Concluding by Henry Green (1948) - with my suggestions for those new to Green

My Posts on Henry Green

Henry Green (1905 to 1973, Yorkshire, England, real name Henry Yorke) is widely described as a "writer's writer".  His friend Elizabeth Bowen said he was a consummate master of dialogue.  He published eight novels and a few short stories and a bit of journalism.  (You can find background information on him in my prior posts.)   I am happy and sad to say I have now read all of his novels.

Concluding is set in a girl's school in an alternative future England.  The job of the school is to produce future civil servants.  For reasons we never learn, all the first names of the students begin with an "M".  Some sort of mildly oppressive regime is running England though we never learn what happened or much about it.  One morning two students are reported missing.  Much of the undertone of the novel centers on the sexual awaking of the girls.  The principals think 16 to 18 year old girls have no consciousness at all about sex.

The central characters, all partially ciphers, are an elderly man who lives with his granddaughter in a cottage on the ground and two female school leaders who want to kick him out.  Everything is very understated as Green readers would expect.  This is a novel for a Green believers.

I would strongly suggest anyone wanting to begin to read Green, start with the collection of three novels sold as a bundle, Loving, Living, and Party Going. My guess these works will send you, as it did me, on a journey through complete novels of Green.  Most are about 200 pages.

Green is a modernist writer.  His conversations are wonderful.  

Mel u

Caught-London Writings by Henry Green (1943)

"Henry Green is a writer who always seems to need "introducing", like a stranger at a party: dark, louche, awkward. It is odd, this need, because in his life he had friends enough, while his novels were viewed by people of dependable judgment as being among the best - perhaps the very best - of their time. Is it just that to later generations he is a little too "difficult"? Is it merely that Green requires a fraction more concentration than Greene? Perhaps so; but it is puzzling, this chronic shyness, when what his admirers are chiefly claiming for him is that he brings pleasure - a pleasure more intense, more original, more rewarding than that offered by any of his contemporaries."  Sebastian Falks (from The Guardian).

Henry Green (the pen name for Henry Yorke-1905 to 1973, UK) was born into real wealth.   His father was a wealthy industrialist, land owner and was an intensely cultured man.   . Green was descended from barons on both parental sides.     He grew up in and would always live in a great manor house.      He was educated at Eaton and Oxford.   Upon leaving Oxford (he never completed a degree) he of his own volition went to work on the floor of one of his father's factories.    He would later become a manager but always worked for the family company.     During WWII he was a volunteer fireman.   He married a second cousin and had an odd but enduring marriage.   Caught -London Writings is based on his time as a volunteer fireman in London during the Blitz.  

With Caught-London Writings I have read and posted on seven of Green's eight novels.  Gravity's Rainbow is set partially during the blitz in London.  Green was actually there and wrote about it in the middle of the war. Caught-London Writings deals  with the heightened state of sexual interest the bombings produced.   It was not only simply a let us live for now as tomorrow we may die feeling but the actual explosions and fires were felt by many as an impulse to sexual activity frowned on my conventional morality.  Elizabeth Bowen experienced and wrote on these themes (she was an air raid warden in London during the war years).  In the just published Love Charms of Bombs:  Restless Lives in World War Two, a very well done study of English novels written by writers in London during the war years, says Caught-London Writings by Henry Green is the best literary account of the blitz, especially the impact it had on British libidos.  

Caught-London Writings is very concerned with, as is all of Green's work I have yet read, with class distinctions, small markers to identify people.  He is considered a master of dialect and is one of the few writers who make use of this that do not annoy me.  The main character in this story of a volunteer fireman comes from an upper class affluent background.  In the firehouse he mixes socially for the first time with ordinary people.  The firemen live in the firehouse during their duty sessions, from 48 to 96 hours and then are off for 48 hours or so.  Green is very much a dialogue driven writer and much of the plot narrative comes through the conversations.  

We see the way the fireman use their free time to hunt for women in the London nights.  Written when the outcome of the war was far from certain, some of the sex scenes had to have seemed shocking.  We can feel the heat of the Blitz in the marvelous prose of Green.  In one very vivid scene he described how the London subways entrances gave off great heat when filled with shelter seekers.  You can also see the lead character learning to interact with his fellow firemen.  As soon as England declared war on Germany, Londoners braised themselves for a massive fire bomb raid.  Nothing happened for months and the firemen began to get restless. When the raids at last come, Green makes us feel we are there and we experience the real fear and death they brought.  In one terrible paragraph he talks of pigeons on fire.    We learn about the fire men's  lives and loves.  Green likes word play as you can see in his naming firemen Pye and Row.   Class and money distinctions never go away in the blitz, the rich can stay in deluxe private bomb shelters, but they go away.  Poorer firemen cannot even afford drinks.  Green, he ought to know, shows how many sought refuge in alcohol.  

In getting started in Green, Vintage Press has bundled in print and kindle editions his consensus three best novels, Loving, Living, and Party Going in one edition, so you should probably start there.  None if his novels are over 250 pages.   

Green is an addictive writer.  I have one of his novels still to read, Caught, will read it soon, I hope.

Blindness by Henry Green

Blindness by Henry Green ( 1926, 160 pages)

Blindness is the first novel of Henry Green  (1905 to 1973-UK-aka Henry Yorke.)  Of the seven Green novels I have read, this one is the only one that does not largely tell the story through the wonderful dialogue Green is so famous for, and which I do love.    Blindness is a very different sort of book, from the others, both in subject matter and narrative method.  Basically it is about a young man, a bookish lad in a comfortable family in his late teens or early twenties with the prospect of a great life before him who is blinded for life by a boy who for no reason throws a rock at the window of a train and it ends up blinding the protagonist of the story.   The book starts out with a section in the form of a journal of the central character and it ends very starkly when we discover, as relayed in a very inventive fashion, he will be blind the rest of his life.  

The rest of the book is about his attempting to cope with his blindness, his material wants will be provided for by family money so he is luckier than most would be, and we see his hard to love mother adjusting to his condition. She plans to find a wife to take care of him so she will not be over burdened.    The mother finds it kind of annoying and a bit of a bother to have to cope with and I was not crazy for her.   The book is also about the increased development of his hearing and powers of visualization brought on by his blindness.

OK, bottom line, Mel could barely
keep awake he just won't admit it"
Carmila



Mel u

This is a decent novel but I personally did not like it as much as the other six.   Maybe it was the grim subject matter or the lack of the dialogue  I liked so much but I felt I was reading it more to complete Green's novel than because I enjoying it.    I am glad I read it as I want to read all of his novels.  I think I have two to go.   I hope to read one in 2013 and one by 2015.  

Doting by Henry Green

Doting by Henry Green (1952, 1972 pages)

Doting is, just like the other five Henry Green (1905 to 1973-UK) novels I have read, is a pure delight.  OK maybe not so pure as their is a delightfully wicked man caught by his wife with a woman without a dress on scene that is wicked good fun.  Green is considered one of the great  master of dialogue.   Nobody in Doting goes on and on for hundreds of words about deep topics,  it is just real conversation as real people do it.   The people in this story are I guess upper middle class people from England, still under the post war time effects of rationing and still getting back to normal life.   In a way this book, as are others of his, is about the decline of a way of life.   I would say just read Green for fun and you can go deeper if you want.

"This sounds so exciting, I
hope I can keep awake until
the post is over"-Carmila

I do not want to give the details of the scene where the man was caught with another woman, one much younger than his wife.   He, of course, comes up with the most plausible lie he possibly can but his wife is having none of it.   She goes on and on about this and will be using it to guilt trip him the rest of their lives, only to make it all worse he never did anything with the woman and his wife is a long time adulterous.   Married men will cringe during her conversations with him about this incident.

There is more exposition in this novel than in the prior Green novel I read, Nothing.   I will pass on saying which Green novel is best, the consensus pick seems to be Loving, but I think I liked reading this one at least as much as any of the others.

The characters are very well developed and I was interested in them from the start.  Green is a wonderful prose stylist.    So far I have read six of his novels.  I will next read his first novel, Blindness, and then I will save the remaining  two for 2013 and 2014.

Please share your experience with Green with us.

Mel u

Nothing by Henry Green

Nothing by Henry Green (1950, 162 pages)

I was very happy and more than a little shocked to see the Vintage Books edition of three Henry Green novels Nothing, Doting and Blindness in one of the chain book stores in SM Mega Mall in Quezon City.   The mall is huge on top of huge  but not the sort of place that probably has a lot of buyers of novels by Henry Green.    Green (1905 to 1973, UK, real name Henry Yorke) is considered one of the master prose stylists of the modern novel.   Elizabeth Bowen said he captured better than anyone else the real patterns and rhythm of conversations.   I have previously posted on four of his novels, Living, Loving, Party Going and Back. (There is some background information on Green in my prior posts.)  I now have four Green novels to go and hope to read and post on them all by the end of 2013.


Green would have been a fabulous success as a script writer for the American TV show, Seinfeld, a show about nothing.   Nothing (I am keeping some of my posts briefer than normal for a while as I am behind on my posting) is about a few maybe slightly more than middle class people in post World War II England.   The whole story revolves around a few people and whether or not they will have affairs with each other (when they actually do something, it is somehow more exciting than many explicit sex filled works as the people see so real) and whether or not their adult children will marry and the consequences of remarriage on a beloved child.  Almost all of the plot action of the story is developed in the dialogues.   Nobody utters any real long statements or makes any grand utterances about life,  they just talk and it is wonderful.   I do not think anyone speaks more than twenty words at a time.   


Reading Nothing kind of reminded my having of a Starbucks Strawberry Creme Frappuccino, I really enjoyed consuming it and when I have gone long enough without either one, then I will repeat the experience.


Mel u

Back by Henry Green

Back by Henry Green (1946, 340 KB)

I was very happy when I saw Stu of Winston's Dad was hosting a Henry Green Week from Jan 23 to Jan 31, 2012 to encourage people to read and post on the work of Henry Green.   I have read three novels of Henry Green, Loving, Living, and Party Going.    Penguin  Books has in a very generous gesture packaged all three of these books (average length about 175 pages) in one volume (also available as a Kindle edition).

 I admit I had never even heard of him until Victoria Glendinning in her biography of Elizabeth Bowen mentioned that Green and Elizabeth Bowen were friends.   Bowen is quoted as saying Green was one the very few English novelists who could reproduce the actual sensations of living people talking.    

Henry Green (the pen name for Henry Yorke-1905 to 1973, UK) was born into real wealth.   His father was a wealthy industrialist, land owner and was an intensely cultured man.    John Updike in his brilliant introduction to Green works  tells us that Green's father was an amateur connoisseur of country dialect.    I could see this spilling over in the novels in Green's wonderful handling of the speech of Birmingham factory workers.   I have said before that I do not like the use of country dialects in novels.   Green is so good at  this I loved it when he did it.   Green was descended from barons on both parental sides.     He grew up in and would always live in a great manors house.      He was educated at Eaton and Oxford.   Upon leaving Oxford (he never completed a degree) he of his own volition went to work on the floor of one of his father's factories.    He would later become a manager but always worked for the family company.     During WWII he was a volunteer fireman.   He married a second cousin and had an odd but enduring marriage.  

Back (you have to love the title's Green gave to his novels) centers on Charley Summers who spent four years in a German prisoner of war camp.   He lost his leg to a German sniper.   He was repatriated to England before the war was over in exchange for a German captive of the British who was also in need of medical care.     When he returns he finds the woman he loved with all his heart, Rose, has died.

Back in terms of plot action is about Charley's issues in getting over the death of Rose, he does not, and in fitting into the austerity of WWII England.   It is really hard for me to describe the brilliance and wonder of Back.   It is about people trying to survive a war among other things.   In one very hard breaking scene Charley goes to call on the parents of the woman he loved who had married someone else while he was gone.   The parents of Rose had lost a son in the war and this seems to have nearly unhinged the mother.   It was very real and very sad to see the father dealing with his wife when she thought Charley was perhaps their son returning from the war.   

We feel for Charley as he somehow confuses Rose's half sister for Rose and I felt bad for him as he  tried to cope with working as clerk in a government job.   We hear very little of the years he spent in the German prison camp but it must some how overshadow all his other issues and make it hard for him to relate to those who have not had these experiences.   He may be back physically but he will never really be back in spirit.   

The prose of Henry Green is a great joy to read.   I find I cannot describe or explain why I like it so much but I do.   He is a real master at conversations.   Charley cannot really express his emotions and maybe he is expressive of the muted character of the British   Green's prose is probably not for everyone, it is odd.     It needs to be read slowly and savored.   

The ending which I will leave unspoiled is simply devastating.    I admit I was shocked by it and find it hard to fully understand.

Green stopped writing novels and lived on for another twenty years.   During this time he became very absorbed in study the Ottoman Empire and did some very serious drinking.  

I suggest those new to Green start with Loving, which most consider his best work, or my personal favorite, Party Going.   If you do not have access to a library which will have one of Green's books, the practical thing to do is to buy the three book collection which actually costs about the same as just Back does.  I also have his novel based on his experiences as a volunteer fireman during WWII in London, Concluding and hope to read in in 2012 or maybe I will wait for Harry Green Week in 2013!

Please share your experience with Green with is and go to Winston's Dad for a lot more information and links to other posts on Green.   

Mel u

Henry Green-Three Novels-Loving, Living, and Party Going

Loving (1945, 187 pages), Living (1929, 177 pages) and Party Going (1939, 145 pages) all by Henry Green

Henry Green is not much in fashion now.  I just did a Google Blog Search and could find no posts dedicated to his work.    According to a bit of research I did, 50 years ago he  was very widely read.   I admit I had never even heard of him until Victoria Glendinning mentioned that Green and Elizabeth Bowen were friends.   Bowen said Green was one the very few English novelists who could reproduce the actual sensations of living.    

Henry Green (the pen name for Henry Yorke-1905 to 1973, UK) was born into real wealth.   His father was a wealthy industrialist, land owner and was an intensely cultured man.    John Updike in his brilliant introduction to these three works  (Penguin Press has very generously printed all three of these novels in one book)  tells us that Green's father was an amateur connoisseur of country dialect.    I could see this spilling over in the novels in Green's wonderful handling of the speech of Birmingham factory workers.   I have said before that I do not like the use of country dialects in novels.   Green is so good at  this I loved it when he did it.   Green was descended from barons on both parental sides.     He grew up in and would always live in a great manors house.      He was educated at Eaton and Oxford.   Upon leaving Oxford (he never completed a degree) he of his own volition went to work on the floor of one of his father's factories.    He would later become a manager but always worked for the family company.     During WWII he was a volunteer fireman.   He married a second cousin and had an odd but enduring marriage.   

He wrote nine novels.   The three I read are considered his best work.   Party Going is considered his master work.   All three of his novels do have an "Upstairs, Downstairs" feel to them.   All of them are about the contrast of the lives of people from the "working classes" and the leisure or moneyed class.    His rich are not the owners of factories they are their  born never to have to worry children.  

Loving is set in an Irish Castle.   It deals with separate and not equal worlds,  with the servants and the masters.    To me Green does a brilliant job depicting the relationships between all the various elements in the novel.    I admit at the end I cringed when I saw the extreme contempt in which the  English mistress of the house held the Irish servants in her employ.


Living seems the most autobiographical of  the three novels.   It is set largely on the floor of a Birmingham, England factory but it also deals with the factory owners.     I loved, and this is a big admission for me, the use of "country dialect" in the novel.    Green has an amazing mastery over language.

Party Going is set in a railroad station.    The station is closed due to extreme fog.    This story mostly deals with the rich people in the VIP cars and how they cope but it also is concerned with how ordinary people deal with it also.    Again, the rich in the story are the pampered adult children of wealth.   I


I love Green's prose.   It is just so amazing.   I wish I could describe it but I cannot.  Here are a few lines from Living I was amazed by:   "Then children went into houses from streets along with these men and girls.   Women gave them to eat.   Were only sparrows now in the streets.    But on the roads, ceaselessly cars came in from country, or they went out into it, in, out".    There are just so many wonderful passages.   His work is also a very acute character study.   Green is not easy on his own class.  


Green took eight years to write Party Going.   He pretty much also lived up to the title and descended more and more into terrible drinking and serial infidelity.   In the last twenty years of his life he developed an extreme interest in the Ottoman Empire.

I think a lot of people who read my blog would love these novels. I for sure did.   They are a little 'odd" and the plot action does not unfold in a straightforward way but once you get 30 pages into his work you might be so in love with his prose you will not care if you can even follow the plot at all.    I found him to be near mesmerizing.

If you have read Green please leave a comment

thanks

Mel u