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Doting
Written almost completely in dialogue, Henry Green's final novel is a biting comedy of manners that exposes the deceptive difference between those who love and those who "dote." Arthur Middleton is a middle-aged member of the upper-middle class living in post-World War II London with his wife. Stuck in a passionless marriage, Arthur becomes infatuated with Annabel, a much younger woman. Their relationship sets into motion a series of intertwining affairs between five close friends less concerned with love than with their attempts to keep the other lovers apart.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1952
About the author
Henry Green
80 books198 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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January 15, 2022
MARTEDÌ VIEN DOPO LUNEDÌ
Cathleen Mann: Gruppo di scrittori. Henry Green è ritratto al centro.
Che strano scrittore questo Green, senza la ‘e’ finale: poco tradotto, quel poco con scarso o punto successo da noi (ma Alberto Arbasino lo porta in palmo di mano, ed è proprio grazie ai consigli d’Arbasino che io l’ho scoperto, frequentato, apprezzato molto) – all’estero lodato dai colleghi (Auden, Waugh, Bowen, Updike), ma anche lì il successo di pubblico è assai scarso.
Scrittore obliquo, di non facile interpretazione.
A cominciare dai suoi titoli, quasi tutti terminanti in ‘ing’, in inglese suffisso del participio presente o del gerundio: Loving, Living, Party Going, Doting, Concluding, perfino Nothing, che però non è né participio né gerundio.
Forse un suo manierismo, forse per indicare che nei suoi romanzi più che fatti e azioni, ci sono modi di vivere.
Sembra sempre che parli di niente e che i suoi romanzi siano dense ragnatele di insinuazioni, sulla fragile impalcatura di una conversazione da salotto. Alla larga da qualsiasi penetrazione psicologica.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard: Il bacio rubato, 1788. Museo dell’Ermitage di San Pietroburgo.
Guido Almansi mi viene in soccorso con la sua geniale e affascinante teoria: in balistica si deve alzare il tiro per colpire un bersaglio distante – in teatro, e nel romanzo bisogna fare l’opposto, abbassare il tiro, sparare raso terra per raggiungere bersagli che sono molto alti.
In questo Green è un campione, rimane in superficie, ma è solo un tranello.
E qui mi viene in soccorso Giorgio Melchiori che sostiene che Green costruisce una struttura perfetta, bella nella sua delicata sequenza di scene, tenuta insieme da un ritmo costante, sicché l’impressione finale è simile a quella di un’opera di Mozart: un edificio musicale costituito di eleganti nonnulla, ma ricco di una forza di penetrazione stranamente patetica.
Non posso non pensare a Ivy Compton-Burnett.
La Sala di Nicola del Palazzo d’Inverno di San Pietroburgo.
Anche “Doting-Passioni”, l’ultimo romanzo di Green (1952), è costruito essenzialmente sui dialoghi, in assenza quasi totale di descrizioni, a parte brevi introduzioni al dialogo stesso.
Conversazioni vuote, di cui Green mi pare campione (anche se non posso far confronti con Pinter che conosco troppo poco, ma si dice che nessuno lo batta).
Conversazioni che giocano sulle parole, a cominciare da quella del titolo: doting significa perdere la testa, diventare sciocchi per amore, stravedere, essere appassionato, rimbambito d’amor senile.
Dean Cornwell, Options,1917.
In “Doting-Passioni” sono in scena sei personaggi del ceto medio-alto.
All’inizio e alla fine i sei personaggi vengono presentati insieme, mentre per il resto del romanzo i dialoghi offrono tutte le combinazioni possibili tra le varie coppie.
Questo equilibrio geometrico accentua l’astrazione stilizzata dell’opera. Impressione rafforzata dalla cornice temporale: l’azione, o meglio, il dialogo è compreso all’interno di una vacanza scolastica, tra due feste date una alla partenza e l’altra al ritorno dalle vacanze di un ragazzo, che è solo una comparsa.
I sei intrecciano una classica conversazione à la Green. E quindi, banalità: avventure, infatuazioni, casuali incontri erotici, matrimonio, rispetto delle apparenze, rimpianto della giovinezza...
L’explicit del romanzo è:
Il giorno dopo andarono tutti avanti allo stesso modo.
E cioè, martedì vien dopo lunedì, come diceva Virginia Woolf.
Illustrazione di Tim Robinson.
Cathleen Mann: Gruppo di scrittori. Henry Green è ritratto al centro.
Che strano scrittore questo Green, senza la ‘e’ finale: poco tradotto, quel poco con scarso o punto successo da noi (ma Alberto Arbasino lo porta in palmo di mano, ed è proprio grazie ai consigli d’Arbasino che io l’ho scoperto, frequentato, apprezzato molto) – all’estero lodato dai colleghi (Auden, Waugh, Bowen, Updike), ma anche lì il successo di pubblico è assai scarso.
Scrittore obliquo, di non facile interpretazione.
A cominciare dai suoi titoli, quasi tutti terminanti in ‘ing’, in inglese suffisso del participio presente o del gerundio: Loving, Living, Party Going, Doting, Concluding, perfino Nothing, che però non è né participio né gerundio.
Forse un suo manierismo, forse per indicare che nei suoi romanzi più che fatti e azioni, ci sono modi di vivere.
Sembra sempre che parli di niente e che i suoi romanzi siano dense ragnatele di insinuazioni, sulla fragile impalcatura di una conversazione da salotto. Alla larga da qualsiasi penetrazione psicologica.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard: Il bacio rubato, 1788. Museo dell’Ermitage di San Pietroburgo.
Guido Almansi mi viene in soccorso con la sua geniale e affascinante teoria: in balistica si deve alzare il tiro per colpire un bersaglio distante – in teatro, e nel romanzo bisogna fare l’opposto, abbassare il tiro, sparare raso terra per raggiungere bersagli che sono molto alti.
In questo Green è un campione, rimane in superficie, ma è solo un tranello.
E qui mi viene in soccorso Giorgio Melchiori che sostiene che Green costruisce una struttura perfetta, bella nella sua delicata sequenza di scene, tenuta insieme da un ritmo costante, sicché l’impressione finale è simile a quella di un’opera di Mozart: un edificio musicale costituito di eleganti nonnulla, ma ricco di una forza di penetrazione stranamente patetica.
Non posso non pensare a Ivy Compton-Burnett.
La Sala di Nicola del Palazzo d’Inverno di San Pietroburgo.
Anche “Doting-Passioni”, l’ultimo romanzo di Green (1952), è costruito essenzialmente sui dialoghi, in assenza quasi totale di descrizioni, a parte brevi introduzioni al dialogo stesso.
Conversazioni vuote, di cui Green mi pare campione (anche se non posso far confronti con Pinter che conosco troppo poco, ma si dice che nessuno lo batta).
Conversazioni che giocano sulle parole, a cominciare da quella del titolo: doting significa perdere la testa, diventare sciocchi per amore, stravedere, essere appassionato, rimbambito d’amor senile.
Dean Cornwell, Options,1917.
In “Doting-Passioni” sono in scena sei personaggi del ceto medio-alto.
All’inizio e alla fine i sei personaggi vengono presentati insieme, mentre per il resto del romanzo i dialoghi offrono tutte le combinazioni possibili tra le varie coppie.
Questo equilibrio geometrico accentua l’astrazione stilizzata dell’opera. Impressione rafforzata dalla cornice temporale: l’azione, o meglio, il dialogo è compreso all’interno di una vacanza scolastica, tra due feste date una alla partenza e l’altra al ritorno dalle vacanze di un ragazzo, che è solo una comparsa.
I sei intrecciano una classica conversazione à la Green. E quindi, banalità: avventure, infatuazioni, casuali incontri erotici, matrimonio, rispetto delle apparenze, rimpianto della giovinezza...
L’explicit del romanzo è:
Il giorno dopo andarono tutti avanti allo stesso modo.
E cioè, martedì vien dopo lunedì, come diceva Virginia Woolf.
Illustrazione di Tim Robinson.
April 15, 2018
The first novel I read by Henry Green was LOVING.
I instantly had the feeling that I “fell in love with” his writing, and I embarked on a journey to discover all of his nine novels. Now, reading DOTING, his last work, and my eighth Henry Green (wanting to conclude with CONCLUDING made me mix up the chronology of his novels), I realise that the novel LOVING actually initiated my DOTING on Henry Green, while I am now capable of saying, reading DOTING, that I am LOVING his words.
Eh?
Well, trying to make sense of the strange and intricate web of feelings that human beings develop for each other, Henry Green muses on the difference between DOTING and LOVING, and in his last novel DOTING, he is CONCLUDING that there actually is a clear distinction:
“What’s he at now?” Mr Middleton asked.
“An anthology of love poetry he’s to call ‘Doting’. Don’t you agree it’s a marvellous title?”
“Well, you know doting, to me, is not loving.”
“I don’t follow”, she said with a small frown.
“To my mind love must include adoration of course, but if you just dote on a girl you don’t necessarily go so far as to love her. Loving goes deeper.”
“Well”, she suggested, “perhaps the same words could mean different things to men and women.”
“Possibly”, he said. “Perhaps not.”
And Henry Green adds a layer to the depth of love. LOVING, as opposed to DOTING, hurts. It is exclusive and comes with rights and duties and arrangements beyond passion, adoration and attraction. It is sometimes annoying, boring, and frustrating, but the commitment of LOVING makes people endure the negative aspects and continue together, despite pain. The deeper feeling of absolute belonging is bought at the price of familiarity and ownership, which kills DOTING.
Of all Henry Green’s novels, this one hurt most to read. A strange thing to say, considering the fact that other stories describe much more dramatic situations (set during the war, or dealing with death and criminal offences). It is true regardless. This one hurt most. The complete honesty with which he demonstrates the dynamics of a long term marriage is hard to swallow at times. If they are LOVING each other, how can they engage in other affairs, DOTING on the excitement of a new coupling constellation? How can they hurt each other so much?
The answer is in the strange pendulum movement between LOVING and DOTING. The thrill of adoration and sexual attraction wears off in long, stable relationships, and the magic of first encounters cannot be brought back if you sit in front of each other at the dinner table every single day for 18 or 19 years (the couple can’t agree on how long they have been together!).
DOTING and LOVING is like having the cake and eating it. Not possible on a regular basis, but desirable. As love hurts, some characters choose not to engage at all, but to keep on the surface of things, DOTING without LOVING. That doesn’t work out either, as most people, when DOTING on each other, gravitate towards the need to claim exclusive rights and towards LOVING. A person who chooses merely to participate in the relationship puzzle on the surface risks being left alone in the end, surrounded by LOVING, unhappy couples.
If you just look at that surface of course, without digging deeper, there is not much difference between DOTING and LOVING - to the point that a LOVING dialogue between spouses is almost word for word reproduced between DOTING lovers (one of which is married). On a deeper level, however, there is an ocean between those dialogues.
“You can love almost anyone as long as you don’t expect to be happy”, is the CONCLUDING wisdom. Somehow, it is still worth it, Henry Green seems to say, as he lets his characters continue their boring, frustrating, yet LOVING relationships after an interval of highly emotional turmoil in the realm of DOTING.
Few people would be honest enough to speak about the problematic feelings involved in LOVING, and many people mistake DOTING for LOVING. Bliss is when those two words coincide, every once in a while! That is when deep understanding of yourself and another person is possible.
From LOVING to DOTING, I have moved from DOTING to LOVING. It is time for CONCLUDING!
I instantly had the feeling that I “fell in love with” his writing, and I embarked on a journey to discover all of his nine novels. Now, reading DOTING, his last work, and my eighth Henry Green (wanting to conclude with CONCLUDING made me mix up the chronology of his novels), I realise that the novel LOVING actually initiated my DOTING on Henry Green, while I am now capable of saying, reading DOTING, that I am LOVING his words.
Eh?
Well, trying to make sense of the strange and intricate web of feelings that human beings develop for each other, Henry Green muses on the difference between DOTING and LOVING, and in his last novel DOTING, he is CONCLUDING that there actually is a clear distinction:
“What’s he at now?” Mr Middleton asked.
“An anthology of love poetry he’s to call ‘Doting’. Don’t you agree it’s a marvellous title?”
“Well, you know doting, to me, is not loving.”
“I don’t follow”, she said with a small frown.
“To my mind love must include adoration of course, but if you just dote on a girl you don’t necessarily go so far as to love her. Loving goes deeper.”
“Well”, she suggested, “perhaps the same words could mean different things to men and women.”
“Possibly”, he said. “Perhaps not.”
And Henry Green adds a layer to the depth of love. LOVING, as opposed to DOTING, hurts. It is exclusive and comes with rights and duties and arrangements beyond passion, adoration and attraction. It is sometimes annoying, boring, and frustrating, but the commitment of LOVING makes people endure the negative aspects and continue together, despite pain. The deeper feeling of absolute belonging is bought at the price of familiarity and ownership, which kills DOTING.
Of all Henry Green’s novels, this one hurt most to read. A strange thing to say, considering the fact that other stories describe much more dramatic situations (set during the war, or dealing with death and criminal offences). It is true regardless. This one hurt most. The complete honesty with which he demonstrates the dynamics of a long term marriage is hard to swallow at times. If they are LOVING each other, how can they engage in other affairs, DOTING on the excitement of a new coupling constellation? How can they hurt each other so much?
The answer is in the strange pendulum movement between LOVING and DOTING. The thrill of adoration and sexual attraction wears off in long, stable relationships, and the magic of first encounters cannot be brought back if you sit in front of each other at the dinner table every single day for 18 or 19 years (the couple can’t agree on how long they have been together!).
DOTING and LOVING is like having the cake and eating it. Not possible on a regular basis, but desirable. As love hurts, some characters choose not to engage at all, but to keep on the surface of things, DOTING without LOVING. That doesn’t work out either, as most people, when DOTING on each other, gravitate towards the need to claim exclusive rights and towards LOVING. A person who chooses merely to participate in the relationship puzzle on the surface risks being left alone in the end, surrounded by LOVING, unhappy couples.
If you just look at that surface of course, without digging deeper, there is not much difference between DOTING and LOVING - to the point that a LOVING dialogue between spouses is almost word for word reproduced between DOTING lovers (one of which is married). On a deeper level, however, there is an ocean between those dialogues.
“You can love almost anyone as long as you don’t expect to be happy”, is the CONCLUDING wisdom. Somehow, it is still worth it, Henry Green seems to say, as he lets his characters continue their boring, frustrating, yet LOVING relationships after an interval of highly emotional turmoil in the realm of DOTING.
Few people would be honest enough to speak about the problematic feelings involved in LOVING, and many people mistake DOTING for LOVING. Bliss is when those two words coincide, every once in a while! That is when deep understanding of yourself and another person is possible.
From LOVING to DOTING, I have moved from DOTING to LOVING. It is time for CONCLUDING!
November 24, 2023
…she let him kiss her, freely.
He got quite out of breath in the end.
‘Oh, let’s go next door!’ the man murmured, at last.
‘No, Arthur,’ she said, in a different voice.
‘D’you mean that?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Miss Paynton answered, and slewed her mouth away from his.
‘How can one tell when girls mean no?’ he whispered, kissing the lobe of an ear.
‘By believing them, dearest', she told the man. He seemed to credit this, for, after a moment, he drew away and began to fiddle with his tie.
Indeed.
December 31, 2017
Piccoli crimini coniugali.
Lei
Lui
Il figlio diciassettenne di Lei e di Lui
L'amica diciannovenne di Lei e di Lui
L'amica dell'amica di Lei e di Lui
L'amico di vecchia data di Lei e di Lui.
Sei personaggi, mai tutti in scena contemporaneamente (se non nel finale), e solo dialoghi (perlopiù serratissimi) botta e risposta e dal sapore teatrale, permettono alla storia, essenzialmente basata su equivoci e bugie, baci, languide carezze e qualche lacrima furtiva, di svelarsi di battuta in battuta (anche grazie a piccoli colpi di scena e divertenti rivelazioni dalla perfetta geometria narrativa) agli occhi del sempre più incuriosito e divertito lettore.
Solo due righe, poco più o poco meno, per introdurre il cambio di scena.
La verità è che tutta la storia, alla quale si assiste, da spettatori, quasi senza prendere mai fiato, divertiti e attenti, è il pretesto per assistere al duello, ora a colpi di fioretto, ora di sciabola, fra Arthur e Diane, Lui e Lei, e alla rappresentazione, a tratti grottesca (ma mai in maniera repellente) di quello che è il loro matrimonio, e degli escamotage, anche sorprendenti, che usano per fronteggiarsi, ravvivarlo, mantenerlo e, talvolta, rianimarlo.
Piacevole scoperta, questo Henry Green, di cui ignorantemente ignoravo tutto, scrittore inglese dei primi anni Cinquanta del Novecento che scopro essere più amato dagli scrittori che dai lettori (e questo, solo in parte, mi conforta riguardo alla mia ignoranza), di cui ringrazio @orsodimondo e il suo commento.
Lo humor e il sarcasmo che contraddistinguono questo testo sono sì fortemente british, e in questo senso penso possa considerarsi il progenitore e forse l'apripista per autori teatrali e non che tanto apprezzo, da Alan Bennett a Michael Frayn passando per Alan Ayckbourn, ma il testo stesso, i sotterfugi e le relazioni, ne fanno materia sempre attuale e universale.
Da leggere, sghignazzando sotto ai baffi, e poi correre anche a (ri)leggere Piccoli crimini coniugali, che ci mostra la (quasi) stessa materia trattata con quel tocco francese e di empatia in più capace di coinvolgere noi mediterranei persino nella sua evoluzione noir.
[Il rispetto] - L'unico modo per conquistarselo è vivere abbastanza a lungo con qualcun altro.
Due interessanti approfondimenti: uno sul The New Yorker e l'altro su Independent
Lei
Lui
Il figlio diciassettenne di Lei e di Lui
L'amica diciannovenne di Lei e di Lui
L'amica dell'amica di Lei e di Lui
L'amico di vecchia data di Lei e di Lui.
Sei personaggi, mai tutti in scena contemporaneamente (se non nel finale), e solo dialoghi (perlopiù serratissimi) botta e risposta e dal sapore teatrale, permettono alla storia, essenzialmente basata su equivoci e bugie, baci, languide carezze e qualche lacrima furtiva, di svelarsi di battuta in battuta (anche grazie a piccoli colpi di scena e divertenti rivelazioni dalla perfetta geometria narrativa) agli occhi del sempre più incuriosito e divertito lettore.
Solo due righe, poco più o poco meno, per introdurre il cambio di scena.
La verità è che tutta la storia, alla quale si assiste, da spettatori, quasi senza prendere mai fiato, divertiti e attenti, è il pretesto per assistere al duello, ora a colpi di fioretto, ora di sciabola, fra Arthur e Diane, Lui e Lei, e alla rappresentazione, a tratti grottesca (ma mai in maniera repellente) di quello che è il loro matrimonio, e degli escamotage, anche sorprendenti, che usano per fronteggiarsi, ravvivarlo, mantenerlo e, talvolta, rianimarlo.
Piacevole scoperta, questo Henry Green, di cui ignorantemente ignoravo tutto, scrittore inglese dei primi anni Cinquanta del Novecento che scopro essere più amato dagli scrittori che dai lettori (e questo, solo in parte, mi conforta riguardo alla mia ignoranza), di cui ringrazio @orsodimondo e il suo commento.
Lo humor e il sarcasmo che contraddistinguono questo testo sono sì fortemente british, e in questo senso penso possa considerarsi il progenitore e forse l'apripista per autori teatrali e non che tanto apprezzo, da Alan Bennett a Michael Frayn passando per Alan Ayckbourn, ma il testo stesso, i sotterfugi e le relazioni, ne fanno materia sempre attuale e universale.
Da leggere, sghignazzando sotto ai baffi, e poi correre anche a (ri)leggere Piccoli crimini coniugali, che ci mostra la (quasi) stessa materia trattata con quel tocco francese e di empatia in più capace di coinvolgere noi mediterranei persino nella sua evoluzione noir.
[Il rispetto] - L'unico modo per conquistarselo è vivere abbastanza a lungo con qualcun altro.
Due interessanti approfondimenti: uno sul The New Yorker e l'altro su Independent
November 24, 2010
A unique stylist.i was fascinated by how he could capture that forties world just through dialogue. He make his characters so transparent in their folly yet he doesn't judge them. It's partly because he avoids describing them at all: he just lets them speak.
December 29, 2023
The more I read the work of Henry Green, the more I appreciate his work. Doting is an intense work about an eighteen-year-old marriage slowing going to pot -- conveyed mostly by dialog.
There are only a handful of characters: Arthur and Diana Middleton; their teenage son Peter; Charles Adderall, the widower friend of the Middletons; and two girls, Ann and Claire. What Green manages to do is like change ringing as all the characters bounce off one another, with the inevitable result that no one at the end is secure in any of their relationships. It's really a quite sobering work about the Second law of thermodynamics as it applies to relationships. (The law states that the state of entropy of the entire universe, as an isolated system, will always increase over time, with entropy being the measure of uncertainty, disorder, or mixedupness.)
A very great book which I recommend to all.
There are only a handful of characters: Arthur and Diana Middleton; their teenage son Peter; Charles Adderall, the widower friend of the Middletons; and two girls, Ann and Claire. What Green manages to do is like change ringing as all the characters bounce off one another, with the inevitable result that no one at the end is secure in any of their relationships. It's really a quite sobering work about the Second law of thermodynamics as it applies to relationships. (The law states that the state of entropy of the entire universe, as an isolated system, will always increase over time, with entropy being the measure of uncertainty, disorder, or mixedupness.)
A very great book which I recommend to all.
November 1, 2011
Oh the games people play, with themselves and with others, and how well Henry Green portrays this through practically the sole use of dialogue, following the schemings and evasions of five upper-middle class characters searching for a - on the (often not very) sly - little extra spice in their lives.
Being written mainly in dialogue, the story rattles along at a fair pace, and the characters feel very alive and the story dynamic. With a spare half-a-day, you can soon polish this off, drawn in instantly and entertainingly (although the first page and a half contains the worst of the dialogue, so don't let this deter you), and you'll come out the other end with a satisfied smile and a need to recommend it to others ...
... as I am doing here. Enjoy!
Being written mainly in dialogue, the story rattles along at a fair pace, and the characters feel very alive and the story dynamic. With a spare half-a-day, you can soon polish this off, drawn in instantly and entertainingly (although the first page and a half contains the worst of the dialogue, so don't let this deter you), and you'll come out the other end with a satisfied smile and a need to recommend it to others ...
... as I am doing here. Enjoy!
July 19, 2013
Five friends become intertwined in a twisted circle of affairs in this short novel written almost completely in dialogue. Green is great at that thing called verisimilitude, and all of the benefits of using dialogue to enhance story telling can be seen in his writing. The novel is broken into short scenes where usually no more than two of the main characters are present. It is interesting to see all of the different character pairings, and how each character speaks and perceives things depending on who they are talking to. The book suffers a bit from the heavy outdated English vernacular, and it sometimes seems like the characters exist in a sort of white space because there is nearly no exposition. I liked it overall, but not as much as Nothing, the other Henry Green I’ve read.
Read
May 16, 2018Adulterous misbehavior among upper middle-class Londoners in the 1950’s. The dialogue is sharp, and funny, and since it’s almost all dialogue that was how I felt generally about the book, even if the predictable see-saw of the relationships pushed the thing a little too far into straight farce for my taste. Green is really, really talented, and I’m going to keep reading him because I have the sense that neither this nor Loving, which I read last month or whenever, is his best book. Somewhere in the catalog there has to be something a bit more ambitious, I aim to find it.
May 30, 2010
In a peculiar way it's always comforting to think that we live in particularly amoral, self-interested times. It gives you hope that life can be different. So reading an early-mid 20th century novel that communicates primarily through excellently written dialogue how people always engineer relationships to their own social advantage and for their own entertainment, with little regard even for those closest to them and even when doing so is emotionally empty, is quite depressing.
September 20, 2014
Eh. A group of British people all want to sleep with each other, but it gets COMPLICATED because some of them are MARRIED and some of them are the CHILDREN of their FRIENDS. The novel is done almost entirely in dialogue, which was interesting for the first 20 pages, and then rapidly became dull and two-dimensional. Henry Green might still be a great writer, but I wish this book hadn't been my introduction to him.
July 25, 2016
Written in late 1940s. An utterly delicious comedy / satire of manners set in post war London. Reads a little like a play, very short chapters each depicting a scene, all in dialogue. ‘Green’s novels reproduce as few do the actual sensations of living’ Elizabeth Bowen. A couple rather bored with their marriage flirt with others. The husband falls for a 19 year old daughter of old friends and what follows is like a restoration comedy with rather more pathos.
August 20, 2009
Like a warm but itchy wool sweater, Henry Green's novels make me squirm. His characters go around and around in circles, misunderstanding each other, baiting each other, scheming to control each other's behavior, and feeling affectionate towards each other. Doting is just like life, in other words, and it's pleasurable, but in a sickening kind of way.
November 22, 2016
3.5 A satiric comedy of manners about a middle-aged married couple in London after WWII. Arthur Middleton has a straying eye, courting a young female friend of his sons, while his wife looks on. She reciprocates by beginning a relationship with one of Arthur's friends. Biting and witty, this novel is mostly dialogue and moves very quickly.
December 31, 2017
Wow, Doting managed to be one of the more idiosyncratic books I've ever read while remaining in many other ways humdrum. I can't count how many chapters ended with something like, "...and the rest of the evening passed without anything noteworthy occurring." I was also one of the funnier books I've read.
August 26, 2016
A formalised piece of entertainment; a comedy of manners , written completely in dialogue capturing the 1940's effortlessly.
it is about middle age passion and marriage. It is pleasantly deft and devious about those who love and those who dote.
it is about middle age passion and marriage. It is pleasantly deft and devious about those who love and those who dote.
January 29, 2008
Light as air, people and the people they want to love them, in the style of Green.
September 30, 2008
As bleak and pale an assessment of monogamy I have ever read. The whole book is written in excellent dialogue. Witty. Depressing. Worthwhile.
July 28, 2011
Liked this one better
January 12, 2014
This book is a lot of fun, a depiction of people trying to have their cake and eat it too. I enjoyed it immensely.
June 12, 2017
An amusing farce.
November 23, 2017
All in dialog a real fast romp of a book, very well done.
May 6, 2020
hmmm, this and the other 1950s novel, Nothing, by Green are more readily accessible than his earlier, aesthetically more pungent and enigmatic novels, 'Loving' and 'Living.'
Doting and Nothing compliment each other - formally and contextually - both dealing with middle class Londoners approaching a midlife crisis whether they like it or not. In fact, the characters in both novels could be folded into one, and we may not even notice the difference.
The insincerity of our public selves seems to be the overiding theme in Doting, as any complexity seems to arise over following the characters' contradictory words and interactions within a limited social setting, and the sneaking ironies which unbound to catch or catch out... all or almost all in this scenario. For guilt and folly are equally doled out in Doting. Implicitly being caught or hooked is a visual pun the novel makes as the absent teenage schoolboy Peter is off catching salmon in Scotland... as various social follies and deceits catch hooks into those present in the novel's scheming thrust.
Doting and Nothing compliment each other - formally and contextually - both dealing with middle class Londoners approaching a midlife crisis whether they like it or not. In fact, the characters in both novels could be folded into one, and we may not even notice the difference.
The insincerity of our public selves seems to be the overiding theme in Doting, as any complexity seems to arise over following the characters' contradictory words and interactions within a limited social setting, and the sneaking ironies which unbound to catch or catch out... all or almost all in this scenario. For guilt and folly are equally doled out in Doting. Implicitly being caught or hooked is a visual pun the novel makes as the absent teenage schoolboy Peter is off catching salmon in Scotland... as various social follies and deceits catch hooks into those present in the novel's scheming thrust.
November 6, 2024
Another terrific dialogue novel in the vein of "Nothing", proceeding via numerous short two-person encounters usually over a meal. Six characters total, five of whom become increasingly entangled with each other - but I think it's really about the relationship between Diana and Arthur, who amusingly have more and more sex the more complex their intrigues become. The emphasis on dialogue serves to bring us readers onto the same epistemic level as the characters and makes the point that words are all we ever have to go on... As ever with Green, the characters are dealt more or less an even hand - he strikes me as a wonderfully humble, democratic author.
May 13, 2024
Henry Green delivers on style yet again, although I found that compared to Loving, Living, and Party Going, I didn't have as much to sink my teeth into here. It might be that it's just extremely British, and as a New Yorker I'm not so used to reading the stiff-upper-lip stuff, but it felt like a whole lot of upper-middle-class people dealing with interpersonal affairs; witty dialog, but thematically there wasn't much to contemplate.
June 14, 2024
Turns out I like books that are basically only dialogue. The power of a book is getting inside characters heads, so not doing so feels surprisingly refreshing. I found this on a book of absurdist literature and was not overly taken by others on the list. However, Doting tells a story you already know where nothing happens. It's perfect.
October 25, 2021
enjoyable, a kind of Oscar Wildeish musical chairs romp with heavy duty flirtations going on between various pairings of the main characters. As the reviewers say, virtually all the plot is conveyed through dialogue, without overt commentary on the intentions or motivations of the characters.
April 15, 2024
Fantastically brittle and elegant comedy of manners in post war London. Knowing, subtle - it's nearly all dialogue, practically a radio play - the brief and infrequent descriptive passages stand out as little gems.
November 3, 2024
More of a 3.5 - swiping dialogue jumbled with definite articles, first few sections captured the allure of the forbidden and the rest of the story is how that unravels or stales in the same circular motions - “the next day they all went on very much the same.”
January 27, 2020
Well written dialog, but does get a little tiring after a while. The perspective is mildly cynical: everyone is unkind to each other, it's a big deal and also trivial.
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