To start, I’ll simply say that Loving, for me, has been a dive into mediocrity.
The story feels uninspired, but the writing is outstanding. I’ll dive more into the negatives in my review tomorrow.
Until then, I thought I’d share a positive. This is a beautifully descriptive passage from Loving. In this scene some of the servants are headed out for a picnic on their day off:
“Raunce’s Albert, Edith, Kate, the little girls, and Mrs. Welch’s lad chose for their picnic a place just off the beach. While those children ran screaming down to where great rollers diminished to fans of milk new from the udder upon pressed sand, Albert laid himself under a hedge all over which red fuchsia bells swung without a note in the wind the sure traveling sea brought with its heavy swell. He could watch the light blue heave between their donkey Peter’s legs, and his ears were crowded with the thunder of the ocean.”
I love Green’s descriptions of the waves: “great rollers diminished to fans of milk new from the udder upon pressed sand.”
Maybe I love it because I could never write that way. It’s just not in me. But I can also see how some readers might think it’s a little too much.
Henry Green’s writing is like Fitzgerald on steroids.
Many an author has worshiped the guy, and I think his writing is worthy of their praise.
My review of Loving comes tomorrow.