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2.0 

Nothing

By Henry Green & Francine Prose
Nothing by Henry Green & Francine Prose digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

Years ago, Jane Weatherby had a torrid affair with John Pomfret, the husband of her best friend. Divorces ensued. World War II happened. Prewar partying gave way to postwar austerity, and Jane and John’s now-grown children, Philip and Mary, both as serious and sober as their parents were not, seem earnestly bent on marriage, which John and Jane consider a mistake. The two old lovers conspire against the two young lovers, and nothing turns out quite as expected.

Nothing, like the closely related Doting, is a book that is almost entirely composed in dialogue, since in these late novels nothing so interested Green as how words resist, twist, and expose our intentions; how they fail us, lead us on, make fools of us, and may, in spite of ourselves, even save us, at least for a time. Nothing spills over with the bizarre and delicious comedy and poetry of human incoherence.

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1 Review

2.0
“I'm gonna call bullshit on Henry Green. Well, maybe not on Henry himself, but on John Updike and the others of his ilk responsible for that buzz around Henry and his 9 short novels that led me to believe I had finally stumbled across the Rosetta Stones of postmodern fiction. A writer's writer's writer. (Someone actually said that; I bought it.) Lyrical, dazzling gems. Stylistically innovative, like no other. Henry Green was a rich British kid who wrote his first book, Blindness, at 21, and followed up with several more in fairly rapid succession before ceasing to write altogether. Intrigued, expecting revelation, missing pieces falling into place, a deeper understanding of this whole writing / expression of being alive thing, I ordered two great looking Penguin omnibuses online when I struck out at the local used bookstores. When the books arrived-- they looked so good, and felt good, and smelled amazing-- I started in with a number called Nothing. Hmm. Privileged white folks deliberating an impending marriage by talking about nothing. A few twists but generally awkward and clunky. Maybe it was me? I persevered. There was a serious lack of commas, which could be mistaken for style, sure, and tons of dialog tags, most of them different and painful, as dialog tags are. ('He ejaculated' wasn't one of them but they came pretty close.) I realized I couldn't tell the difference between one character and the other and didn't care. The book eventually began to bug me almost as much as Fitzgerald's. I concluded that Henry Green wasn't such a good writer, and that by 40 he realized it and gave up. Just gotta get that online buzz killed now, and so I'm doing my part.”

About Henry Green

Henry Green (1905–1973) was the pen name of Henry Vincent Yorke. Born near Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, England, he was educated at Eton and Oxford and went on to become the managing director of his family’s engineering business, writing novels in his spare time. His first novel, Blindness (1926), was written while he was at Oxford. He married in 1929 and had one son, and during the Second World War served in the Auxiliary Fire Service. Between 1926 and 1952 he wrote nine novels—Blindness, Living, Party Going, Caught, Loving, Back, Concluding, Nothing, and Doting—and a memoir, Pack My Bag.

Francine Prose is a Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bard College. She is the author of more than twenty books of fiction and non-fiction; her most recent novel is Mister Monkey.

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