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