I got the idea of Loving from a manservant in the Fire Service during the war. He was serving with me in the ranks, and he told me he had once asked the elderly butler who was over him what the old boy most liked in the world. The reply was: 'Lying in bed on a summer morning, with the window open, listening to the church bells, eating buttered toast with cunty fingers.' I saw the book in a flash."
Living: Three Stars
Party Going: Three and a Half Stars
Each of these three novels follows multiple characters representing different social strata: the servants and the served in an Irish country house during WWII (Loving), generations of steel foundry workers and owners in Birmingham (Living), and wealthy travelers stuck in a train station hotel (Party Going). The stories can be a little difficult to follow at first: in each, characters are referred to by several names, the narrative jumps around from one situation to another much like a soap opera, and important plot points and aspects of character development are (artfully) revealed through dialogue. These stories are not mysteries (though Loving has what could be called a mystery element), but reading them is a little like solving a puzzle. At first, you have to get your bearings. You are presented with many different pieces, and it takes a little while to figure out what you’re looking at. The further you progress, the clearer the picture becomes and the more quickly it goes. By the end, you have something that seems much more than the sum of its parts. I guess this is true of most books to some extent, but I found it especially true here.
My individual ratings for each of these novels are based partly on the author’s craft—which is admirable, partly on how enjoyable they were to read, and partly on how rewarding they were. I don’t mind doing a little bit of work when I’m reading if there’s a great payoff. Loving rates highest on all three of these criteria. As I got further into Loving, I found myself thinking that it’s begging to be made into a film, and wondering if perhaps maybe it HAS been (as far as I can tell, it has not).
The best ad I can give for any and all of these novels comes from Green himself. Of his inspiration for Loving, he told The Paris Review: "I got the idea of Loving from a manservant in the Fire Service during the war. He was serving with me in the ranks, and he told me he had once asked the elderly butler who was over him what the old boy most liked in the world. The reply was: 'Lying in bed on a summer morning, with the window open, listening to the church bells, eating buttered toast with cunty fingers.' I saw the book in a flash."
June 16, 2011
As this edition is 3 novels in one book it is hard for me to review all of it despite having read the whole thing. Henry Green's writing is difficult and slow going, but his characters are fascinating, if confusing. This probably explains why his novels have recently come into the favor of literary critics. This collection of 3 novels gave a very interesting view of the early to mid 20th century and allowed for exploration of the different social classes during this time. While I enjoyed reading the novels and found myself laughing aloud at points, they're much too tedious for a pleasure read. I think I would have gotten much more out of the novels in a classroom or academic setting.
December 6, 2020
Err:507
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August 29, 2008Loving by Henry Green is about the goings-on between the servants and masters in a castle in Ireland during WWII. It's a pretty simple tale, but there isn't much plot. There's a sort of love triangle between the butler, Charlie, his "man" (aka assistant) Albert, and a chamber maid, Edith, a missing ring, fear of the I.R.A., a drunken cook, an affair between the master's (Mrs. Tennant) daughter-in-law and Capt. Davenport while Mr. Jack (Mrs. Tennant's son) is off doing the army thing... it's more scenes and vignettes of what's happening as opposed to any traditional plot with a climax, denouement, etc.
There were some interesting things in Loving that I don't think I've come across yet in any other novels: firstly, there are two characters named Albert - there is Charlie's man Albert, and then the drunken cook's nephew Albert comes to stay to get away from the London bombings. Secondly, there is a character, Paddy, who nobody can understand except the other chamber maid, Kate. So all the servants will be sitting at dinner, and Paddy will say something. But you only know he said something because Charlie will ask, "What did he say?" and then Kate translates. Also, some of the transition from one "scene" to the next is done almost like in a movie. There isn't any real break in the action (I don't mean literally, action - there isn't any of that); instead, it goes something like this: there is a scene of the servants doing their thing in the castle, and in order to transition to Mrs. Tennant and daughter-in-law walking the grounds, Green will say (paraphrasing here): "While this was going on, Mrs. Tennant..." as if the scene in the castle fades out and we see them walking around. Sometimes this caught me off guard (I wasn't paying attention), and I would think - now where did Mrs. Tennant come from? Why does it now seem like they're out in the yard? So I would have to go back, and then I would realize that Green had subtly transitioned from one conversation to another.
Charlie is an odd character, and you can't really tell what his motives are... in the beginning, the original butler (Eldon) is dying, and Charlie really couldn't care less (well, neither can any of the other servants, but that's beside the point). Charlie is too busy trying to take over for Eldon. He seems kind of sleazy and none of the other servants like or trust him (except Edith). So, when he first starts making passes at her, you can't really tell if he's serious. Even in the end, you can't really tell...he says things that make you think he doesn't really care about Edith, but maybe he's just playing a game to get her to like him back...or maybe he's just a player (or is that spelled playa?). Edith is equally ambiguous. She seems all right most of the time, but then she wants to keep Mrs. Tennant's ring, (which she finds, then it goes missing again). It seemed out of character. I guess most - ok all - of the characters are pretty ambiguous in that way.
An interesting synchronicity is going on with my reading right now...I am currently in the Valley of Bones part of Dance to the Music of Time, in which Nick Jenkins, enrolled in the Army, is sent with his company to Northern Ireland (this is during WWII also). All of the characters in Loving are British nationals (or almost all of the characters - I couldn't figure out if Paddy was Irish) , and there is a big to-do about the IRA, fear of the IRA, fear of the Germans invading, fear for loved ones who may be being bombed, etc. Are they better to stay in Ireland, with all the Irish thugs out to get them and the threat of the Germans invading, or should they go back to England, abandoning the castle? In Dance, as I just mentioned, we're also in Ireland, but from a different perspective...but there's still the fear there. Someone gets attacked while walking to the barracks during a military exercise and has his guns stolen, and it is suggested that it was Irish nationals. It's interesting to see this side of things...I haven't run into stories about the British in Ireland during the war before.
It turns out that Henry Green was a comtemporary, friend, and former classmate of Powell and also Evelyn Waugh. It appears that Green had a colorful life - kind of unexpected, as Loving wasn't every colorful IMO. In conversation, he preferred gossip to serious subjects (not unexpectedly), was known as a ladies man, and eventually became an alcoholic. While at Oxford, he shunned intellectual pursuits in favor of going to the movies twice a day and "scorned his tutor, the bluff, hearty C.S. Lewis." Green also apparently had a cruel streak, and a girlfriend once told him, "Hurting - that should be the title of your next novel."
He was popular among his contemporaries and later authors. W.D. Auden called him "the best English novelist alive" (though he is no longer, since he is no longer alive); Eudora Welty stated that his work had "an intenstiy greater than that of any other writer of imaginative fiction today." And John Updike: "Henry Green was a novelist of such rarity, such marvellous originality, intuition, sensuality, and finish, that every fragment of his work is precious." Really, John, I don't know about that, but to each his own. My grandma always says it's good we don't all like the same things.
Loving is a pretty harmless book - sometimes amusing, short, and easy to get through. Not sure why it made the Modern Library's Top 100, but whatever...oh wait, isn't Updike on the Board? The edition of Loving that I own also contains two other books by Green: Living and Party Going. In the coming years, I will probably read both of them as well. A NY Times reviewer wrote, (of Anthony Powell) "Like Henry Green, an even better novelist, Anthony Powell was too British to catch on [in the U.S.] at first." So, if British comedies are your thing, you'd probably love it. If they annoy the piss out of you, don't bother. I'm somewhere in between. I think the following quote sums up Loving fairly well: "None of [Green's] books illustrates a philosophy, promotes a theme, or delivers a message. With him it is the richness of the felt, heard, and seen moment, often garnished with low comedy, that is the sole point - if, indeed, there is any point at all."
There were some interesting things in Loving that I don't think I've come across yet in any other novels: firstly, there are two characters named Albert - there is Charlie's man Albert, and then the drunken cook's nephew Albert comes to stay to get away from the London bombings. Secondly, there is a character, Paddy, who nobody can understand except the other chamber maid, Kate. So all the servants will be sitting at dinner, and Paddy will say something. But you only know he said something because Charlie will ask, "What did he say?" and then Kate translates. Also, some of the transition from one "scene" to the next is done almost like in a movie. There isn't any real break in the action (I don't mean literally, action - there isn't any of that); instead, it goes something like this: there is a scene of the servants doing their thing in the castle, and in order to transition to Mrs. Tennant and daughter-in-law walking the grounds, Green will say (paraphrasing here): "While this was going on, Mrs. Tennant..." as if the scene in the castle fades out and we see them walking around. Sometimes this caught me off guard (I wasn't paying attention), and I would think - now where did Mrs. Tennant come from? Why does it now seem like they're out in the yard? So I would have to go back, and then I would realize that Green had subtly transitioned from one conversation to another.
Charlie is an odd character, and you can't really tell what his motives are... in the beginning, the original butler (Eldon) is dying, and Charlie really couldn't care less (well, neither can any of the other servants, but that's beside the point). Charlie is too busy trying to take over for Eldon. He seems kind of sleazy and none of the other servants like or trust him (except Edith). So, when he first starts making passes at her, you can't really tell if he's serious. Even in the end, you can't really tell...he says things that make you think he doesn't really care about Edith, but maybe he's just playing a game to get her to like him back...or maybe he's just a player (or is that spelled playa?). Edith is equally ambiguous. She seems all right most of the time, but then she wants to keep Mrs. Tennant's ring, (which she finds, then it goes missing again). It seemed out of character. I guess most - ok all - of the characters are pretty ambiguous in that way.
An interesting synchronicity is going on with my reading right now...I am currently in the Valley of Bones part of Dance to the Music of Time, in which Nick Jenkins, enrolled in the Army, is sent with his company to Northern Ireland (this is during WWII also). All of the characters in Loving are British nationals (or almost all of the characters - I couldn't figure out if Paddy was Irish) , and there is a big to-do about the IRA, fear of the IRA, fear of the Germans invading, fear for loved ones who may be being bombed, etc. Are they better to stay in Ireland, with all the Irish thugs out to get them and the threat of the Germans invading, or should they go back to England, abandoning the castle? In Dance, as I just mentioned, we're also in Ireland, but from a different perspective...but there's still the fear there. Someone gets attacked while walking to the barracks during a military exercise and has his guns stolen, and it is suggested that it was Irish nationals. It's interesting to see this side of things...I haven't run into stories about the British in Ireland during the war before.
It turns out that Henry Green was a comtemporary, friend, and former classmate of Powell and also Evelyn Waugh. It appears that Green had a colorful life - kind of unexpected, as Loving wasn't every colorful IMO. In conversation, he preferred gossip to serious subjects (not unexpectedly), was known as a ladies man, and eventually became an alcoholic. While at Oxford, he shunned intellectual pursuits in favor of going to the movies twice a day and "scorned his tutor, the bluff, hearty C.S. Lewis." Green also apparently had a cruel streak, and a girlfriend once told him, "Hurting - that should be the title of your next novel."
He was popular among his contemporaries and later authors. W.D. Auden called him "the best English novelist alive" (though he is no longer, since he is no longer alive); Eudora Welty stated that his work had "an intenstiy greater than that of any other writer of imaginative fiction today." And John Updike: "Henry Green was a novelist of such rarity, such marvellous originality, intuition, sensuality, and finish, that every fragment of his work is precious." Really, John, I don't know about that, but to each his own. My grandma always says it's good we don't all like the same things.
Loving is a pretty harmless book - sometimes amusing, short, and easy to get through. Not sure why it made the Modern Library's Top 100, but whatever...oh wait, isn't Updike on the Board? The edition of Loving that I own also contains two other books by Green: Living and Party Going. In the coming years, I will probably read both of them as well. A NY Times reviewer wrote, (of Anthony Powell) "Like Henry Green, an even better novelist, Anthony Powell was too British to catch on [in the U.S.] at first." So, if British comedies are your thing, you'd probably love it. If they annoy the piss out of you, don't bother. I'm somewhere in between. I think the following quote sums up Loving fairly well: "None of [Green's] books illustrates a philosophy, promotes a theme, or delivers a message. With him it is the richness of the felt, heard, and seen moment, often garnished with low comedy, that is the sole point - if, indeed, there is any point at all."
March 9, 2019
This three-book volume sucks eggs. Although Modernist authors (many of whose works have been consigned to reduced priced books) thought Green was marvelous calling him a “writer’s writer”, none of his books sold more than 10,000 copies during his life. He was forgotten until the 1990’s when some snob resurrected him and proclaimed him brilliant. This recent promoter should be found. Green’s body should be exhumed. Then, reinter both to a well-deserved insignificance.
Living (1929)
This is a story of the workers at a Birmingham foundry. At the outset, Green inflicts on the reader an innovative technique that undermines the story. (I will show by example: “Reading. Buffeted words penned. Go? ‘spose does. Cain’t need for ‘splainin’. Such be so.”) At the very least, dialogue and colloquialisms should be attributed to a speaker and actions should be stated, not inferred. At the beginning, it is a struggle to read. Green modifies his invention while writing and the reader can make sense of the dialogue by the book’s end.
Party Going (1939)
This story of a privileged class of jerks takes place in a fog and strands the reader in it. Who is going? Why? Where? More importantly, who cares? Green’s technique is tiring and shallow. He jolts the reader from one disjointed paragraph to the next. Why should a reader struggle with confusion? Is this enjoyable? Fortunately, the once trendy technique that brought Green notice proved unpopular much to the frustration of its promoters. Thank God.
Loving (1945)
This book about the upstairs and downstairs of an absent Irish gentry during the war is fathomable. Green abandons much of his novelty. No more struggling. But, as you read a constant question accompanies your thought, “Why should I bother continuing?” I suspect this book made Time magazine’s 100 Best English-language Novels because of an incestuous relationship with the publishing house.
Living (1929)
This is a story of the workers at a Birmingham foundry. At the outset, Green inflicts on the reader an innovative technique that undermines the story. (I will show by example: “Reading. Buffeted words penned. Go? ‘spose does. Cain’t need for ‘splainin’. Such be so.”) At the very least, dialogue and colloquialisms should be attributed to a speaker and actions should be stated, not inferred. At the beginning, it is a struggle to read. Green modifies his invention while writing and the reader can make sense of the dialogue by the book’s end.
Party Going (1939)
This story of a privileged class of jerks takes place in a fog and strands the reader in it. Who is going? Why? Where? More importantly, who cares? Green’s technique is tiring and shallow. He jolts the reader from one disjointed paragraph to the next. Why should a reader struggle with confusion? Is this enjoyable? Fortunately, the once trendy technique that brought Green notice proved unpopular much to the frustration of its promoters. Thank God.
Loving (1945)
This book about the upstairs and downstairs of an absent Irish gentry during the war is fathomable. Green abandons much of his novelty. No more struggling. But, as you read a constant question accompanies your thought, “Why should I bother continuing?” I suspect this book made Time magazine’s 100 Best English-language Novels because of an incestuous relationship with the publishing house.
September 3, 2012
The 3 best novels by this criminally neglected writer, all in one handy omnibus. If you mesh with his unique style, there are 5 later novels to enjoy and his great first novel, Blindness. If you really catch Green fever (and I really think you should), read his autobiographical Pack My Bag, or Jeremy Treglown's biography/critical study, Romancing. His life was as interesting as his fictional worlds. Green belongs right up in the pantheon with that great generation of British writers that came of age in the interwar period--Greene, Powell, Waugh, Firbank, Compton-Burnett, Bowen, etc.
April 12, 2009
"Intensely original" is a perfect way to describe these novels. I also like the word "dazzling" for the way some of the sentences read. The lovliness of some of them actually made me gasp. I do not recall reading anything else quite like this.
June 11, 2013
this is one of those "in it to win it" books that I begin, and gradually realize I'm going to be putting in some thankless work...but I'm NOT giving up... For the uninitiated, Henry Green is a many splendored thing.. just make sure to choose wisely. He changes voice on a dime..
July 24, 2007
I found Living difficult, but Loving a dream.
May 23, 2007
"Her voice was thick with love. She shut the door."
January 26, 2021
This volume contains three of Green’s nine novels. Green’s burden is the high praise that exacting writers such as Auden and Updike have heaped on him. I decided to give him a try anyway.
The books aren’t printed here in chronological order; the opener, Loving, was the last published of the three. I found it the most accessible, which could explain why it was placed first. Yet even this took a while to get into. It employs much dialogue; punctuation is reduced to a minimum, which means that the phrases are difficult to scan. Once I got the hang of it, I admired how this technique reproduced the way we often talk: elliptically, run-on, colorful phrases interspersed with mundane. At times, the conversations he reports are two monologues, spoken past each other. This, too, came to feel true to life.
The setting is familiar to fans of upstairs/downstairs dramas, although Green devotes more attention to downstairs than up.
There is plot development in the novel in the sense that things happen, but these are less important than bringing characters vividly to life. Spoiler alert: the incidental nature of “plot” is brilliantly expressed in the last line.
The second of the three novels, Living, was the earliest published. It is set among the workers of a Birmingham foundry. The owner and his family also appear, including the effete son impatient to introduce his modern management ideas (the real person behind Green’s nom de plume was himself the son of a wealthy industrialist). But again, the author spends more time depicting the workers. It is a wide cast of characters, but by the end, the focus has come down to one in particular, not necessarily the character one would have expected. Elliptical, picturesque dialogue is also evident. In addition, Green forgoes almost all articles. This could be what some have in mind who include him among the modernists such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.
In the final book collected here, Party Going, Green turns to the pampered young people he probably moved among in real life. A group gathers to set off on a journey that is delayed when a deep fog enshrouds the station from which their boat train is set to depart. They decamp to the adjoining hotel and spend the next few hours interacting. Then the fog lifts, and they leave. While Green’s dialogue technique is more conventional here than in the other two books, things his characters say are rarely in sync with what they mean or feel. This is expressed in one of the author’s asides that reminds me of Oscar Wilde: “People, in their relation with one another, are continually doing similar things but never for similar reasons.” For the most part, though, Green doesn’t tell, he shows. I found the members of this ensemble “tarsome” to an extreme, and I think this was the author’s intention. The few hours they spend trapped in the fog seem like a season in hell, or at least purgatory, except that the experience doesn’t purge them.
Green’s prose, especially in Party Going, is also remarkable in its use of extended metaphors that suddenly reintroduce the object of comparison to jarring effect.
The peculiarities of Green’s style made the reading slow going, but I found the effort rewarded.
The books aren’t printed here in chronological order; the opener, Loving, was the last published of the three. I found it the most accessible, which could explain why it was placed first. Yet even this took a while to get into. It employs much dialogue; punctuation is reduced to a minimum, which means that the phrases are difficult to scan. Once I got the hang of it, I admired how this technique reproduced the way we often talk: elliptically, run-on, colorful phrases interspersed with mundane. At times, the conversations he reports are two monologues, spoken past each other. This, too, came to feel true to life.
The setting is familiar to fans of upstairs/downstairs dramas, although Green devotes more attention to downstairs than up.
There is plot development in the novel in the sense that things happen, but these are less important than bringing characters vividly to life. Spoiler alert: the incidental nature of “plot” is brilliantly expressed in the last line.
The second of the three novels, Living, was the earliest published. It is set among the workers of a Birmingham foundry. The owner and his family also appear, including the effete son impatient to introduce his modern management ideas (the real person behind Green’s nom de plume was himself the son of a wealthy industrialist). But again, the author spends more time depicting the workers. It is a wide cast of characters, but by the end, the focus has come down to one in particular, not necessarily the character one would have expected. Elliptical, picturesque dialogue is also evident. In addition, Green forgoes almost all articles. This could be what some have in mind who include him among the modernists such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.
In the final book collected here, Party Going, Green turns to the pampered young people he probably moved among in real life. A group gathers to set off on a journey that is delayed when a deep fog enshrouds the station from which their boat train is set to depart. They decamp to the adjoining hotel and spend the next few hours interacting. Then the fog lifts, and they leave. While Green’s dialogue technique is more conventional here than in the other two books, things his characters say are rarely in sync with what they mean or feel. This is expressed in one of the author’s asides that reminds me of Oscar Wilde: “People, in their relation with one another, are continually doing similar things but never for similar reasons.” For the most part, though, Green doesn’t tell, he shows. I found the members of this ensemble “tarsome” to an extreme, and I think this was the author’s intention. The few hours they spend trapped in the fog seem like a season in hell, or at least purgatory, except that the experience doesn’t purge them.
Green’s prose, especially in Party Going, is also remarkable in its use of extended metaphors that suddenly reintroduce the object of comparison to jarring effect.
The peculiarities of Green’s style made the reading slow going, but I found the effort rewarded.
September 26, 2023
Astonishing. Exactly why these three novels are astonishing is something I am not sure I can explain adequately. Yet I think that maybe I understand a little of the mechanisms at play here, but the fact they don't feel like mechanisms, they feel entirely organic, muddles my ideas on the subject somewhat. All fiction writing is a mechanical process, of course, and the notion that the 'characters' on the page of a novel are somehow alive (with authentic minds of their own) is a shared illusion. We know it's an illusion but we go along with it anyway because it is a convenience of approach.
However, Green's characters in these three novels actually do feel alive. They feel outside or beyond the control of their author, no matter how often the author tries to poke his nose into the narrative with an analytical remark here or a value judgment there. We think, as we are reading, "Oh, go away Henry Green, you don't really understand what these fictional people are up to. Stop interfering (which is a futile thing to attempt anyway) and let them get on with it..."
But one aspect of these novels that I do think I have grasped is the remarkable truth they convey about human interactions. The 'human condition' may be what philosophers say it is, or it may be something else, but human interactions in the real world rarely move a plot along, because generally there are no plots to our lives. Green's characters are constantly trying to outdo each other, for reasons of mild personal gain, whether that gain is a slightly enhanced financial security, greater respect, a more acute sense of belonging, the wish to be noticed and taken seriously, but they often deceive or outdo themselves in the process. They change their minds all the time, are unaware of what exactly their ultimate intentions are, hedge their bets, make tactical errors that go unnoticed by others because those others are also too focussed on making their own tactical errors. And very little of this behaviour is genuinely malicious. It is more often than not a simple outcome of manouevering within limits to preserve some physical integrity or social status.
This omnibus of three novels is possibly the finest omnibus of fictions I have ever read. And that's saying a lot. Loving is the ultimate upstairs-downstairs story, a gentle comedy and an empathic satire; Living is the ultimate proletarian novel, unsentimental and brusque but also tender; Party Going is absolutely like a collision between Kafka and Noel Coward, a brilliant game of chess in which no one knows what piece they are or even what side they are on.
Outstanding in every way.
However, Green's characters in these three novels actually do feel alive. They feel outside or beyond the control of their author, no matter how often the author tries to poke his nose into the narrative with an analytical remark here or a value judgment there. We think, as we are reading, "Oh, go away Henry Green, you don't really understand what these fictional people are up to. Stop interfering (which is a futile thing to attempt anyway) and let them get on with it..."
But one aspect of these novels that I do think I have grasped is the remarkable truth they convey about human interactions. The 'human condition' may be what philosophers say it is, or it may be something else, but human interactions in the real world rarely move a plot along, because generally there are no plots to our lives. Green's characters are constantly trying to outdo each other, for reasons of mild personal gain, whether that gain is a slightly enhanced financial security, greater respect, a more acute sense of belonging, the wish to be noticed and taken seriously, but they often deceive or outdo themselves in the process. They change their minds all the time, are unaware of what exactly their ultimate intentions are, hedge their bets, make tactical errors that go unnoticed by others because those others are also too focussed on making their own tactical errors. And very little of this behaviour is genuinely malicious. It is more often than not a simple outcome of manouevering within limits to preserve some physical integrity or social status.
This omnibus of three novels is possibly the finest omnibus of fictions I have ever read. And that's saying a lot. Loving is the ultimate upstairs-downstairs story, a gentle comedy and an empathic satire; Living is the ultimate proletarian novel, unsentimental and brusque but also tender; Party Going is absolutely like a collision between Kafka and Noel Coward, a brilliant game of chess in which no one knows what piece they are or even what side they are on.
Outstanding in every way.
September 1, 2024
Loving: ****, Living: *****, Party going: **
It's a mystery why English literature fails to honour or even mention Henry Green. A mild modernist, he wrote nine novels, abruptly halting his writing career in 1952.
Filled with relentless tenderness for his characters, Green writes about mundane, trivial events, enlarging them and making them universally human. In Loving, which consists almost entirely of dialogue, the set stage is Kinalty Castle in Ireland. Both upper and lower class talk about the upcoming (first) world war and worry about the IRA. The novel focuses on the budding relationship between Edith, an under-housemaid, and newly appointed butler Charley Raunce. Peacocks are central to the novel: a metaphor for the vain attempts of the staff to climb the social ladder or to better their life prospects. Ironically, the novel concludes with a 'happily ever after' for Edith and Charley, with the reader fully aware that their move to England is a move towards a bloody war.
Another lovely female character is Lily Gates in Living, daughter of Joe, a worker in the grimy Dupret factory in Birmingham. With this novel, we move into the proletarian circles of the factory workers and the upper class owners. Syntax is loosened here: Green drops articles and most sentences have no nouns, which makes for a totally addictive reading. Again, the novel is very humanistic, focusing on a generation gap between the old, worn-out workers and the new upcoming men.
Party going takes place in just 4 hours. A party of shallow rich youngsters finds themselves stranded in London, when dense fog prevents their train departing to the south of France. The style here is impressionistic, Pound-like at times. I enjoyed the contrast between the rich youngsters, who flee to a hotel, and the desolation of the 'common people' stranded on the platforms. Unfortunately the conversation between the 'party goers' is as boring as they are; they even failed to materialize as individuals to me.
It's a mystery why English literature fails to honour or even mention Henry Green. A mild modernist, he wrote nine novels, abruptly halting his writing career in 1952.
Filled with relentless tenderness for his characters, Green writes about mundane, trivial events, enlarging them and making them universally human. In Loving, which consists almost entirely of dialogue, the set stage is Kinalty Castle in Ireland. Both upper and lower class talk about the upcoming (first) world war and worry about the IRA. The novel focuses on the budding relationship between Edith, an under-housemaid, and newly appointed butler Charley Raunce. Peacocks are central to the novel: a metaphor for the vain attempts of the staff to climb the social ladder or to better their life prospects. Ironically, the novel concludes with a 'happily ever after' for Edith and Charley, with the reader fully aware that their move to England is a move towards a bloody war.
Another lovely female character is Lily Gates in Living, daughter of Joe, a worker in the grimy Dupret factory in Birmingham. With this novel, we move into the proletarian circles of the factory workers and the upper class owners. Syntax is loosened here: Green drops articles and most sentences have no nouns, which makes for a totally addictive reading. Again, the novel is very humanistic, focusing on a generation gap between the old, worn-out workers and the new upcoming men.
Party going takes place in just 4 hours. A party of shallow rich youngsters finds themselves stranded in London, when dense fog prevents their train departing to the south of France. The style here is impressionistic, Pound-like at times. I enjoyed the contrast between the rich youngsters, who flee to a hotel, and the desolation of the 'common people' stranded on the platforms. Unfortunately the conversation between the 'party goers' is as boring as they are; they even failed to materialize as individuals to me.
February 27, 2024
Auden called Green the finest living English novelist. But no need to set up a competition.
Updike: His novels have become photographs of a vanished England ... Green's human qualities -- his love of work and laughter, his absolute empath; of vitality within weakness, make him a precious witness to any age.
Notes:
10… I write books but I am not proud of this any more than anyone is of their nails growing
11… I’d been an idler who had at last found something to occupy his mind and hands
Style’s source: Doughty Travels in Arabia 1888. … Arabic a language of the ear, spoken by illiterates.
75… Edith: “I love Charley Raunce I love ‘im I love ‘im so there. I could open the veins of my right arm for that man,” she said, turned her back on Kate, walked out and left her.
77… Capt Davenport in Mrs. Jack’s bed … Kate & Edith: “In her bed” one said, the other echoed, and both shouted with laughter … “All night,” Edith screamed back. Holding their sides they crowed with laughter.
78… and howled she laughed so much, faintly kicking with her legs.
113… The truth is, I’m an old woman and I’m growing simple.
131… Charley to Edith: “Love, what about you an me getting marred?
132… (Bring his mother) She worked hard to raise us when dad died. She had a struggle. Now we’re scattered all over.
207 LIVING 1929 … Updike: Green was only 24. His love for his proletarian characters brims in these pages and might cloy but for the tart comedy of their talk.
216… Kissed in boskage deep low
220… this happening of the bird put him in mind of some stories.
Public house –publican
Paper doylies under bottles
223… alway glad to see the backside of that man’s head
296… It wasn’t altogether unexpected but the doctors had sai he might linger on for months. … He had been no more alive than a log for months.
Updike: His novels have become photographs of a vanished England ... Green's human qualities -- his love of work and laughter, his absolute empath; of vitality within weakness, make him a precious witness to any age.
Notes:
10… I write books but I am not proud of this any more than anyone is of their nails growing
11… I’d been an idler who had at last found something to occupy his mind and hands
Style’s source: Doughty Travels in Arabia 1888. … Arabic a language of the ear, spoken by illiterates.
75… Edith: “I love Charley Raunce I love ‘im I love ‘im so there. I could open the veins of my right arm for that man,” she said, turned her back on Kate, walked out and left her.
77… Capt Davenport in Mrs. Jack’s bed … Kate & Edith: “In her bed” one said, the other echoed, and both shouted with laughter … “All night,” Edith screamed back. Holding their sides they crowed with laughter.
78… and howled she laughed so much, faintly kicking with her legs.
113… The truth is, I’m an old woman and I’m growing simple.
131… Charley to Edith: “Love, what about you an me getting marred?
132… (Bring his mother) She worked hard to raise us when dad died. She had a struggle. Now we’re scattered all over.
207 LIVING 1929 … Updike: Green was only 24. His love for his proletarian characters brims in these pages and might cloy but for the tart comedy of their talk.
216… Kissed in boskage deep low
220… this happening of the bird put him in mind of some stories.
Public house –publican
Paper doylies under bottles
223… alway glad to see the backside of that man’s head
296… It wasn’t altogether unexpected but the doctors had sai he might linger on for months. … He had been no more alive than a log for months.
July 4, 2025
Loving" - a story of life above and below stairs in an Irish country house during World War 2
"Living" - a story exploring love and class distinctions set in an iron foundry in Birmingham UK and
"Party Going" - a story explorinf the comedy of manners among the upper class taking place in a London railway station
Essentially all three novels explore class distinctions through the medium of love whilst contrasting the lives of servanys and their masters. An unforgettable portrait of 1930's life, well written and an original concept for the time.
A thoroughly enjoyablw read - a pity that the author is now almost forgotten.
"Living" - a story exploring love and class distinctions set in an iron foundry in Birmingham UK and
"Party Going" - a story explorinf the comedy of manners among the upper class taking place in a London railway station
Essentially all three novels explore class distinctions through the medium of love whilst contrasting the lives of servanys and their masters. An unforgettable portrait of 1930's life, well written and an original concept for the time.
A thoroughly enjoyablw read - a pity that the author is now almost forgotten.
May 1, 2019
Another bit of classic literature that's a bit hard to read. The author has a fondness for fragments over whole sentences, and it can get confusing at times, or at least hard to follow. This volume is three books in one, mostly dealing with class differences in England. Looking over other reviews of it, I didn't have anywhere near as much of a problem with it as some did, but I wasn't as in love with it as others are.
Decent read, not fantastic. If it hadn't been on one of my far too many lists of books, I'm not sure I would have read it.
Decent read, not fantastic. If it hadn't been on one of my far too many lists of books, I'm not sure I would have read it.
December 18, 2021
While sometimes incredibly boring, I understand the praise for Henry Green's writing. There are plenty of sentences that slap you about the face just as your eyes start to cross from all the toffs gabbing about nothing.
But the gabbing is impressive. At least, how it's written is impressive. Green's dialogue struck me as effortlessly natural. And not all the characters are toffs. In fact, pretty much all three stories contrast the mewling of upper class English bores with the much larger problems of the working class people they encounter.
But the gabbing is impressive. At least, how it's written is impressive. Green's dialogue struck me as effortlessly natural. And not all the characters are toffs. In fact, pretty much all three stories contrast the mewling of upper class English bores with the much larger problems of the working class people they encounter.
December 24, 2022
4 stars: Loving. It's outstanding.
2 stars: Living. I couldn't get through all of this. Flat, predictable characters and plot. Continuing to read it felt like a waste of time.
1 star: Party Going. This was basically unreadable. Countless flat characters introduced in the first 20 pages that were doing what, exactly?
I had tried several times over the years to get through one or both of Living and Party Going and I'm finally admitting defeat. I enjoyed Loving so much, I just had to keep trying. As a Christmas present to myself, I've given up.
2 stars: Living. I couldn't get through all of this. Flat, predictable characters and plot. Continuing to read it felt like a waste of time.
1 star: Party Going. This was basically unreadable. Countless flat characters introduced in the first 20 pages that were doing what, exactly?
I had tried several times over the years to get through one or both of Living and Party Going and I'm finally admitting defeat. I enjoyed Loving so much, I just had to keep trying. As a Christmas present to myself, I've given up.
February 2, 2021
I really tried with this book. This review is only of the first 30 pages of Loving. I wanted to love it. Technically it is written in English but I found the dialogue to be so dense and obtuse as to almost be devoid of meaning.
It was some kind of dialogue between the servants of an English estate in 1939, so it was kind of like Downton Abbey but without the amazing visuals, attractive characters or, as previously mentioned, discernible dialogue.
It was some kind of dialogue between the servants of an English estate in 1939, so it was kind of like Downton Abbey but without the amazing visuals, attractive characters or, as previously mentioned, discernible dialogue.
September 22, 2021
Осталась в недоумении после Loving. Пошла в вики, вики мне объяснила, что это классика, автор - модернист, более успешный у коллег-писателей, чем у рядового читателя (кем я и являюсь). На том и успокоилась. К концу пролистывала. Избыточные диалоги утомляли, замедленный сюжет усыплял, а резкий без предварительных намеков переход из сцены в сцену запутывал. К героям никаких чувств ни у меня, ни, как мне показалось, у автора нет. Остальные два романа в этой книге прочту когда-нибудь. Или никогда.
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