Meet Me in the Green Glen

by Robert Penn Warren

First edition stated. RANDOM HOUSE, NY 1971.
A really strange and complex story of love, betrayal, revenge, and murder in a suspenseful setting. TITLE: MEET ME IN THE GREEN GLEN By ROBERT PENN WARREN 1ST EDITION
AUTHOR: ROBERT PENN WARREN
PUBLISHER - (LOCATION) /COPYRIGHT: RANDOM HOUSE, NY 1971
SIZE: 5 ½ x 8 ½ (approximately) PAGES: 376 pages
EDITION: First edition stated
CATEGORY: First edition
?..SIGNED: No??.
BINDING/COVER: Hardback with dust jacket
COLOR: Cream

Genres: Fiction

376 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935. He received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for All the King's Men (1946) and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1958 and 1979. He is the only person to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry.

Reviews

[AiK · Rating 3 out of 5]

Такое количество нерастраченной нежности, пожалуй, опасно и для любящей и для любимого.

[Metodi Markov · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ужасно тегава и провлачена книга, след 170 страници се отказвам, защото не виждам никакъв смисъл да продължавам да я мъча. По страниците ѝ блуждаят някакви образи, за чието създаване и действия нямам никакво разумно обяснение.

Архаично звучащият превод, макар и от 1980-та година също не помага.

Не мога да повярвам, че из под същото перо е излязъл шедьовърът "Цялото кралско войнство"...

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to read another novel as powerful as "All the Kings Men". Sadly, this wasn't that novel.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

"She sat there with her heart inside her bleeding happiness like a great big plum oozing gold juice in the hot darkness after the sun goes down."

Robert Penn Warren's penultimate novel, "Meet Me in the Green Glen," travels down one of those crossroads you sometimes find in novels, where the story takes a sharp turn and nothing's the same thereafter. "Green Glen" is much the better for that turning point.

This story centers around Cassie Spotwood, a 42-year-old Tennessee woman married to an older man who's now an invalid, and three men in her orbit who seem obsessed with her to various degrees. The arrival of an Italian ex-con, Angelo Passetto, who wanders in to help Cassie around the place as a sort of live-in handyman, leads to a tragedy and a mystery. Cy Grinder is a neighbor in this rural area; he and Cassie had a brief but uneventful romantic relationship when they were young. Murray Guilfort is a lawyer friend of Cassie's husband who brings her occasional money and also has an attraction to Cassie. Then there's a young woman of mixed race whom Angelo dogs until she submits to him — even as Angelo and Cassie are hooking up. That young woman's mother had an affair with Cassie's father. So there are ties and interweavings among these relationships, which Warren explores adequately in the book's first half and beyond.

Still, Angelo's comings and goings around Cassie's house — being intimate with Cassie and the other woman — are low-key and monotonous for the reader. I couldn't help wondering whether, though Warren's writing was still generally potent, he hadn't blown it from not knowing where to go with the tale. I needn't have worried. The turning point — a death — brings a trial, whose occurrence and aftermath bring a needed sense of depth to the previously rather static characters, passion to the story and, most of all, momentum.

Things change as characters begin to think outside the box of "now."

"Just keep now in your head," a character says. "A man can stand anything if it is only just that second. If a man just keeps now in his head, there ain't nothing else."

Everything is sharper and deeper in the final 40 percent of the book, as if Warren suddenly had worn bare the ground his characters had been treading on and found new, more interesting surroundings for them to walk on. Guilfort particularly emerges as a troubling and troubled character.

"Meet Me in the Green Glen" ends up hitting much harder than I ever expected it would, and those patient with the novel's early treading of water will be rewarded.

[Alexa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wish that I could have liked this book more seeing as it was written by the author of my favorite book. I had a really hard time getting into the book, perhaps because I just wasn't very attached to the characters and I didn't quite understand them. I think I also had a hard time because I read this one instead of my usual annual reading of All the King's Men and so, I kept comparing it to that book. Knowing All the King's Men as well as I do, I kept finding similar metaphors and wishing that I were reading All the King's Men instead. It took me months to read the first half of the book because of that, but I finished the second half (which has the majority of the "action") in a few days. I'm afraid I will always find Robert Penn Warren's other novels to be lacking in comparison to All the King's Men.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Robert Penn Warren book - I loved it, except I think that the whole thing would have been much improved if he hadn't insisted on making Antonio Italian. I don't think it added anything, and I found the "fix-a" and "do-a" comments to be highly annoying. Like I said, though, I still loved it.

[Женя · Rating 4 out of 5]

Очень печальная книга...
Сколько раз читала про такое и столько же раз возмущалась, негодовала и поражалась человеческому эгоизму. Что это за родители такие, для которых статус избранника важнее счастья своего ребенка?

Кэсси Спотвуд. Кто она? Пожилая женщина в старом пальто и с винтовкой в руках? Молодая влюбленная девушка, тайно бегающая на свидания? Умиротворенная пациентка психбольницы? Элегантная желанная дама в красном платье? Забитая, незаметная тень своего мужа? Ревнивая особа, обрекшая на смерть своего любимого? А может, хладнокровный убийца?
А могла ведь быть просто женщиной, где-то счастливой, где-то не очень... Если бы только любимый оглянулся... Во всяком случае, я всю вину списываю на это недоразумение.

Но все сложилось иначе - жизнь, потраченная на нелюбимого мужа; года пролетающие и ничего после себя не оставляющие. И вдруг - Он. Молодой, неприкаянный, побитый жизнью. Никто не ожидал, что между ними что-то может быть и они тем более. Какое будущее их ждало? Наверно, никакое... Но это должны были решить они! А не "общественное мнение" и человеческая зависть!

Обидно, что судьба Анджело решилась как-то мимоходом. Хотя он же даго, а кого волнует какой-то итальяшка? И как не странно, но Кесси у меня не получается осудить и я нахожу оправдания всем ее поступкам.

[Zelenkroki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Тази книга ме намери. Нищичко не бях чела, нито бях гледала екранизациите на авторовите романи.
Потърсих я в електронен вид. Няма я.
Четох с желание, защото отчаянието на разбития живот около постелята на един силен, властен и възрастен мъж, придобил младия разбит живот с насилие, е описано красиво.
Младата жена, която постепенно пропилява младостта си около нелюбим мъж, има страшна сила.
Това са истинските истории, в които и да има за фон социални, исторически събития, те не се случват в живота на героинята.
Сега, след прочита и на другия роман с популярното заглавие, надали ще е добре да ги сравнявам.
Но повелителното заглавие ме заведе в зелената долина. И ще ми е трудно да забравя, че има справедливо убийство. И несправедлив свят с жестоки присъди, дори когато няма свидетели за тях.

[Drew Norwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

My least favorite of RPW’s novels, though not altogether bad. The epilogue was very effective at casting the story in a clearer light. Many of Warren’s novels are dark or bleak, but this one felt more despondent than the others. This may be due to the nature of the story—Cassie Spottwood’s tragic life. Or it may be due to the absence of a strong foil, or some literary counterbalance, that is usually present (i.e., a Willie Proudfit, Ashby Wyndham, or an Old Tom Barron). Cy Grinder is the best candidate to fill this role but his character is not as filled in, not as persuasive. On top of this, I felt that the themes in this novel did not shine through as clearly as they usually do for Warren.

[Jim Bullington · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found some Robert Penn Warren books that I had not read in a used book store. I had forgotten what reading the works of a really great author was like. Additional character development in the last portion of the book is just an example. This story unfolded with compassion for characters on both sides of the story and allowed the reader to follow the changes to lives caused by life experiences. Maybe I will just read books that are at least 50 years old for a while.

[Elizabeth]

…..for something was like a big hand, reaching through his ribs, a hand big enough to grab his heart like a wet wash rag and squeeze it into award, and then that hand was tearing his heart out by the roots, while he’s still there, trapped in that atrocity of anguish, and could not breathe.

[Rose]

I was not 20 years old when I read this book and all I remember was that it was a puzzle to me. I did not understand it though I knew there was something great about it.