The Green Hat (Capuchin Classics) [Paperback]

Quite simply, this is my favourite book of all time.
Michael Arlen brings to life London in the 1920's with it's rich mix of high and low life. Although there is a love story (of sorts) running through the book, you get the impression you are peering in through a window to someones whole life, and not just one small element. There's tragedy and great drama, but never do you feel that the author is trying to manipulate you or make you turn that page. You simply do because it's such an engrossing book. And the twist at the end will really pull at your emotions.
Buy it, read it, then tell someone else about it.

Published in 1924 and a massive best-seller, this is ostensibly the story of a wild young widow with a shady past and a taste for fast cars and adultery, set mostly in Mayfair just as the Twenties began to roar. As well, Arlen muses on the English upper classes, still dazed by the First World War, and regales the reader with philosophical asides and reflections on the nature of women, drunkenness, doctors who specialize in diseases of the rich, the management of nightclubs, and much more: finally delivering a shattering ending to this quest for the true nature of his heroine.

And if anyone out there knows who currently holds the rights to this book, let me know (send a message to the enquiries address at www.firecrest-fiction.com), as I know someone who wants to reprint it in a handsome new edition.

"It has occurred to the writer to call this unimportant history The Green Hat because a green hat was the first thing about her that he saw as also it was, in a way, the last thing about her that he saw".

This is the opening sentence of this quite extraordinary book. Why extraordinary? Because of the style, the lushness of the writing, one critic of the time called it "opium dream style", and it takes some getting used to I can tell you. Michael Arlen was a well known writer of novels but he had an astounding success in 1924 with the publication of The Green Hat. It was the novel of the year and it seems to fit in with the mad, reckless existence of society at this time.

The narrator first meets with Iris Storm when she comes to his house to visit her brother in the flat above. Gerald is a drunkard who spends most of his time in a stupor and who never has visitors, let alone a visitor like this: " She was very white and her painted mouth was purple in the dim light and her eyes, which seemed set apart, were cool, impersonal, sensible and they were blazing blue......like two spoonfuls of the Mediterranean in the early morning of a brilliant day, The sirens had eyes like that." See what I mean about the lushness of the style. To a modern reader it can seem melodramatic and so it is, but allow yourself to fall into this book, accept the way it is written, with heightened senses and dramatic gestures and it will then click into place.

Iris Storm has a reputation as a shameless woman, who lives up to her notoriety as she lives in a whirl of parties, night clubs and restaurants. Her first husband, a clean cut, long limbed, Englishman 'Boy' Fenwick, commits suicide on their wedding night by throwing himself out of the bedroom window. It is assumed that his death is because of something he learned about her, something unsavory, and she allows this assumption to be accepted with no attempt to explain or defend herself. Not to the end of the book, do we find the true reason for his death and that Iris sacrificed her reputation to protect his good name.

Michael Arlen's real name was Dikran Kouyoumdjian and was born in Bulgaria but became more English than the English, settled here and served his country in World War II. He very much resembled the charactered he portrayed in his novels 'He was always impeccably dressed and groomed and was seen driving around London in a fashionable yellow Rolls Royce and engaging in all kinds of luxurious activities". Not too much of a leap back to Iris who drove a yellow Hispano-Suiza car as exotric as that of her creator.

Of course, we have to have a dramatic and tragic end but I will not give it away though the reader can guess what is going to happen without too much difficulty. This is a thoroughly intriguing book and so out of the ordinary that it is a delight to see that it has been republished by Capuchin Classics who seem to have a very eclectic output and some really interesting stuff coming up. Love the cover designs as well. Earlier this year, Simon on Stuck in a Book, wrote about this new publishing house and interviewed its founder. He has also read The Green Hat and written a review and I was very interested to see what he had to say about it. This can be found at his post A Couple of Capuchins.

After publication of The Green Hat Arlen became famous, rich, always in the papers and became a huge celebrity. On the surface he seemed to be a dilettante, leading a hedonistic, selfish lifestyle and yet, things are not always as they seem. After the war, in 1940, Arlen was appointed Civil Defense Public Relations Office for the East Midlands. One can hardly imagine a bigger contrast to his earlier life but it ended sadly. Despite his war record and hard work his loyalty to England was questioned in the House of Commons. Arlen resigned and moved to America where he stayed until his death in 1956.

What an ungrateful bunch we were...