Mr. Gieene's New NOyel
England Made Me. By Graham Greene. (Heinemann. is. Oci.) IF there is one thing common to nearly all the best of the younger writers today it is that they seem to be engaged in a resolute indictment of the world they live in." This is no doubt always a habit with the young, otherwise progress in any direction would be slow, but naturally in an age like this of vast and rapid changes accepted values of all kinds_ are more often and more ruthlessly questioned. Among our novelists, unfortunately, there is far too easy an acceptance of con- ventional habits of thought, curiosity and imagination are rare, and their -books, far from offering any useful or orna- mental criticism of life, serve only too often as exposures of dull minds and weak sensibilities. Some of the younger writers, however, show an ability to attack their problems energetically and in their own way, and while some seem to be heading vaguely towards a reddish Utopia others no less gifted are bus'Y trying to be honest and to understand their fellow creatures and the world beyond the narrow limits of their own environment, and are managing to prUctise the art of writing in a -skilful and entertaining way : amongst theni is Mr. Graham Greene. His new book, the best he has yet written, is very good indeed. It shows invention, imagination, atmosphere, freshness of eye, adroit character-drawing, and a very personal gift for metaphor and simile. The story is steered perfectly away from hardnesS on the one hand and sentimentality on the other, and it is hard to find fault with it, though some readers may instinctively dislike Mr. Greene's choice of subject or the way he treats it.
The scene is Stockholm, the action is centred about Erik Krogh, one of those international financiers whose operations are as dubious as they are vast, and with this exception the leading characters are English. In no foreign capifal; on :lite shady fringes (thick with parasites) of high finance, is one going to look for ideal Englishmen, so Mr. Greene's seedy remittance- man and shabby-souled adventurer may offend those who would like to think that all Englishmen abroad are as much an honour to their country as the best types of soldier and administrator. That is not so much a criticism (for Mr. Greene nowhere suggests that he means such individuals to be taken as widely typical) as a warning.
It is interesting to -observe how Mr. Greene lays emphasis, first, like others of his generation, on the importance of the often damaging influence of his school on a man's nature, and secondly on devoted loYalties rather than romantic love. The chief of these loyalties in England Made Me is that of Krogh's secretary, Kate Farrant, towards her twin brother Anthony. She is stable and not without nobility ; he is clever in an unpleasantway, a mixture of' conventionality and unscrupulousness, wearer of an old school tie to which he is not entitled and of a smile which is " a perpetual warning that he is not to be trusted," a man capable of selling a gold brick to an Australian in the Strand, and the victim, " behind the firm handclasp and the easy joke," of "a deep nihilism." They are both- made absolutely real (Kate is admirable as well) ; and so is Krogh, a shy man able to do anything with figures but cut off from human beings ; and so is Hall, Krogh's devoted ex-partner ; and so, with many a subtle and satirical touch, arc the less important characters. " We're all thieves," says Kate. " Stealing a livelihood here and there and every- where, giving nothing– back." That is perhaps the sum of the indictment. Exactly how far Mr. Greene means to blame the Old School, capitalism, circumstances, or the individual, is of less importance than his poetical ability to show the individual in action. With a command of dialogue as neat as Hemingway's and much less monotonous, with an almost feminine sensitiveness that sometimes, in descriptive passages. reminds one of Mrs. Virginia Woolf, with certain mannerisms of style that suggest Mr. Auden, Mr. Greene, in this excellent and original book, is very much himself and a mature novelist.
WILLIAM PLOMER.
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