Party Going by Henry Green

I only decided to read this book because Brian said it was really good. He described it as a bunch of people wanting to get on a train but unable to because of fog, which made me respond that that sounded like a book by Jose Saramago. Having now read Party Going, I can see how comically wrong I was. The atmosphere is not foreboding and the characters are not flat in Saramagao's way (although they are flat in the sense that their interior lives are shallow, literal, and focused on the present).

Party Going is about a small group of very rich people trying to go on a trip to the South of France, but stuck at the train station because of fog. The central character is Max, fantastically rich and handsome but weak-willed, alternately courting and avoiding all the women. All of the women are somewhat in love with him, but are also devoted to social climbing and putting each other down. In the mix also is Miss Fellowes, the aunt of one of young travelers, who begins the book by picking up the corpse of a dead pigeon she plans to bury, drinking whiskey in a bar, and then fainting, needing to be cared for for the rest of the book.

This book reminds me of Proust but without the beauty or profoundity or charm. Like Proust it charts the minute shifts and nuances of social feeling. But unlike in Proust those appetites and schemes are all there is to the people.

There are crowds of poorer people at the train station that the characters look down on from hotel rooms. There is also a running conversation about someone named Embassy Richard and whether or not he was invited to a party.