The Green Hat

This book was a smash when it was published in 1924, and shows up on some lists of novels you absolutely must read. For me, however, it was a bit of a dud. The novel recounts the adventures of its beautiful, damned, and doomed heroine, Iris Storm, whose most notable feature is that she drives around London in a massive yellow Hispano-Suiza. She and her alcoholic twin brother are the last of a long line of nobility; the family is financially ruined, but Iris has managed to keep up her end (and the Hispano Suiza) by two marriages rapidly followed by widowhood. In its time, the story was shocking -- Iris sleeps around, even though she feels dreadful about it.Why didn't I like this book? First, the prose struck me a generally overwrought, and sometimes needlessly confusing. True, there are some nicely pointed bits, but in general the lush style struck me as altogether too much of a good thing. Secondly, the novel is dated, in a bad way. Most novels that survive do become dated in one or another aspect, but there is something about many of them that transcends their time and place, which can make the "datedness" a plus rather than a minus -- another lens through which to view the human condition. This one, for me, does not acheive that --the characters are to a large extent caricatures of their time and place, and they don't emerge as human beings. Finally, the story -- again for me -- got dull, lots and lots of dashing about without much being revealed until the "shock" ending. Having guessed what that was going to be, I sped through the second half of the novel at top speed.This novel treats on some of the themes of "Brideshead Revisited". The aristocracy is revered, simply for being aristocratic (yes, one is tempted to observe, the aristocracy is different from you and me. They have more ancestors"). The family at the center of the story is seriously troubled, and the narrator is an outsider who becomes involved in the story. And this book shares some of the linguistic opulence of "Brideshead". Waugh, however, did it much, much better than Arlen. Besides, one ends up caring about the characters in "Brideshead". I never did have much sense of the characters in "The Green Hat", let alone an interest in them.

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great book

This book has a relentless flow of words which simply did not engage me. I did not care about the characters . Iris Storm was boring to me. It is well written. The style reminds me of Mrs. Dalloway.

The Green Hat was a major bestseller in 1924, when it was published. It was twice made into movies, the most famous of those being a late silent movie, A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS (1928), starring Greta Garbo and John Gilbert. (The Green Hat was sufficiently controversial that the censors made the producers change the title, the character names, and such major plot points as one character having a venereal disease.) Michael Arlen, original name Dikran Kouyoumdjian, was born in Bulgaria of Armenian parents, but moved at a fairly young age to England, and later in life moved to the US.The Green Hat is an interesting book to read, but to a contemporary reader I think it mostly fails. At least it does for me. The main issue is that the character motivations fail to convince -- there is just too much melodrama. Perhaps these motivations really did make sense in 1924, but I'm not really sure of that.The Green Hat tells of the doings of a small group of English people, the main ones around 30 years old, in 1923 and 1924. Thus it is set just after the debacle of World War I, and indeed its theme -- stated fairly baldly at places in the book -- is one of reaction against the "old values" of European civilization that were, as it is sometimes said, "destroyed" by the War. The story is told by an unnamed narrator who is more of an observer of events than a participant (though he does take some actions in the novel).The central story is of Iris Storm, the woman in the green hat of the title, a woman of rather unsavoury reputation. The narrator meets her at the opening -- he lives in the same building as her estranged alcoholic brother -- and from her he hears some of her personal story (and perhaps sleeps with her). We gather that Iris has been married twice, both husbands dying very soon after the marriage (her first, a suicide, on their wedding night). She is rumored to have had multiple lovers. She herself thinks her family under a sort of curse.As the story continues a traumatic event seems to drive Iris to a further destructive act -- the seduction of Napier Harpenden, a childhood friend and an up-and-coming civil servant, only three days before his wedding. Napier still gets married, but months later Iris lures him back, and makes ready to run off with him, at which point a final confrontation reveals the true secret behind Iris's rackety life.It's a very melodramatic novel. It's told with considerable verve, and plenty of arch turns of phrase, that at times intrigue, but often come off (at this removes) forced or false. The tone varies a bit -- though appropriately, I think -- from comic to cynical to tragic to resigned. The major problem is that the character motivations never really convince. They are given dramatic gestures to make, and I just didn't believe in them. We are told that the characters have certain features -- but we aren't shown them, and so they don't come alive. (Not even Iris Storm, though she comes closer to being fascinating than any of the men.) I'm not surprised that it was a bestseller, and I do think it reads rather better today than many bestsellers of its time, but it is ultimately slight and artificial. But I'm glad I read it.

I understand the negativity of the previous reviewer—he didn't like the book, that's his right. There is however another way to approach the subject: the Green Hat describes a certain English (or even European) elite society living it up between two world wars. In fact, it depicts it well and with a keen eye and flair. The importance of the book lies in the fact we are the heirs of that period living essentially as they did—selfishly and cluelessly. We may not like what we see but a deforming mirror still does't lie. A note on the author—his origins were Armenian but, after the genocide,he had decided to integrate the Western world—not an unwise choice. He is the father of Michael J Arlen who decided to perform a pilgrimage to his origins in a once famous book called, I believe, Return to Ararat. It's a strange world we live in, ain't it?

This is one book that never should have fallen off the radar. Why compare it to Hemingway? Actually the style is taut, but Arlen allows himself to blend poetic writing with taut prose which startles the reader, and I think is well done, and even fun. It's an unusual style, and not in the least dated. It won't appeal to everyone--just those who treasure superb writing for its own sake.

I expected much more from the book after seeing the movie with Greta Garbo and listening to the host of TCMtalk about how many subjects were taboo at the time so the movie was modified....The book was boring much to my disappointment.

Boring

The jury in my head is still out on "The Green Hat". The 3-star rating - "it's OK" - doesn't really reflect my true feelings as I loved this book in places. To borrow and adapt a turn of phrase from the author, it was awful and awesome.I nearly gave up on the book as I'd barely started it. The first chapter or so is incredibly heavy-going and it takes an effort to orientate yourself to the author's idiosyncratic style. During the first fifty pages, I found it difficult to believe that this book had been a best-seller in the 1920s. But, having persisted, somewhere in Chapter 2, I was rewarded. I began to click with the way the author writes, I was enchanted by the richness and strangeness of the prose and the dialogue and became caught up in the story of Iris Storm, a woman with a dark past who prowls the streets of Mayfair in a yellow Hispano Suiza.It's all about a vanished world that centres on the Ritz, on Deauville and Paris and Mayfair, and the people that inhabit this world with their questions of honour, reputation and loyalty - and an underlying subtext about how women should behave and present themselves. There is fascinating commentary on the "modern" world with one character remarking of the previous generation that "they couldn't grub about in so many cesspools at one time, rushing in a night between London and any vile paradise of the vulgarities like Deauville or the present Riviera."I did find the climax, when the "shameless and shameful" Iris goes in like St George to confront her lover's father and his "boys' club" rather over the top, in a melodramatic way.But I suspect that this book will remain in my mind - and I may even go back to that heavy first chapter one of these days to try and fathom it out.

The Green Hat is Michael Arlen's best known book. The hardback copy I received, still with its colourful dust jacket and in great condition for its age, was published in 1934, ten years after the first edition. The story is riveting but it is the names of the characters that are particularly memorable: Lady Pynte, Colonel Victor Duck, Trehawke Tush and Venice Pollen! It's a rip-roaring, fast read with a fairly gruesome ending. What's not to like?

Faultless service, excellently packaged item, contents as described. Highly recommended.

A very poetically written book - its language is ethereal. Perhaps we are kept in suspense for too long but I found it particularly informative.