Doting [Hardcover]

Henry Green (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1970

-- When Arthur Middleton falls for Annabel, a young woman of his son's generation, he sets into motion an intertwining of affairs between five close friends. As relationships are uncovered and jealous plots hatched, Green exposes the deceptive difference between those who love and those who "dote" in this biting comedy of manners.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Written in 1926 and 1952, respectively, these are Green's first and last books. Both ponder the nature of love among the upper class. Blindness follows young John Haye, who is blinded in an accident. His mother wishes to palm him off on anyone who'll take him, but when he falls for a poor girl, it's quite a different matter. Doting portrays a couple in a loveless marriage. Husband Arthur becomes infatuated with a younger girl, which sets events in motion.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

"DOTING has some of the best moments of comedy Mr. Green has yet written." -- Times Literary Supplement

"Pain gives a maniacal edge to the wild laughter that lies between the absurd lines." -- V.S. Pritchett, New Yorker

"There is possibly no novelist in business who punctures human pretensions quite so subtly as Henry Green. . . . " -- Atlantic Monthly

"Witty, stylish, poignant, mordantly funny and horribly sad." -- J.D. Scott, New Statesman --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Augustus M Kelley Pubs (June 1970)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0678031592
• ISBN-13: 978-0678031599
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,668,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A book that will leave you smiling and scratching your head, June 2, 2001

By 

Lance Mannion (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doting (British Literature) (Paperback)

A strange, amusing, and perplexing little book, told mostly through dialogue, about a weirdly cheerful menage a quatre between a handsome middle-aged couple, their dashing widower friend, and a beautiful 18 year old girl, with only the husband and wife ever winding up in bed with one another.

Mr. Middleton dotes on Ann. Mrs. Middleton dotes on Charles. Charles dotes on Ann and Mrs. Middleton. And Ann dotes on being doted on. Author Henry Green presents these people as a gang of befuddled masochists, unwittingly causing themselves great anguish and just as unconsciously enjoying it. The "doting" that they mistake for love is a form of self-torture. Green doesn't treat this doting as perverse. He portrays it as very human and therefore lovable mistake. Needing to feel loved, to feel young and desirable, the Middletons and their friends/would-be lovers try to force love out of others by showering love (or at least professions of it along with clumsy physical demonstrations) on them. None of the characters behaves very well. The best of them, Mrs. Middleton, the good wife and mother, is actually the most adulterously minded, but neither of the men or Ann act with much virtue or good will. And yet Green makes them all likable and all forgivable. He doesn't make us laugh at the characters' foibles but at their predicament. Green isn't as mean as Evelyn Waugh or as angry as Kingsley Amis, fellow Brits who also specialized in comedies of manners. He's not as funny as they are either, but he is a whole lot more humane and more forgiving of his characters' weaknesses.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Doting is not as good as Loving, June 23, 2011

By 

S. Smith-Peter (Staten Island, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doting (British Literature) (Paperback)

The title for this review is both the message of this book and a comparison with Henry Green's great novel, Loving. Doting is a book with a minuet-like interaction of older men and younger women (with a few young male nonentities thrown in). The partners change, but their need to dote or be doted upon does not. It is an enjoyable novel, but is more in the way of an entertainment than something more.

Green usually showed parallel groups of upper and working class Englishmen and women, and it is this fuller class dimension, as well as brilliant writing, that gives Loving and Party Going such power. Doting is just the upper class, and it suffers for it. This is good Green, but not great.

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't read the customer description below...., October 29, 2007

By 

Blue22 "MDJ" (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doting (British Literature) (Paperback)

Because the moron who wrote it gave away the key plot twist and, thus, the conclusion.
I have yet to read this book, but a teacher highly recommended it to me.