- Paperback: 261 pages
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press; Reprint edition (31 Dec 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0226306119
- ISBN-13: 978-0226306117
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.5 x 1.8 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,852,297 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Concluding
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Product Description
Product Description
Old Mr Rock, a widower, lives in a cottage with his granddaughter Elizabeth; his household includes Daisy the pig, Ted the goose and Alice the cat, but an additional member threatens in the person of Sebastian Birt, the schoolteacher whom Elizabeth wants to marry. Birt teaches in the state institution for girls run by two authoritarian spinsters, the inseparable Misses Edge and Baker. One sunny summer's morning, the morning of the Founders' Day Ball, as Mr Rock goes up to the school to fetch his pig-swill for Daisy, it is discovered that two of the girls have gone missing in the night. As he pursues the unfolding events of this crowded day and eavesdrops on the conversations up at the school and down at the cottage, Henry Green subtly teases out all the hidden ambitions and lusts, the suspicions and jealousies that are rife just beneath the placid surface of the institution. With an unmatched ear for dialogue and an absolute mastery in the depiction of character, he imbues this apparently routine school day with a powerful charge of drama and superb comic effect.
From the Back Cover
'That Green is completely master of his material is proved by Concluding...which has been acclaimed as his masterpiece. From the point of view of pure technique the claim is just. It is a marvellously well written book" John Davenport
Old Mr Rock, a widower, lives in a cottage with his granddaughter Elizabeth; his household includes Daisy the pig, Ted the goose and Alice the cat, but an additional member threatens in the person of Sebastian Birt, the schoolteacher whom Elizabeth wants to marry. Birt teaches in the state institution for girls run by two authoritarian spinsters, the inseparable Misses Edge and Baker.
One sunny summer's morning, the morning of the Founders' Day Ball, as Mr Rock goes up to the school to fetch his pig-swill for Daisy, it is discovered that two of the girls have gone missing in the night. As he pursues the unfolding events of this crowded day and eavesdrops on the conversations up at the school and down at the cottage, Henry Green subtly teases out all the hidden ambitions and lusts, the suspicions and jealousies that are rife just beneath the placid surface of the institution. With an unmatched ear for dialogue and an absolute mastery in the depiction of character, he imbues this apparently routine school day with a powerful charge of drama and superb comic effect.
"He has found in Concluding a theme whose sinister beauty exquisitely fits his equivocal powers, and he has handled it with care and inspiration" George Painter, Listener
"He interprets better than any other contemporary writer the relationship of the individual to the chaos of our time" Robert Kee, Spectator
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
MR ROCK rose with a groan. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
MR ROCK rose with a groan. Read the first page
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4 reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Extraordinary and idiosyncratic
25 Feb 2001
Format:Paperback
Henry Green's Concluding is an extraordinary novel. Remarkably idiosyncratic, it is a work that may not appeal to everybody equally. Green humorously, and tragically, presents the common misunderstandings that language and our private emotions provoke. Although natural beauty and light's dazzling improvisations illuminate the novel, the recurrent theme of what is secret, underground and buried offers a disturbing and unsettling contrast. Passions bloom abruptly through the dryness and formality of a community stifled by Rules and Directives. A striking example of Green's powers is the lunch episode in which the manipulative Principal Miss Edge feels a missing girl's corpse is buried underneath the azaleas and rhododendrons behind her table. This book deserves to be read and reread.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
another masterpiece
25 Mar 2009
Format:Paperback
another brilliant beauty by green, this one more enigmatic and mysterious than NOTHING or DOTING. set in a sort of training school for girls, the story circles around the disappearance of two girls; the cross-purposes between the school's two principals and a mr. rock who lives in a cottage on the school grounds; and also between mr. rock's daughter recovering from a breakdown and her romance with one of the school's instructors. all in the shadow of an impending school dance. what green nails as always is the way people speak and totally misunderstand each other, all the while creating a seamless setting with his lyrical, idiosyncratic prose. you end up feeling like you understand a little more the inexplicable dance of life.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Waiting for Thatcher?
30 Mar 2012
Format:Paperback
I'm surprised that no one has commented in depth about this unusual novel; in particular that it's obviously a comedy, though a very dark one. As with any comedy, the characters are archetypes and grossly exaggerated bufoons, such as in the *Comedia del Arte.* The story opens with Mr. Rock, who functions as a sort of *Il Dottore,* who is typically erudite and has made a famous discovery. (We never do learn what Mr. Rock's boon to science is.) There are the *Innamorati,* Elizabeth and Sebastian, who are overly-dramatic and selfish lovers. And above all there are the *Pantalones,* the repulsive characters of Miss Baker and Miss Edge, who are obsessed with retaining their power and position while suppressing all expression of humanity in their charges, rebellious adolescent girls. Also typical of the *Comedia del Arte* is that there's a great deal of deceit happening, as everyone tries to evade or misrepresent the truth.
Despite the exaggerated characters, the novel has a clever, fast-paced story, and it reads like a quaint English murder mystery. Two girls are missing. Are they dead? Have they tried to escape this institution of suppression? Wouldn't you?
I would like to read a cogent analysis of what "Concluding" really means. What's it's point? The book was written at the dawn of the British welfare state, and throughout the novel the State looms ominously. Mr. Rock expects the State to provide for him and honor his great accomplishment. Ms. Edge and Ms. Baker try and manipulate the State to secure their hold on power, but they are ignored.
Tension builds until a letter arrives from the State Council which has decided, without consulting any of the characters, to turn this girls school, a grotto of wormy innocence, into a pig farm.
Well, that reads precisely like something out of Ayn Rand. An all-powerful state heaping disaster upon everyone's already-repulsive lives by the uncaring decree of a committee. Has Green (the pen name of Henry Vincent Yorke 1905-1973) used a black *Comedia del Arte* farce to express his crypto-libertarian views? The other reviewers here all agree what a fine novelist Green was, but that's all they are able to parrot.
American novels typicaly have at least one hero, an agreeable character that the reader identifies with or cheers on. Even such hapless protagonists as George F. Babbitt, Elmer Gantry, Sherman McCoy, or even Clyde Griffiths are treated in a generally sympathetic manner. But in British novels, those of Martin Amis for example, it is not unusual to present an entire cast of rotters, the point being that they get just what's coming to them.
This is such a novel.
Curiously, on page 217 one of the headmistresses says, "He flaunts our authority." That is incorrect, and the word should be "flouts," but I don't know if Green may have made made this mistake deliberately.
Despite the exaggerated characters, the novel has a clever, fast-paced story, and it reads like a quaint English murder mystery. Two girls are missing. Are they dead? Have they tried to escape this institution of suppression? Wouldn't you?
I would like to read a cogent analysis of what "Concluding" really means. What's it's point? The book was written at the dawn of the British welfare state, and throughout the novel the State looms ominously. Mr. Rock expects the State to provide for him and honor his great accomplishment. Ms. Edge and Ms. Baker try and manipulate the State to secure their hold on power, but they are ignored.
Tension builds until a letter arrives from the State Council which has decided, without consulting any of the characters, to turn this girls school, a grotto of wormy innocence, into a pig farm.
Well, that reads precisely like something out of Ayn Rand. An all-powerful state heaping disaster upon everyone's already-repulsive lives by the uncaring decree of a committee. Has Green (the pen name of Henry Vincent Yorke 1905-1973) used a black *Comedia del Arte* farce to express his crypto-libertarian views? The other reviewers here all agree what a fine novelist Green was, but that's all they are able to parrot.
American novels typicaly have at least one hero, an agreeable character that the reader identifies with or cheers on. Even such hapless protagonists as George F. Babbitt, Elmer Gantry, Sherman McCoy, or even Clyde Griffiths are treated in a generally sympathetic manner. But in British novels, those of Martin Amis for example, it is not unusual to present an entire cast of rotters, the point being that they get just what's coming to them.
This is such a novel.
Curiously, on page 217 one of the headmistresses says, "He flaunts our authority." That is incorrect, and the word should be "flouts," but I don't know if Green may have made made this mistake deliberately.
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