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The Green Hat
The Green Hat perfectly reflects the atmosphere of the 1920s—the post-war fashion for verbal smartness, youthful cynicism, and the spirit of rebellion of the "bright young things" of Mayfair. Iris Storm, femme fatale, races around London and Europe in her yellow Hispano-Suiza surrounded by romantic intrigue, but beneath the glamour she is destined to be a tragic heroine. A perfect synecdoche, in fact: as the hat is to the woman, so the words of the title are to an entire literary style. The success of the novel when it was first published in 1924 led to its adaptation for the screen, with Greta Garbo starring as Iris Storm.
244 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1924
About the author
Michael Arlen
61 books22 followers
Original name Dikran Kouyoumdjian. Armenian essayist, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and scriptwriter, who had his greatest successes in the 1920s while living and writing in England. Although Arlen is most famous for his satirical romances set in English smart society, he also wrote gothic horror and psychological thrillers, for instance "The Gentleman from America", which was filmed in 1956 as a television episode for Alfred Hitchcock's TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Near the end of his life, Arlen mainly occupied himself with political writing. Arlen's vivid but colloquial style came to be known as 'Arlenesque'.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
I enjoyed the fact that it was published in 1924 and was quite intriguing to read, but not quite sure if I enjoyed the story itself.
Baby Warren and Dick Diver in "Tender is the Night":
"I meant it might be nice for you to take a house in London for the spring season - I know a dove of a house in Talbot Square you could get, furnished. I mean, living with sane, well-balanced English people."
She would have gone on to tell him all the old propaganda stories of 1914 if he had not laughed and said:
"I've been reading a book by Michael Arlen and if that's – "
She ruined Michael Arlen with a wave of her salad spoon.
"He only writes about degenerates. I mean the worthwhile English."
=====
Ha! Dick would've been so scared of Iris Storm and her reputation for having done something so outrageous between the sheets that her husband threw himself out of the window on their wedding night. What a woman! And how many worlds collide in Sir Maurice's drawing-room at the end?! Big dramatic stuff. They should have made the movie in the 70s and had Faye Dunaway as Iris Storm.
"I had been the evening to a party; for that is now the name that folks give to a dance – I'm not sure why. In America, I believe, one doesn't give a party, one just throws a party,"
"After all, one couldn't be more unattractive than an Italian Jew who exported medicated champagne to America. No, really, that was too much."
"I plied the spur of silence."
On Paris:
"The shops are loaded with diamonds as large as carnations and with carnations as expensive as diamonds. The shop-keepers are very polite, and courteously do not mind how many you buy. Americans buy. Englishmen watch Americans buying. Grand Dukes wait for the Englishmen to dare them to have a cocktail. A few Frenchmen are stationed at those strategic points where they can best be rude to the English and Americans. Then the English and Americans tip them. The women do not wear stays, and insist on their men shaving twice a day."
"Oh, and then they killed Hector just in time, and when Hector-not-so-proud came along he thought, the poor sweet, that the proper way for a gentleman to arrive in the world was toes first to slow music, and so he had to go again..."
"It is pleasant, maybe it is the only pleasant pastime that does not ever pall, to see and not be seen."
"we die bearded with lies."
"it is a world in which good men are shut up like gods in a lavatory."
"I meant it might be nice for you to take a house in London for the spring season - I know a dove of a house in Talbot Square you could get, furnished. I mean, living with sane, well-balanced English people."
She would have gone on to tell him all the old propaganda stories of 1914 if he had not laughed and said:
"I've been reading a book by Michael Arlen and if that's – "
She ruined Michael Arlen with a wave of her salad spoon.
"He only writes about degenerates. I mean the worthwhile English."
=====
Ha! Dick would've been so scared of Iris Storm and her reputation for having done something so outrageous between the sheets that her husband threw himself out of the window on their wedding night. What a woman! And how many worlds collide in Sir Maurice's drawing-room at the end?! Big dramatic stuff. They should have made the movie in the 70s and had Faye Dunaway as Iris Storm.
"I had been the evening to a party; for that is now the name that folks give to a dance – I'm not sure why. In America, I believe, one doesn't give a party, one just throws a party,"
"After all, one couldn't be more unattractive than an Italian Jew who exported medicated champagne to America. No, really, that was too much."
"I plied the spur of silence."
On Paris:
"The shops are loaded with diamonds as large as carnations and with carnations as expensive as diamonds. The shop-keepers are very polite, and courteously do not mind how many you buy. Americans buy. Englishmen watch Americans buying. Grand Dukes wait for the Englishmen to dare them to have a cocktail. A few Frenchmen are stationed at those strategic points where they can best be rude to the English and Americans. Then the English and Americans tip them. The women do not wear stays, and insist on their men shaving twice a day."
"Oh, and then they killed Hector just in time, and when Hector-not-so-proud came along he thought, the poor sweet, that the proper way for a gentleman to arrive in the world was toes first to slow music, and so he had to go again..."
"It is pleasant, maybe it is the only pleasant pastime that does not ever pall, to see and not be seen."
"we die bearded with lies."
"it is a world in which good men are shut up like gods in a lavatory."
This is most definitely one of the finer novels I've read in some time. Sometimes called "the iconic novel of the 1920s", the books is written in a style that keeps the reader fascinated with the language of the author. Although Arlen wasn't a native English speaker, his use of words and his ability to string them together and produce imagery is excellent.
The plot line moves along, and although foreshadowing led me to hypothesize the conclusion and how the characters might end up I still enjoyed reading through to the very end. The descriptive writing is superb, but the characters do tend to speak in a rather stylized manner that one wouldn't ordinarily expect to hear in real conversational English. Still, a very enjoyable novel indeed.
I'd recommend this novel to lovers of 1920s culture in Britain, readers who enjoy reading beautiful language, and others who just like a good read. I am not sure if this author wrote any other novels, but I'm going to search for them and hope to find more.
The plot line moves along, and although foreshadowing led me to hypothesize the conclusion and how the characters might end up I still enjoyed reading through to the very end. The descriptive writing is superb, but the characters do tend to speak in a rather stylized manner that one wouldn't ordinarily expect to hear in real conversational English. Still, a very enjoyable novel indeed.
I'd recommend this novel to lovers of 1920s culture in Britain, readers who enjoy reading beautiful language, and others who just like a good read. I am not sure if this author wrote any other novels, but I'm going to search for them and hope to find more.
3.5
Once I got to the “meat” of the story, it was good. But the author as narrator was irritating because he kept getting in the way of the story. I’ve seen the film which was based on the book, and I wanted to read the book to clarify some “items” that weren’t fully explained or touched upon in the silent film. But I’m the type of reader that likes the author to get to the point; don’t dance and fluff around the subject. Don’t make me read about all these unnecessary characters that I have no interest in and to me, don’t contribute anything to the story. There wasn’t one single character I liked. But you don’t have to like any of the characters to recognize a good story. I will say there was some interesting quotes and passages interspersed, once Arlen finished all his grandiosity.
Once I got to the “meat” of the story, it was good. But the author as narrator was irritating because he kept getting in the way of the story. I’ve seen the film which was based on the book, and I wanted to read the book to clarify some “items” that weren’t fully explained or touched upon in the silent film. But I’m the type of reader that likes the author to get to the point; don’t dance and fluff around the subject. Don’t make me read about all these unnecessary characters that I have no interest in and to me, don’t contribute anything to the story. There wasn’t one single character I liked. But you don’t have to like any of the characters to recognize a good story. I will say there was some interesting quotes and passages interspersed, once Arlen finished all his grandiosity.
A ponderous pace for several chapters, mildly relieved by the strangeness of Iris, wearer of the hat. Chapter Four strikes a different note, though, depicting nightlife at a club. (Hints of Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises.)
I doubt anyone can read the narrative without being reminded, occasionally and a bit painfully, of Yoda. "And white she was, very white..." "Crumpled the letter was..." "Anxious the fat white clouds seemed..." More frequently it sounds Saxon: "That was that man's way." "That was a very quiet lady." "That was a gallant lady."
Venice, whom we meet properly in Chapter Seven, is a much more engaging character than Iris, and the narrator improves in her company, too. In fact the novel's pathos reaches its height in her situation (barren, with an unfaithful but decent husband) rather than Iris's. Whether Arlen was more taken with her, or was more practiced in the quirks of her set's speech, he managed to create someone much more believable and (therefore) lovable than the heroine. It doesn't hurt that two dramas are woven throughout the chapter: covering up the adultery, and Iris's near-death illness. One might wish Arlen had disciplined his narrator's analysis in concluding the chapter, but then several of the judgments are pretty fine and subtle. They may shift the way I read novels involving adultery (most novels).
But one chapter can't redeem the novel.
And in the end we descend to melodrama and puerile morality. Venice becomes an impossibility, celebrating her husband's affair. Adultery gets glossed as "love" by all the young people, as a rebuke to their elders: as if the corruption of the preceding generation ("the putrefying little rules of the gentlemanly tradition") could in any way license the worship of one's own will.
A blurb on the back of the Capuchin edition reads "a riveting story." This is not true. Parts of chapters Ten and Eleven are riveting, but even these are interrupted by clumsy prose and unbelievable dialogue.
I doubt anyone can read the narrative without being reminded, occasionally and a bit painfully, of Yoda. "And white she was, very white..." "Crumpled the letter was..." "Anxious the fat white clouds seemed..." More frequently it sounds Saxon: "That was that man's way." "That was a very quiet lady." "That was a gallant lady."
Venice, whom we meet properly in Chapter Seven, is a much more engaging character than Iris, and the narrator improves in her company, too. In fact the novel's pathos reaches its height in her situation (barren, with an unfaithful but decent husband) rather than Iris's. Whether Arlen was more taken with her, or was more practiced in the quirks of her set's speech, he managed to create someone much more believable and (therefore) lovable than the heroine. It doesn't hurt that two dramas are woven throughout the chapter: covering up the adultery, and Iris's near-death illness. One might wish Arlen had disciplined his narrator's analysis in concluding the chapter, but then several of the judgments are pretty fine and subtle. They may shift the way I read novels involving adultery (most novels).
But one chapter can't redeem the novel.
And in the end we descend to melodrama and puerile morality. Venice becomes an impossibility, celebrating her husband's affair. Adultery gets glossed as "love" by all the young people, as a rebuke to their elders: as if the corruption of the preceding generation ("the putrefying little rules of the gentlemanly tradition") could in any way license the worship of one's own will.
A blurb on the back of the Capuchin edition reads "a riveting story." This is not true. Parts of chapters Ten and Eleven are riveting, but even these are interrupted by clumsy prose and unbelievable dialogue.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
A rather elemental clashing of human nature with societal conduct. Arlen seems to be saying that what is natural in us will never harmonize with the social expectations society creates around us, nor with the personal expectations society fosters in our psyches. He shows nature and conduct as ultimately irreconcilable and builds from this irreconcilability a tragic romance. Most interestingly to me, instead of examining these as purely polar opposites, Arlen portrays a whole panorama of confusion created by attempts to reconcile them.
The writing is poetic and dense, with some of the dialogue rising to prose poetry. In places though the narrative grew overlong for me. For a while, at about the 80 percent mark, I just wanted the book to be over. A high-brow story that crescendos, strangely, with melodrama. Probably more effective in its time.
The writing is poetic and dense, with some of the dialogue rising to prose poetry. In places though the narrative grew overlong for me. For a while, at about the 80 percent mark, I just wanted the book to be over. A high-brow story that crescendos, strangely, with melodrama. Probably more effective in its time.
I first came upon this title when I taught an LGBT theatre course at USF back 20 years ago - at which time I don't think I'd realized the play version was based upon this novel. The play's suggestion of a gay flirtation between two of the male characters is even MORE oblique in the book, but one can sort of read between the lines, given the narrator's sexless fascination with femme fatale Iris March, whom everyone else can't seem to help lusting after... and his bonhomie with all of his male chums.
Even though one of the most popular novels of the 1920's, very few read Arlen's most notorious novel these days, and that's a shame, since there's much to like in it. The first few chapters are a bit languid for modern tastes, and some of Arlen's ornate prose gets a bit twee, but things definitely pick up by the halfway point, and the ending chapter is a masterly working out of several threads only hinted at throughout the book. That prevarication as to explicitly stating what is happening is both a mite annoying and one of the novel's charms, but one can see how Arlen had to skirt around the prevailing morality, yet still proceed with the tale he wants to tell. There is some unfortunate tacit anti-Semitism and racism that is a bit disconcerting for a modern reader, but I suppose one has to make allowances for the commonplace attitudes of nearly 100 years ago. But there is also one of the best scenes set in a roaring 20's jazz club I've ever read to make up for such.
Even though one of the most popular novels of the 1920's, very few read Arlen's most notorious novel these days, and that's a shame, since there's much to like in it. The first few chapters are a bit languid for modern tastes, and some of Arlen's ornate prose gets a bit twee, but things definitely pick up by the halfway point, and the ending chapter is a masterly working out of several threads only hinted at throughout the book. That prevarication as to explicitly stating what is happening is both a mite annoying and one of the novel's charms, but one can see how Arlen had to skirt around the prevailing morality, yet still proceed with the tale he wants to tell. There is some unfortunate tacit anti-Semitism and racism that is a bit disconcerting for a modern reader, but I suppose one has to make allowances for the commonplace attitudes of nearly 100 years ago. But there is also one of the best scenes set in a roaring 20's jazz club I've ever read to make up for such.
I think I might be slightly over-rating this book but it fascinated me. First of all I had never heard of the writer and then found out English was not his mother tongue and that he has a very exotic background. At first I found it quite difficult reading because there is a certain elliptical style, both on tents of sentences left unfinished but also major events in the plot skimmed over. This of course creates a feeling of mystery and it turns out that for me this made it a slow burner. The language is at times flowery or poetic depending on your take on metaphor and simile. The story is set in 1920's London and Paris and as I got into it started to remind me of The Great Gatsby which as it turns out was published a year later. By he time I got to the end I was completely hooked and found the last chapter a real roller coaster - very thrilling. I have put on my favourites shelf because I want to read it again after I have re-read Fitzgerald's masterpiece to make a more direct comparison and may reduce down to four stars after that. Still it did grip me once I had got into it.
Who is Iris Storm? Is she Is she a tramp? A hussy? Why do people around her keep dying? Is she fated to have a miserable, lonely existance, or does she bring it upon herself?
This book starts off, slowly, pretentiously, and nearly without a link to our time; stuck in a time capsule if you will. For 50+ pages you wonder if you're ever going to get to a real story and stop with the arcane name dropping. Then, something happens (thanksfully), you find out what happened to Iris' first husband... kind of. Was it an accident or suicide? Why die "For Purity"? Then! From across the room! A childhood friend. That's when the story gets juicy. Your worst fears about Iris are confirmed, then rebuffed. Ah. High melodrama.
Finally, how cool a name is Iris Storm? I totally want that name! Just, preferably, with better results.
This book starts off, slowly, pretentiously, and nearly without a link to our time; stuck in a time capsule if you will. For 50+ pages you wonder if you're ever going to get to a real story and stop with the arcane name dropping. Then, something happens (thanksfully), you find out what happened to Iris' first husband... kind of. Was it an accident or suicide? Why die "For Purity"? Then! From across the room! A childhood friend. That's when the story gets juicy. Your worst fears about Iris are confirmed, then rebuffed. Ah. High melodrama.
Finally, how cool a name is Iris Storm? I totally want that name! Just, preferably, with better results.
There goes Iris Storm, nee March, in her yellow Hispano-Suiza. Does that girl know how to shift? Her honking character is s'posedly based on Nancy Cunard/Idina Sackville. She tossed off 2 husby's -- one hurls himself fr a window, "for purity" and the pox. Arlen, an Armenian from Bulgaria, fawningly sniffs The Bright Young Things of Vulgaria. Headstrong Iris takes a final ride as boypal Hilary sobs, "Iris! Not that--." Yes, it's THAT.
I love period pieces around the time of The Great Gatsby. If you loved Gatsby-then you’ll love The Green Hat, But if you’re not a sucker for beautiful prose and people questioning the Meaning Of Life; if you’re just reading to be able to say you’ve read it and only interested in plot; you could read the first chapter and the last chapter, but you’ll be cheating yourself out of the chance to immerse yourself into the past. That was the longest sentence in history, but I am neither a writer nor do I have a clever editor to tell me how to make it better. When you read books like this, written (coming up on) 100 years ago? You realize you’ll never be a writer the way this author is a writer; it is both humbling and inspiring at the same time. There is a reason this book has withstood the test of time, by God, and I can’t cheapen it to tell you why. You must read it and discover for yourself. Amen.
This was a curious but rather appealing 1920s melodrama centred around the mysterious Iris Storm, a woman who has caused death and destruction and transgressed against society, but who still has a fatal appeal for men. In many respects this is a stereotypical romantic drama, full of emotional scenes and exaggerated descriptions, yet it has a kind of charm and sensitivity (and carries a rather surprising attack on the British class system) that may explain its appeal.
The writer, Michael Arlen, was of Armenian origin and has clearly observed British society and literature to produce a sharply perceptive picture of the upper classes, but the style is rather disjointed and quirky in its sentence construction and dialogue. It has elements of a modernist approach, particularly in the imagery such as the yellow Hispano-Suiza car, but at the same time follows the tropes of the romantic story. It jars at times, but that may be the author’s intention.
This was immensely popular in the 1920s and therefore obviously captured the imagination at that time. It doesn’t feel to me that it has aged that well, and it doesn’t have the sparkle of a Fitzgerald or Waugh, but I did like the way Iris took centre stage and lived by her standards, and overall I quite enjoyed the read.
The writer, Michael Arlen, was of Armenian origin and has clearly observed British society and literature to produce a sharply perceptive picture of the upper classes, but the style is rather disjointed and quirky in its sentence construction and dialogue. It has elements of a modernist approach, particularly in the imagery such as the yellow Hispano-Suiza car, but at the same time follows the tropes of the romantic story. It jars at times, but that may be the author’s intention.
This was immensely popular in the 1920s and therefore obviously captured the imagination at that time. It doesn’t feel to me that it has aged that well, and it doesn’t have the sparkle of a Fitzgerald or Waugh, but I did like the way Iris took centre stage and lived by her standards, and overall I quite enjoyed the read.
3.5 stars. A 1920s novel about Iris Storm and her romance interests. I particularly liked the first twenty pages and the overly dramatic last twenty pages. Iris and Napier are teenage sweethearts who were separated when Iris was eighteen. Napier’s father believed Napier was destined for a career and a better class of woman than Iris.
The author writes well about the atmosphere of the 1920s and the spirit of rebellion of young men and women.
This book was first published in 1924.
The author writes well about the atmosphere of the 1920s and the spirit of rebellion of young men and women.
This book was first published in 1924.
Capsule: An excellent read if the archness of the narrator doesn't drive you nuts.
I liked this very much, and I absolutely see why it was such a sensation when first published in 1924; this is a novel of jazz clubs and motorcars rather than Edwardian country houses or wartime patriotic soldiers. Arlen explores questions of purity, honour and loyalty from a post-WWI standpoint, revealing (and doubtless also creating) the values of the 1920s. His heroine, the scandalous Iris Storm, is the focal point of the novel, but he cleverly portrays her always from the outside so that there can be a continued set of revelations about what sort of person she is and what she cares about. In the end, I think one could argue that the novel is fundamentally conservative, in that it supports very traditional values -- but the behaviours it uses to depict those values were quite shocking in their time.
This makes for a great paired reading with an annoying May Sinclair book from 1908ish that I read around the same time -- ah, yes, The Helpmate. Sinclair's novel also explores purity and loyalty, but is still closely tied to the Victorian worldview that Arlen has definitively broken away from. A paper is waiting to be written about this...
I liked this very much, and I absolutely see why it was such a sensation when first published in 1924; this is a novel of jazz clubs and motorcars rather than Edwardian country houses or wartime patriotic soldiers. Arlen explores questions of purity, honour and loyalty from a post-WWI standpoint, revealing (and doubtless also creating) the values of the 1920s. His heroine, the scandalous Iris Storm, is the focal point of the novel, but he cleverly portrays her always from the outside so that there can be a continued set of revelations about what sort of person she is and what she cares about. In the end, I think one could argue that the novel is fundamentally conservative, in that it supports very traditional values -- but the behaviours it uses to depict those values were quite shocking in their time.
This makes for a great paired reading with an annoying May Sinclair book from 1908ish that I read around the same time -- ah, yes, The Helpmate. Sinclair's novel also explores purity and loyalty, but is still closely tied to the Victorian worldview that Arlen has definitively broken away from. A paper is waiting to be written about this...
The Green Hat was a play that Beatrix Lehmann understudied for Tallulah Bankhead in. The play had some quite mixed reviews as the novel was very popular (and a bit shocking) and the play was a very watered down version. (Presumably so it could make it past the censors). So I decided I'd read the original novel. It was Brilliant! I really loved this! There were so many fantastic passages and wonderful observations on people, society and literature. The first scene has the two main characters discussing novels, and Iris' favourite was one of my favourites. There is a lot of class criticism and moral criticism in this (criticism of morals that is). It was insightful and wonderful. Not all the characters were likable but I still really enjoyed it. It felt more like a French novel than one in English. (Indeed there was one part where he criticised people who preferred Dickens to Anatole France). Definitely one of the best finds I've come across in my research. As soon as it was finished I went and found another cheap old copy of another of his novels. I think I shall have to read everything I can by him. Very highly recommended.
Absurd flowery prose, but this ancient bestseller was recommended to me because I too at one time wore a hat like that. It's the story of Iris Storm, who wears a green hat, drives a yellow Hispano-Suiza, and deliberately presents herself as a woman of easy virtue because she has a dark, dark secret in her past - the sort of secret that only a woman in a 1920s bestselling novel could have. It's all champagne and characters called "Boy" and "Venice" and glittering Mayfair nightclubs and people saying, "Darling, darling, DARLING!" to one another. Iris lives in Shepherd's Market and the novel's narrator, of course, is fascinated by her.
The author, Armenian-born Michael Arlen, once declared "Per ardua ad astrakhan" (he was wearing an astrakhan coat at the time) and for that I will always love him.
The author, Armenian-born Michael Arlen, once declared "Per ardua ad astrakhan" (he was wearing an astrakhan coat at the time) and for that I will always love him.
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March 30, 2024
With its circular opening chapter, coming back to and explaining the titular hat just as Hill House comes back to whatever walked there, this advertises itself from the first as a confection of impossible elegance, and makes clear why its roundabout account of scandalous goings-on in the good twenties caused such a splash on first publication a century ago. There are elements in common with all the pre-eminent chroniclers of that most glamorous decade: the crystalline enchantment, yearning and paradoxes of early Fitzgerald; an urbane narrator and sense of the ridiculousness of it all not a million miles from Wodehouse; insinuations of the shabbiness and sin behind the veneer to recall Waugh. And whenever beautiful, damned Iris Storm's* primrose Hispano-Suiza sweeps ominously through the silent streets, I can only picture it in the style of the title sequence animations from Wimsey or Jeeves & Wooster. Certainly I'm glad I read it in Capuchin Classics, their green spine so close to the one Penguin's 20th Century Classics once had (though undoubtedly not the green of the hat - and I could wish that Capuchin bound a little more elegantly, and didn't have quite such minuscule page numbers quite so low on the page, but still). At the same time, it's not hard to see why the book has been half-forgotten since; Arlen, a Bulgarian-Armenian refugee from Turkish genocide, determined on being more English than the English, can occasionally combine a desperate Continental seriousness with distinctly British humbug, resulting in some worst of both worlds passages recalling Wilde's Salome after Bosie had been at it, or Patricia Lockwood's cat. In places, characters' snide remarks about boys of both sexes, or stuffed shirts complaining how a fellow can't say anything to a woman nowadays without getting in trouble, could easily be from a zeitgeisty novel published last week, although the foundation of the plot rests on some distinctly old-fashioned hypocrisies and stupidities. Despite which, and the tragic dénouement, there is at least a sense of a new world dawning after the empty-headedness of the old ways has been so comprehensively exposed, something which seems far more elusive now. Deeply flawed, outright infuriating in places, but that this could ever have been a bestseller is yet another credit to those twenties.
*Formerly Iris March, then married to the late Hector Storm, and if you think these names are a bit much then wait until you meet Venice Pollen.
*Formerly Iris March, then married to the late Hector Storm, and if you think these names are a bit much then wait until you meet Venice Pollen.
The Green Hat was written by a Armenian author, naturalized citizen of the United Kingdom and published in the London and the US in 1924. I read a 1924 edition, ILL loan book. As I mentioned, the pages were quite fragile. I am so thankful for libraries and ILL loans that make it possible to read these books. The Green Hat tells the story of Iris Storm. It is a satirical romance set in London. Iris is prevented from marrying her childhood sweetheart Napier Harpenden. She is widowed twice and suffers through several love affairs. There is so much tragedy that you just know there is going to be more and therefore there is an element of suspense in this modernistic novel. The narrator is a writer and introduces self, “writes the author”. Many authors and literary works are mentioned in the early chapters. I just finished reading Tono-Bongay by H. G. Wells and this book mentions H. G. Wells and mentions his book Tono-Bongay. It also mentions The Good Soldier and Ulysses. Also of note is the bigotry in the book. The author refers to Jews, Red Indians and glorious n……
***contains some spoilers***
Iris is of the March family. Her twin brother is a drunk and she meets the author when she tries to visit her twin brother. This book is full of suicides and telling lies to save honor. After her first husband dies by suicide, Iris tells everyone he died “for purity”. Everyone assumes that Iris wasn’t pure when she went to her marriage bed and her husband therefore jumped out the window. Her second husband gives her an emerald that doesn’t fit and tells her that she must learn to keep the ring on as she must learn to keep herself from affairs. That husband dies too. So Iris wears a large brimmed green hat and wears a green ring. There is a lot of green in the descriptions of clothing and scenes. Iris drove a yellow Hispano-Suiza car with a stork hood adornment. She drove fast. Iris decides that she will not let anyone keep her from Napier any longer. They are going to run away together and finally enjoy the love they have for each other. Only Napier is too much like his father and his concern for his own reputation makes him tell everyone what Iris meant when she told everyone her husband had died “for purity”. In the end, Napier fails her and Napier’s father wins the battle. Iris leaves with her green hat in her exotic car that “can do 76 if you like”. This book may have been written in 1924 I still found it to be very enjoyable story of high-speed modernity. The book has been republished by it has been republished by Capuchin Classics and I would recommend it if you like tragedy, romance and modernity.
***contains some spoilers***
Iris is of the March family. Her twin brother is a drunk and she meets the author when she tries to visit her twin brother. This book is full of suicides and telling lies to save honor. After her first husband dies by suicide, Iris tells everyone he died “for purity”. Everyone assumes that Iris wasn’t pure when she went to her marriage bed and her husband therefore jumped out the window. Her second husband gives her an emerald that doesn’t fit and tells her that she must learn to keep the ring on as she must learn to keep herself from affairs. That husband dies too. So Iris wears a large brimmed green hat and wears a green ring. There is a lot of green in the descriptions of clothing and scenes. Iris drove a yellow Hispano-Suiza car with a stork hood adornment. She drove fast. Iris decides that she will not let anyone keep her from Napier any longer. They are going to run away together and finally enjoy the love they have for each other. Only Napier is too much like his father and his concern for his own reputation makes him tell everyone what Iris meant when she told everyone her husband had died “for purity”. In the end, Napier fails her and Napier’s father wins the battle. Iris leaves with her green hat in her exotic car that “can do 76 if you like”. This book may have been written in 1924 I still found it to be very enjoyable story of high-speed modernity. The book has been republished by it has been republished by Capuchin Classics and I would recommend it if you like tragedy, romance and modernity.
7/10
On Monday I finished the almost forgotten Michael Arlen’s The Green Hat, which I enjoyed very much. I’m also reading, in dribs and drabs, an biography of Nancy Cunard, which has a chapter on Arlen (they were lovers for a time, and the main character in The Green Hat – Iris Storm – has a resemblance, in some aspects, to Cunard) – whew – anyway, this is a long way around to quoting a description of The Green Hat: “high class trash”! Not a bad description...
...and I enjoyed it on that level; but it was better than that - Arlen is no writing slouch. His descriptions of people and happenings, often relayed in a repetitive fractured way, can be disorientating (and I think as English was his second, or third, language, he uses words and phrases in idiosyncratic ways, which adds a kind of other-worldliness) - - - but yet the layering settles into a kind of elusive coherence, if that's not a contradiction; you understand without quite being able to put your finger on what; it's quite impressionistic. For instance, a group swimming in the Thames in the dark: you feel the confusion, the high jinx, and the dangers; the heat of the summer air, the cool water; exhausted swimmers; the rivalries played out, the tensions... he can be quite accomplished.
And he is often very funny too.
I have another trashy novel from that period lined up - The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars (1925), by Maurice Dekobra; but for now, I’m plunging into The Good Soldier by Ford.
On Monday I finished the almost forgotten Michael Arlen’s The Green Hat, which I enjoyed very much. I’m also reading, in dribs and drabs, an biography of Nancy Cunard, which has a chapter on Arlen (they were lovers for a time, and the main character in The Green Hat – Iris Storm – has a resemblance, in some aspects, to Cunard) – whew – anyway, this is a long way around to quoting a description of The Green Hat: “high class trash”! Not a bad description...
...and I enjoyed it on that level; but it was better than that - Arlen is no writing slouch. His descriptions of people and happenings, often relayed in a repetitive fractured way, can be disorientating (and I think as English was his second, or third, language, he uses words and phrases in idiosyncratic ways, which adds a kind of other-worldliness) - - - but yet the layering settles into a kind of elusive coherence, if that's not a contradiction; you understand without quite being able to put your finger on what; it's quite impressionistic. For instance, a group swimming in the Thames in the dark: you feel the confusion, the high jinx, and the dangers; the heat of the summer air, the cool water; exhausted swimmers; the rivalries played out, the tensions... he can be quite accomplished.
And he is often very funny too.
Hilary has an illusion common to Englishmen, that if a man can utter three consecutive sentences without breaking them up with “eh,” “ah,” “hm,” "mm"; and any other noises that may occur to him as fit and proper, he must be held to be talking too much.
. . .
Hilary, because I had given way to a moment’s emphasis, gained instantly in leisured calm. "Hm,” he said. Gently he put down his huge glass. "Hm,” he said. He considered the stump of his cigar, and decided that it was not worth while relighting it “Hm,” he said, and took another from the box, pinching it. I passed him the matches. “Hm,” he said. But not I to be provoked ! I did to him what Mr. Beerbohm once so notably did to the late Mr. James Pethick in the Casino at Dieppe : I plied the spur of silence.
I have another trashy novel from that period lined up - The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars (1925), by Maurice Dekobra; but for now, I’m plunging into The Good Soldier by Ford.
The story of the author's life is as romantic and stylised as this book, which was a runaway success when published in 1924. He was born in Bulgaria of an Armenian family fleeing the problems in the Ottoman Empire. The family relocated yet again, to England, where Dikran Konyoumdijan turned himself into an impeccably tailored English gentleman, complete with cane, who was friends with Noel Coward, D.H. Lawrence and Arnold Bennett and lover of Nancy Cunard, who was apparently the model for Iris March. He married an aristocratic Greek and lived in the South of France, London and finally New York. He made enough money from the success of this book to live comfortably the rest of his life, despite not managing to repeat such a red hot best-seller again. The book is a witty, stylish, mannered romance set in the Roaring Twenties. It reminds me of Anthony Powell writing of the same time period (Powell has a character lend The Green Hat to a friend) but this was set in the time it was written and Arlen lived the life he wrote about. The language is often arch: a character is described as "always rather like a Gruyere cheese, a sort of smooth surface with gaps" or "We sat picking at green olives and bits of toast, we drank those long iced drinks full of vegetable matter, which, apparently, one must drink so that one might feel the heat more poignantly than before"... sometimes he writes detailed, surprising descriptions which are both original and lyrical. He delights in the use of English, playing with it so deftly that it is a thing of wonder that he was not English at all. In the end the plot is revealed as being that of a romantic novel, but it is revealed as such in a memorable fashion.
I had trouble getting into this book. It's "veddy, veddy British". I had to keep my smart phone at hand to assist with the British vocabulary and the French phrases. And Arlen uses lots of inversions and extremely long sentences, so in a sense the reading was a lot like eating with a serving spoon rather than a fork. After I got used to taking smaller bites, the reading started to flow more comfortably. The story is essentially that of Iris Storm, from the age of 18 to 30. She is a woman whose sexual morality is questioned by many. She stands among men on her own terms and is known for "never telling a lie". She has been married twice, both husbands dying under questionable circumstances. Her first husband mysteriously commits suicide by leaping out of a third story window on their honeymoon night. She is well known for her fast driving of her Hispano-Suiza primrose automobile, whose stork hood ornament figures prominently in the story, as well as the fact that Iris is fond of claiming that it "can do 76". And of course, she wears a green hat, which was the the current fashion color rage in 1922, when the story unfolds. British class structure, and paternal control of family fortunes, careers and marriages figure prominently, as does suicide, homosexuality, venereal disease, smoking and drinking. It is essentially a protest novel. The Lost Generation of WWI is raging against the decayed values of the older generation that caused the losses of the war, and who continue to manipulate and control the generation that fought the war. I have now read this book three times. I would include this in my "Top Twenty" list.
I am not even sure what to say about this book. On the one hand, it is crazy weird. The lofty, ethereal language is so pregnant with pauses you worry its water will break any moment. It's filled with long scenes that don't explain their purpose until so far in you've forgotten how they started. But on the other hand, it is rather beautiful in an opium-dreamland kind of way. And the subject! I love early books that tackle feminist topics. Still, this is not the kind of book you recommend to your friends without a very strong warning of the adventure they'll be getting themselves in to.
Here was my progression: I started out loving the cooky romanticism of the language, then quickly got bored by the lack of direction and slogged through the next couple hundred pages (hence the year that passed!), then got caught up again at the end of the book and polished it off with enjoyment. I didn't love the ending from a feminist standpoint, but it did tie everything up neatly, so I understand why Arlen chose it. But by cutting off there, he kind of avoided the whole what-if the book was leading up to.
Here was my progression: I started out loving the cooky romanticism of the language, then quickly got bored by the lack of direction and slogged through the next couple hundred pages (hence the year that passed!), then got caught up again at the end of the book and polished it off with enjoyment. I didn't love the ending from a feminist standpoint, but it did tie everything up neatly, so I understand why Arlen chose it. But by cutting off there, he kind of avoided the whole what-if the book was leading up to.
This was great, even though it is certainly dated and a bit moralistic (not in the sense that it promotes morals, but the plot relies on assumptions about honor, and especially feminine virtue, which seem patronizing now.) But it was full of great, quotable lines. I almost want to buy the book so I can underline most of it and keep it.
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March 8, 2021
A novel that I first encountered via Anthony Powell. I read it when I finally managed to buy a copy in the early 1990s and only now have I returned to it. Powell’s narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, speaks well of the book as portraying London in the 1920s in a positive light. I don’t see that light. There’s a lot more to it than just this. Needs more thought.
Iris Storm - a memorable heroine or a tempest in a teapot? (Pun intended.)
We know that great literature is timeless, but what IS great literature? Most bestsellers are soon forgotten and rightly so. But what about a book that seems to have profound things to say about a generation? A book that is made into a hit play and then into popular movies, not just once, but several times? In what niche do we file such a book?
"Michael Arlen" was an Armenian who desperately wanted to be an English gentleman. He succeeded because even the snooty English are willing to be flexible if you have money, as he did after this huge bestseller appeared in 1924. Also if you dress well and know which fork to use. Maybe starting out as an outsider made him a shrewd observer of the phenomenon known as the "Bright Young Things." There's no question that he nailed them.
In the U.S., the 1920's was Prohibition and Model-T Fords and short skirts and Al Capone. In England, it was the rebellious young aristocrats who inhabited the Mayfair district of London and broke all the rules. The girls had seen their brothers and boyfriends erased in a war that killed almost one million Englishmen and left countless others maimed for life. They had been shocked into the realization that even their money, titles, and stately homes were no protection against tragedy.
To hell with the old prudish ways. They lived for the present and pleased themselves. Iris Storm is the quintessential Bright Young Thing in her stylish, casual clothes and her racy yellow car. Her father's alcoholism killed him. Her twin brother is headed down the same road. I forget what happened to her Mum, but it doesn't matter. If Iris believes in a family curse, who can argue with her?
Her first husband killed himself on their wedding night. Everyone believes it was because of a scandal (that long ago ceased to BE a scandal) and blames Iris. She heroically allows her husband's adoring friends (including her brother) to believe that, although the truth is that he committed suicide for quite another scandal (which became a minor medical problem with the invention of penicillin.) Say what you want to about modern civilization, personal failings that would have had you throwing yourself off a balcony in the past now won't elicit a yawn from your minister or your grumpy great-aunt.
Her second husband was killed trying to put down the rebellious Irish, but HIS friends assume that he threw himself in front of a Belfast bullet because of his unfaithful wife. Again, Iris takes the blame and carries on. She's grudgingly admired by her peers for her wit and style and because she really doesn't give a damn. They don't look deeply into her emotions and motivations because to do so would be ill-bred. They may be rebelling against the English class system, but they aren't abandoning it.
Things fall apart when Iris falls in love with a childhood friend who's engaged to a wealthy young woman. Since Venice has more money than God, stealing her honey strikes even the most fashionable of Iris's friends as carrying things TOO FAR. Typically, Iris goes on her merry way, although she's really a Tortured Soul. And finally, she does what all Tortured Souls do, although not all Tortured Souls have such stylish means of self-destruction. Even family curses are more fun if you have money.
All this is told by a young man who meets Iris and becomes tangled up in her strange life. He MUST be a writer since his descriptions are too convoluted and obscure to be easily deciphered. If you're going to read this book, be prepared to pay close attention or you'll lose the plot and possibly your sanity. Keep reminding yourself that it's not much longer than a novella and you CAN do it if you try!
But should you try? It's a book that was shocking at the time it was published. It's a shrewd look at a small, but noisy segment of English society in the 1920's. It's a "classic" in the sense of a book that's frequently referred to in other novels. Still, the melodrama grates on modern sensibilities and there are all those "scandals" that seem silly to us now, but which were damned serious at the time.
I read this book for the same reason Hillary climbed Mt Everest. It was there. The enigmatic title lured me on, too. It's not a book I particularly enjoyed or that I would read again.
We know that great literature is timeless, but what IS great literature? Most bestsellers are soon forgotten and rightly so. But what about a book that seems to have profound things to say about a generation? A book that is made into a hit play and then into popular movies, not just once, but several times? In what niche do we file such a book?
"Michael Arlen" was an Armenian who desperately wanted to be an English gentleman. He succeeded because even the snooty English are willing to be flexible if you have money, as he did after this huge bestseller appeared in 1924. Also if you dress well and know which fork to use. Maybe starting out as an outsider made him a shrewd observer of the phenomenon known as the "Bright Young Things." There's no question that he nailed them.
In the U.S., the 1920's was Prohibition and Model-T Fords and short skirts and Al Capone. In England, it was the rebellious young aristocrats who inhabited the Mayfair district of London and broke all the rules. The girls had seen their brothers and boyfriends erased in a war that killed almost one million Englishmen and left countless others maimed for life. They had been shocked into the realization that even their money, titles, and stately homes were no protection against tragedy.
To hell with the old prudish ways. They lived for the present and pleased themselves. Iris Storm is the quintessential Bright Young Thing in her stylish, casual clothes and her racy yellow car. Her father's alcoholism killed him. Her twin brother is headed down the same road. I forget what happened to her Mum, but it doesn't matter. If Iris believes in a family curse, who can argue with her?
Her first husband killed himself on their wedding night. Everyone believes it was because of a scandal (that long ago ceased to BE a scandal) and blames Iris. She heroically allows her husband's adoring friends (including her brother) to believe that, although the truth is that he committed suicide for quite another scandal (which became a minor medical problem with the invention of penicillin.) Say what you want to about modern civilization, personal failings that would have had you throwing yourself off a balcony in the past now won't elicit a yawn from your minister or your grumpy great-aunt.
Her second husband was killed trying to put down the rebellious Irish, but HIS friends assume that he threw himself in front of a Belfast bullet because of his unfaithful wife. Again, Iris takes the blame and carries on. She's grudgingly admired by her peers for her wit and style and because she really doesn't give a damn. They don't look deeply into her emotions and motivations because to do so would be ill-bred. They may be rebelling against the English class system, but they aren't abandoning it.
Things fall apart when Iris falls in love with a childhood friend who's engaged to a wealthy young woman. Since Venice has more money than God, stealing her honey strikes even the most fashionable of Iris's friends as carrying things TOO FAR. Typically, Iris goes on her merry way, although she's really a Tortured Soul. And finally, she does what all Tortured Souls do, although not all Tortured Souls have such stylish means of self-destruction. Even family curses are more fun if you have money.
All this is told by a young man who meets Iris and becomes tangled up in her strange life. He MUST be a writer since his descriptions are too convoluted and obscure to be easily deciphered. If you're going to read this book, be prepared to pay close attention or you'll lose the plot and possibly your sanity. Keep reminding yourself that it's not much longer than a novella and you CAN do it if you try!
But should you try? It's a book that was shocking at the time it was published. It's a shrewd look at a small, but noisy segment of English society in the 1920's. It's a "classic" in the sense of a book that's frequently referred to in other novels. Still, the melodrama grates on modern sensibilities and there are all those "scandals" that seem silly to us now, but which were damned serious at the time.
I read this book for the same reason Hillary climbed Mt Everest. It was there. The enigmatic title lured me on, too. It's not a book I particularly enjoyed or that I would read again.
For most of this book, I was rating it a 3 best so the 4 is probably generous. The language early on was sometimes difficult to follow and the dialogue could be pretty painful - a combination of empty witticisms and declarations that seem profound but when you read them again make absolutely no sense at all (although there are some wonderful one liners about certain aspects of English society and character). At points I was even tempted to give up.
I’m glad that I persevered because when the story started to become clearer it was poignant and affecting. Although the war is hardly ever mentioned and the characters are seemingly living carefree, indulgent lives, they are a damaged, disillusioned generation turning away from the mores and expectations of their parents, without having anything to replace them with. The underlying themes become fairly dark and many are surprising for a book written in the 1920s - it apparently caused so much of a scandal on publication that when it was made in to a film the title and name of the main character had to be changed to hide its origins.
Overall, I am not sure I could wholeheartedly recommend this because of the tough start, but I am very glad that I have read it.
I’m glad that I persevered because when the story started to become clearer it was poignant and affecting. Although the war is hardly ever mentioned and the characters are seemingly living carefree, indulgent lives, they are a damaged, disillusioned generation turning away from the mores and expectations of their parents, without having anything to replace them with. The underlying themes become fairly dark and many are surprising for a book written in the 1920s - it apparently caused so much of a scandal on publication that when it was made in to a film the title and name of the main character had to be changed to hide its origins.
Overall, I am not sure I could wholeheartedly recommend this because of the tough start, but I am very glad that I have read it.
I wish I’d had a girlfriend with a green hat and a yellow Hispano-Suiza. Not one as doomed as Iris Storm, though….I couldn’t quite make my mind up about this. The ending is terrifically dramatic, and is not just about flawed individuals but also about the way an entire society makes cruel and false judgements. It is very much of its time and place: the younger generation who were scarred by the first world war, and the older generation whose failures were the cause. And yet….the prose, although sometimes very effective, is overall mannered and pretentious, and there are parts in the middle of the novel which are quite dull and meandering. An intriguing period piece, but a bit overblown.
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October 25, 2022
This is may be an unfair review. I read fifty-two pages of The Green Hat and decided that was enough. Supposedly sparkling, delightful, witty, worldly wise, with "smart" conversation, the dialogue—did anyone ever talk that way?—is, to my mind, pretentious, stupid, empty, and tedious. At least the supposedly clever characters in This Side of Paradise had the excuse of being unergraduates. Iris March Storm is 29, the narrator a little older. They should know better.
I sense that the reader is supposed to be entranced. I was annoyed and bored. Write me off as a vulgarian incapable of appreciating the manners of the 1920's (an era in which I fancy I am not unversed). Think what you will. In its day this novel fascinated people. God help them.
I sense that the reader is supposed to be entranced. I was annoyed and bored. Write me off as a vulgarian incapable of appreciating the manners of the 1920's (an era in which I fancy I am not unversed). Think what you will. In its day this novel fascinated people. God help them.
Arlen's writing in this 1924 bestseller is described in Kirsty Gunn's foreword as a "kind of English that no one speaks nowadays and probably never did", which is one reason why I love it. Although possibly too arch for modern tastes, any place where the description of a car as being "like a huge yellow insect that had dropped to earth from a butterfly civilisation.....gallant and suave" can exist with perfect ease, is alright by me. This car, a Hispano-Suiza, deserves top billing as much as the hat of the title, both belonging to impossibly enigmatic woman of mystery, Iris Storm, above whom circle the black vultures of tragedy.
A compelling romance told through lyrical prose:
I heard about "The Green Hat" through Harry Crosby, an American ex-pat in Paris in the 20s, who noted reading it twice in his memoirs.
The Green Hat is a beautifully written romance mystery told through the recollections a main character. Arlen has an enchanting lyrical style: "A drop of water clung like a gem to the corner of her painted mouth. It was not fair." He also has the ability to build suspense with each sentence.
I enjoyed reading "The Green Hat," and someday, I will read it twice.
I heard about "The Green Hat" through Harry Crosby, an American ex-pat in Paris in the 20s, who noted reading it twice in his memoirs.
The Green Hat is a beautifully written romance mystery told through the recollections a main character. Arlen has an enchanting lyrical style: "A drop of water clung like a gem to the corner of her painted mouth. It was not fair." He also has the ability to build suspense with each sentence.
I enjoyed reading "The Green Hat," and someday, I will read it twice.
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