Loving by Henry Green (1945): novel #250

Henry Green’s Loving is generally considered his best novel, though perhaps somewhat under-appreciated. I found it a bit like Downton Abbey meets Jeeves and Wooster. 

It is set in a stately Irish country house, owned and occupied by English tenants, literally named Tennant, and staffed primarily by English domestics. It takes place during the Nazi blitz of England. The Novel opens at the deathbed of the senior butler, Mr. Eldon.

 

The reader is given no background, no backstory, not even so much as I’ve offered in the previous paragraph. It is challenging at first to understand the goings-on, between the upstairs Mrs. Tennant and her daughter-in-law Mrs. Jack (Tennant), and the shakeup in the downstairs staff. Already somewhat ill-at-ease over fear of Nazis and I.R.A., the staff must navigate the new order of things.

 

The tenants are away for much of the story, leaving the servants to fend for themselves. Under-butler Charley Raunce becomes Mr. Raunce and senior butler, not quite to the liking of head-maid, Mrs. Burch. Early on the reader is inclined to agree with Mrs. Burch, as Raunce seems a bit of a scoundrel. Mrs. Burch’s “girls”, Kate and Edith, are more amenable to Mr. Raunce, especially Edith. There is a good deal of blushing and giggling between them. Mrs. Welch is the gin-drinking cook. Her girls Jane and Mary giggle and blush as well. There is Raunce’s next man, shy and flappable Albert, and one Irish servant, Paddy, whom no one can understand, save Kate. Back upstairs Mrs. Swift is nanny for Mrs. Jack’s two daughters,

 

While adjusting to one another, the staff is further troubled over Mrs. Tennant’s missing ring, and the murder of an ostrich. One of the best scenes is when an insurance adjuster comes to inquire about the ring while Mrs. Tennant is away. Raunce is defensive and disobliging, while other staff are naïve and/or terrified. It only confounds things, or makes them more delightful for the reader, that the insurance man is just from the dentist and speaks with a lisp, lithp that is.

 

Loving—the title: well who can know what an author is thinking? There is certainly a love story, and another that may not be quite love, but something like it. I think too, there are other, less conventional loves: self-love, ego whatever you like, familial love, love of safety, peace, comfort, country, forbidden love, and unrequited love.

 

My Rating: 3 ½ stars

Primarily for the characters. The dialogue was a bit hard to follow for this reader, but the fears, foibles, and fantasticness (for the sake of literation) of the characters clearly shines through. Raunce is not a scoundrel after all, not really.

 

Have you read Loving? What did you think? Recommendations for other books by Henry Green? 

 

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