Inspiring Older Readers
Blindness by Henry Green
I like what Sebastian Faulks wrote about Henry Green in 2005 in an article for The Guardian that was lavish in praise for the neglected novelist:
“Henry Green is a writer who always seems to need "introducing", like a stranger at a party: dark, louche, awkward.”
I’ve never found him an easy read but a bit like physical exercise, when you’ve finished you can’t help but feel it must have done you good. I recently found a very nice reprint hardback of Green’s first novel, Blindness, that was originally published in 1926.
Like all of Green’s nine novels, this one is all about stylistic invention - if you’re looking for something that is plot-driven then this isn’t the author for you. On the other hand if you are interested in engaging with a writer who tries to blend Modernism with a very particular British sensibility, you’ll be fascinated.
The book centres on 17 year-old John Hayes whose life at a public school Green calls, Noat is chronicled in the first section of the book through a series of diary entries that gently mock both Hayes and the public school traditions he writes about. The school is almost certainly modelled on Eton which was the authors alma mater and Hayes’ personality and modest literary aspirations are broadly autobiographical.
Green likes to inject sudden changes of tone and emphasis into the narrative and here the dramatic event that switches the pace of the book is an event that goes on to shape the whole story of Hayes and his future. While travelling on the train home and looking out at the passing countryside, a stone thrown at the train by a naughty child smashes the carriage window and blinds John for life.
Recuperating at homes and recovering from his physical and psychological scars, Green switches into a virtual stream of consciousness technique, jumping in and out of the inner thoughts of John, his Stepmother and his Nanny. Through these sometimes chaotic consciousness’s Green tells us about the lives, aspirations and fallings of the characters while at the same time sustaining a rather gentle satire of middle class mores.
As the book progresses however the character of John slowly builds and becomes more admirable – his rather stoical and patient acceptance of what has happened to him speaks of a deeper set of qualities than had been suggested by his rather frivolous earlier diary entries.
In parallel with John’s situation and his family Green also introduces us to Joan, someone who is also living a life in which she is being metaphorically and spiritually blinded by her abusive, alcoholic father who had once been the village parson. The two are fated to meet and the relationship which is no standard, drippy or clichéd love story but one that is genuinely transformative.
The fact that the two damaged characters find their salvation in nature – the very British countryside – is the key to all this and it has been noted by critics that Green switches from descriptions that emphasise the visual beauty of nature to ones that switch the focus to the aural:
“He was in the summer house. Light rain crackled as it fell on the wooden roof, and winds swept up, one after the other, to rustle the trees. A pigeon hurried rather through his phrase that was no longer now a call. Cries of rooks came down tohim from where they would be floating, whirling in the air like dead leaves, over the lawn. The winds kept coming back, growing out of each other and when a stronger one had gone by there would be left cool eddies slipping by his cheek, while a tree further on would thunder softly.”
If you love books that showcase the pleasures of style, technique and the sheer skill of the writer as conductor then you’ll love Henry Green. If you prefer action driven plots with plenty of crash, bang, wallop then this will completely pass you by.
It’s your choice.
Terry Potter
May 2019