Books: The Real Thing

CAUGHT (196 pp.); CONCLUDING (254 pp.)—Henry Green—Viking (each $3).

One trouble with most contemporary novelists is that they keep putting words into the mouths of their characters. They also make them do things that seem out of character. English Author Henry Green is an exception and a rare one. Reading his best novels is like eavesdropping on his characters. They say and do the things they would if Green and his readers weren't around, but, without knowing it, they say and do them the way Green wants them to.

Three of Green's novels (Loving, Nothing, Back) have been published in the U.S. during...

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