Henry Green - Loving

Green's 1945 published novel is placed during World War Two. It sets of by describing the old butler Eldon lying on his death bed, being nursed by the household's first maid.

They both serve the widow of an British gentleman with her daughter in law and her grandchildren who reside in an Irish country castle. While the war has already reached southern England, they stay in neutral Ireland, waiting for the war to pass, the lady's son the only family member to serve in the British forces.

Mostly, the novel is constructed around two characters: the old butler's successor Chaley Raunce and Edith, a housemaid. They take liking in each other but don't call themselves a couple in love yet. Before the ultimately leave the household to pursue their own happiness as a couple, the novels develops around the two, their colleagues and their masters, progressing slowly and providing for a careful and slow read, or a number of reads. It is a book of small and beautiful details that are knit into a story of love, war and intrigues. Green creates a big picture out of small moments he describes beautifully.

After the Banquet by Yukio Mishima

After the banquet by Yukio Mishima

Kazu is a single woman in her fiftees who runs a restaurant in 1960s Tokyo. She fears that after death she will buried alone in her grave and that everybody she knows in her life will forget her. Her restaurant is not only popular for the food, but also for herself
One day Kazu met an older man after an banquet. He is the reform politician Noguchi, who also is a widower.   Noguchi is sometimes calm and severe. This combination is attractive to her and she falls in love with him.

They get married.One reason to mary him is the love she feels for him. The other reason is, that he is a member of a famous and powerful family. Which means that she will not be forgotten after death and that she will never be alone.
Both are pigheaded and impulsive, other than that they are quite opposed in character. He wants a calm life but his friends urge him to get back into politics, an idea she loves. After being pressured to so by his friends and wife he runs for a seat in the city parliament but loses. After his loss he wants Kazu to sell her restaurant to refund his campaign. She had closed the restaurant when getting married but never thought about selling is as she had started with it from scratch as a young woman. So she refuses to sell and their struggle leads to their divorce. After the divorce she reopens her restaurant, after the banquet becomes before the banquet.

Mishima builds an picture of Japan between tradition and modernity. The novels shows how politics work in 1960s Tokyo and how power and struggle can affect a love relationship.