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Satirizing the tedium of upper-middle-class life in post-war London, this novel depicts a world in which substance is far less important to anyone than appearance. The question asked throughout the text concerns the differences between doting and loving.

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4 reviews
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.
½

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Henry Green ranked
9 works; 2 members

Author Information

Picture of author.
16+ Works 4,372 Members
Writing under the pseudonym Henry Green, Henry Vincent Yorke kept his life as a wealthy industrialist separate from his literary persona. Although he had friends who were authors, he did not travel in literary circles and refused to be photographed, to protect his anonymity. Yorke was born in 1905 in Gloucestershire, England, and worked as a show more laborer before becoming managing director of a food engineering firm. From the publication of his first book Blindness (1926), which was begun when he was 17 years old and a student at Eton, he was admired for his unfailing sense of dialogue and characterization for all classes of British life. Green's last novel, Nothing, was published in 1950. Although he is still relatively unknown in the United States, he is recognized by authors such as John Updike and W. H. Auden as a masterful storyteller and one of the greatest English writers of the 20th century. He died in 1973 (Bowker Author Biography) show less

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Gorra, Michael (Introduction)

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Common Knowledge

Canonical title
Doting
Original publication date
1952
First words
"Pretty squalid play all round, I thought!"

Classifications

Genres
General Fiction, Fiction and Literature
DDC/MDS
823.912Literature & rhetoricEnglish & Old English literaturesEnglish fiction1900-1901-19991901-1945
LCC
PR6013 .R416 .D6Language and LiteratureEnglishEnglish Literature1900-1960
BISAC

Statistics

Members
198
Popularity
165,236
Reviews
1
Rating
(3.98)
Languages
English, Italian
Media
Paper, Ebook
ISBNs
10
ASINs
3