And yet, with the nuanced prescience of its themes, its complex portrayal of fraternal and human relationships and its typically solid characterisation, it emerges as characteristic as any Greene novel. The result, indeed, seems like a Greene novel unlike most Greene novels – there is no simmering revolution in the cold, almost frosty milieu of Sweden, there is no detritus of a fallen empire to critique or even a despotic dictator to eviscerate skilfully – though one of the characters in this sad, strangely elegiac story comes almost close to wielding his will as irascibly as any tyrant. England Made Me was written in the wake of the modest success of Stamboul Train – the first of Greene’s brilliant entertainments – and already, this 1934 novel witnessed Greene willing to take the literary risk of writing a comparatively serious and introspective novel that also encapsulated the contemporary themes of the decade with discerning depth. Perhaps this portrait of exiled Englishness can be traced back to this fifth published, at least at a first glimpse, most uncharacteristic novel. Each of these novels portrays the Englishmen exiled in these strange, seductive but dangerous regions, trying, and even failing to reconcile themselves to their new outposts of escape. There are the weary and disillusioned dentist Mr Tench and the idealistic Captain Fellowes, stranded in the anti-clerical state of Tabasco in The Power And The Glory there are the civil servants and their atabrine-yellowed wives of Sierra Leone in The Heart Of The Matter and there is even the meagre, three-man English community of Corrientes in The Honorary Consul. However, a crucial facet of his work has been a study of the dislocation and disorientation in which his Englishmen, either abroad or exiled, themselves, are vulnerable to the unexpected and ineluctable forces of moral corruption, vice and even larger events of revolution and war. He was, of course, being a little too modest in his reverence and his own books can hardly be deemed as superficial or facile in their portrayals of the foreign lands he travelled and chronicled. Narayan’s The Bachelor of Arts, gently lamenting the inability of a writer to describe a foreign land comprehensively. “Perhaps, no one can write in depth about a foreign country – he can only write about the effect of that country on his own fellow countrymen, living as exiles or government servants or visitors”, wrote Graham Greene in his introduction for R.K. _ Dislocation and Disillusionment in England Made Me If you are engaged in study of this kind in a professional capacity, as a doctoral or post-graduate student, or for any other reason, please do get in touch. The purpose of the Current Research page is to highlight ongoing research into the life and works of Graham Greene and his contemporaries as well as to give notice of relevant exhibitions and lectures.
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