England Made Me

by Graham Greene

From master storyteller Graham Greene comes the tale of Anthony Farrant, who has boasted, lied and cheated his way through jobs all over the world. Then his adoring twin sister, Kate, gets him taken on as the bodyguard of Krogh, her lover and boss, a megalomaniac Swedish financier. All goes well until Krogh gives orders that offend Anthony's innate decency. Outraged and blind to risk, he leaks information to Minty, a shabby journalist and fellow victim of life, a decision that will lead to disastrous consequences.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, 20th Century, British Literature, Literature, Mystery, Literary Fiction

207 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1935

About the author

Henry Graham Greene was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century.
Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers (or "entertainments" as he termed them). He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Through 67 years of writing, which included over 25 novels, he explored the conflicting moral and political issues of the modern world. The Power and the Glory won the 1941 Hawthornden Prize and The Heart of the Matter won the 1948 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Best of the James Tait Black. Greene was awarded the 1968 Shakespeare Prize and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize. Several of his stories have been filmed, some more than once, and he collaborated with filmmaker Carol Reed on The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949).
He converted to Catholicism in 1926 after meeting his future wife, Vivienne Dayrell-Browning. Later in life he took to calling himself a "Catholic agnostic". He died in 1991, aged 86, of leukemia, and was buried in Corseaux cemetery in Switzerland. William Golding called Greene "the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety".

Reviews

[Rosemary Atwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘I was beginning to find my own world. In ‘England Made Me’ I let myself go in it for the first time’
Graham Greene (The Paris Review, early 1950s).

And what a chilly yet tender environment is this developing world of Graham Greene’s imagination. There’s an uneven response to this early work by GoodReaders but its examination of the exploitation of power is both persistent, beguiling and disquieting.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enormous Swedish business concern is about to go global. Secretly, it is in dire straits. Erich Krogh, a cold, lonely, self-made man, is covering up some sleazy unethical financing that will be healed as long as the American deal goes through.

Sounds like it's ripped from today's headlines, doesn't it?

Kate Farrant, Krogh's British assistant, and lover, is an efficient, practical, intelligent young woman who loves her ne'er-do-well twin brother just a little too much. Anthony is charming and handsome and sad, one of life's eternal losers, who unfailingly manages to screw up every opportunity that comes his way. When Krogh gives him instructions that go against his sense of what is wrong and right, he rebels, sealing his own fate.

There is some breathtaking writing in this book, styles and perspectives shifting in a gorgeous, Joycean way. I had to keep putting it down for fear of what would happen to the characters, always a good sign when I'm reading. It deserves to be more well-known.

[Margarita Garova · Rating 3 out of 5]

Антъни и Кейт Фарант са близнаци, които след дълга раздяла се събират в Стокхолм, където Кейт е секретарка и любовница на един от най-богатите хора в света – Ерик Крог. Притеснен за личната си безопасност, милиардерът наема Антъни за свой бодигард. Заформя се троен психологически възел с известно сексуално напрежение, в което Греъм Грийн избистря три типажа от 30-те години на 20 век.

Антъни – скитащ авантюрист, повръхностен и безобиден измамник на дребно, хиперболизиращ нехранимайко, страшно привлекателен за определен тип жени. Романът през цялото време акцентира върху непригодността му да бъде уседнал и порядъчен човек, като разбира се, уловката се оказва другаде – у вече уседналите.

Ерик Крог – социопат, вероятно по рождение, социално и емоционално скован, съвсем леко будещ съчувствие заради неумението (непособността?) да общува, като във втората половина на романа губи и това предимство за читателя. Очаквано, светът на Крог е леден, стерилен и крайно безинтересен, а тези, които доброволно са част от него умеят да изчисляват съотношението “полза-риск”.

С което преминаваме към Кейт. Близначката, другото “аз”, тази, която отива до край. Психологически най-смущаващият персонаж, от тези, които винаги изиграват добре картите си и които са достатъчно умни, за да не разкрият, че са явни победители. Не искате да са ви приятели.

Останалите герои са несретни английски емигранти, отвеяни дипломати със синекурна роля, или еснафи-екскурзианти, с които Антъни запълва носталгията си по майка-Англия.

След всичко по-горе просто не знам какво да мисля за тази книга. Не мога да кажа, че ми хареса, но не и неприятна за четене. Донякъде това, че Грийн е избрал за място на действието Стокхолм, град, който страшно обичам, а и добре го е описал, спасява нещата в моите очи (много съм чувствителна към географската локация в книгите). Героите също имат потенциал, който надхвърля представянето им в книгата. Хаотичните диалози и ретроспективните недомлъвки, които забелязвам и в други книги на Грийн, и особено “Краят на аферата”, ме дразнят, защото не разбирам накъде ме водят като читател. Недоизказаност има и в постоянните намеци за кръвосмешение между Антъни и Кейт, но по-добре, че авторът не беше задълбал в тази посока. А, да и двама от героите са отявлени мизогинисти.

Бих определила “Англия ме сътвори” като извънбрачното дете на “Нежна е нощта” (но без нейната сантименталност) и “Упадък и падение” (но без снобизма). Май ще се върна към шпионските романи на Грийн.

[Julian Worker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of the better books I've read by Graham Greene.

It's probably because I didn't like the central character Anthony Farrant, so I suppose it's good writing to make me dislike him from the beginning. However, I think Farrant falls into the same category as William Marble from 'Payment Deferred' by CS Forester in that I can see no redeeming quality in him whatsoever from the very beginning. He's the kind of character you hope gets run over by a bus on Page 2, or eaten by a crocodile on Page 3, but being the central character, that never happens.

Anyway, Farrant has lied and cheated his way around the world, sending home telegrams saying he resigned from his job rather than telling the truth that he'd been fired. Of course, he has lovely twin sister called Kate who loves him very much and Kate obtains a job for Anthony with her lover Krogh, an incredibly wealthy Swedish financier. Things go well until Krogh gives some orders that offend Anthony's beliefs (yes he has some), but does Anthony tell the police? No, he tells a seedy journalist called Minty instead...

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

When my Dad lent this book to me, he said that Graham Greene's fiction is a direct antecedent of John le Carré's. The common thread, it seems to me, is Untrustworthy Englishmen. There are technically no spies in England Made Me, but the male protagonist Antony is an inveterate liar. At the start of the novel he reunites with his sister Kate, broke after once again getting fired from his latest job for corruption of some description. Kate is dating an extremely rich businessman and wangles Antony a new job as a bodyguard, a role he totally ill-suited to. It is abundantly clear from the start that this will not end well. The whole novel is suffused by an atmosphere of gloom and squalid tragedy.

I don't think I'd read anything by Greene before and appreciated his deft characterisation and eye for material details. Antony may be an unbearable person, but he is made compelling by how he is written. Greene also undermines the glamorous patina of wealth very effectively, by depicting Krogh the millionaire as a pathetic figure. He certainly lacks the charisma of Saccard (from Zola's Money and The Kill), despite having a similarly cavalier approach to financing his business ventures. Kate's characterisation is rather squashed between these two men, although her dynamic with Antony (her twin) is interesting.

Monetary concerns propel the whole narrative, despite various discussions of familial or romantic love. Nearly every character is employed by and/or trying to get money from Krogh, except the man himself. The interrogation of wealth reminded me somewhat of The Great Gatsby, but Greene is also using Antony to dissect the Englishman Abroad. This archetype doesn't come out of it well, as Antony is a con man who will grab any chance to turn a quick profit then try to flee the consequences. His use of a Harrow school tie to emulate a trustworthy Old Boy was particularly notable and apt. On this occasion Antony fails to flee in time and gets drowned in a river by one of Krogh's loyal peons. I can definitely see what my Dad meant with the le Carré comparison. England Made Me is relentlessly cynical and depressing, but brilliantly written.

[Matthew Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

79th book of 2020.

This is a slightly odd book by Greene: head-hopping perspective, an odd plot (a bodyguard in Stockholm), some strange incestuous undertones between the brother and sister characters... I certainly think this is a lesser work of his. But, as his entertainments say on the tin, entertaining nonetheless. And, another Greene ticked off.

[Dfordoom · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most memorable characters in Graham Greene’s 1935 novel England Made Me are, as always, the failures. Anthony Farrant has been fired from jobs everywhere from Aden to Shanghai. He has been black-balled from countless clubs in countless in countless cities. Anthony Farrant, in his one good suit, his Harrow tie (a lie, of course), with his boyish charm and his charming lies. He’s not quite a crook, in fact he believes in most of his money-making schemes. As one employer put it, they had to get rid of him not because he’d actually done anything, they had nothing specific to complain about, but he had managed to corrupt the entire office. Minty is another failure, another familiar denizen of Greeneland. Minty really did go to Harrow, where every shred of self-respect was stripped from him. Minty’s life has been a life of humiliation, a life of survival in spite of those humiliations. Like so many of Greene’s most pathetic characters, Minty is a Catholic (as was Greene). In his squalid room in Stockholm one of his few possessions is a plaster Madonna. Minty always says his prayers, giving thanks for his continued survival, and giving thanks to his frequent petty revenges. Minty’s only companion is a spider that has taken up residence in his room. Minty doesn’t kill the spider – that would be too clean, too merciful. Anthony’s sister is the mistress of Krogh, a fabulously wealthy Swedish capitalist, and she gets him a job as Krogh’s bodyguard. Anthony’s morality is flexible, but not flexible enough to countenance the kind of dishonesty that is normal business practice in the coming new world of capitalism. Anthony discovers, to his own surprise, that there are things even he won’t do. Greene’s world is a corrupt world, a world with very little hope, where life is a series of disappointments and failures. Those with religious faith lead lives that are just as squalid and hopeless as the lives of those without religion. It all sounds very depressing, but Greene writes so beautifully about failure, he writes so ravishingly about corruption. This is a great book by a man who may well have been the greatest English writer of the 20th century.

[Marco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Niet meer van deze tijd, dit boek. Het lijkt wel of Graham Greene allemaal experimenten in velerlei stijlen heeft uitgeprobeerd. Geen succes. Achterflap vat het goed samen: onbetrouwbare protagonist moet onguur karweitje opknappen dat hij weigert. Het komt hem duur te staan.

[BrokenTune · Rating 2 out of 5]

No, no, no, no, no.
Just when I thought Greene had begun to find his stride as a writer and that The Heart of the Matter really was his worst book, England Made Me proves me wrong. There are some great passages - all mostly within the first 30 pages - and then it is downhill from there....plot-wise. Because the story became so boring that I still have problems recollecting what actually happened. And I only just finished the book.
On the positives: Whatever happened between 1934 and 1935, Greene has now realised that female characters are also three-dimensional individuals, and that portraying women in novels as cliched side-kicks is best left to the Ian Flemings* of this world.
"It was true, she always knew; she was his elder by half an hour; she had, she sometimes thought with a sense of shame, by so little outstripped him in the pursuit of the more masculine virtues, reliability, efficiency, and left him with what would have served most women better, his charm."

(* I am aware of the anachronism - but can't help myself comparing Greene and Fleming from time to time.)

Review first posted on Booklikes - http://brokentune.booklikes.com/post/...

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story about Anthony Tarrant and his two sister Kate. Tony is a failure albeit a charming one who never sticks at anything. He has been dismissed from jobs around the world due to his way of corrupting the staff. His sister Kate gets him a job in Stockholm with her lover Krogh a millionaire Swedish industrialist.

The story follows Tony in Stockholm’s Krogh’s bodyguard. We meet the distasteful Minty a journalist and in the background a sycophant and worshipper of Krogh and who will do anything for him.

Tony meets Loo an English woman from Coventry on holiday with her parents. The lust or misplaced love is not nice to read. Tony though a scoundrel has standards and a moral code which he foolishly decides to follow. It is odd to think this book set in 1935 echoes what happens today in the financial world and how it all went is about the image you portray. It reminded me of Bernie Madoff.

There is also the love between Kate and Tony with it bordering on dangerous grounds. Her jealousy of his other women and wanting him all to herself.

Not Greene’s best work. Great characters, atmospheric although the women were three dimensional and the plot was weak. Still an enjoyable read.

[Dan Pecchenino · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is probably the weirdest Graham Greene book I've read. He experiments with shifting points of view and cubistic description in ways that, along with the novel's incestuous themes, make me think Greene must have read a little Faulkner (AS I LAY DYING and THE SOUND AND THE FURY) before writing this. There are some passages of gorgeous sadness that are up there with the best of Greene's work. His depiction of Anthony Farrant and Loo's lovemaking is one such moment. On the whole though, this isn't Greene at his best. The story is too vague and abstract, which I think is the point (Krogh and Krogh's are a critique of the deadening effects of industrial capitalism, blah blah), but it renders inert Greene's greatest strength: his ability to make the particular into something universally felt and the universal into the particularly poignant. Worth reading only if you have read most of Greene's other work first and are a completist, like me.

[Ionuț Anastasiu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unul dintre romanele lui Graham Greene "de tinerețe" și nu dintre cele mai bune. Dar, în ciuda imperfecțiunilor evidente ce au legătură în principal cu intriga destul de anostă și de incoerentă, totuși England made me are și unele puncte tari ce nu ar trebui neglijate. Le vom lua în ordine.
Narat inițial din dublă perspectivă de către gemenii Kate și Anthony Farrant, acțiunea romanului se desfășoară la început în Londra, după care acțiunea se mută în Stockholm. Desigur, punctul tare la care mă refer are legătură cu modul în care se completează cele două perspective.
Un alt punct forte al cărții este descrierea relației dintre cei doi gemeni. Fără doar și poate, Anthony este un ratat, iar sora lui știe foarte bine acest lucru. Și totuși, ea îl iubește cu disperare. De altfel, fraza care deschide romanul este pe deplin relevantă în privința sentimentelor lui Kate pentru Tony: "S-ar fi putut crede că-și așteaptă iubitul". Un (frate) iubit doldora de defecte: "Nu poate să deschidă gura fără să mintă"; are un "farmec facil"; "Ar fi putut convinge pe oricine, cu excepția ei, că o dată în viața lui făcuse ceva înțelept până peste poate". Dar nimeni nu poate să reziste șarmului lui Anthony. În plus, ea "nu putea să se debaraseze de el. Era mai mult decât fratele ei; era fantoma care o atenționa: "Uite de ce ai scăpat!"; era toată experiența de care ea fusese lipsită; era durerea, căci ea nu simțise niciodată durere decât prin el; tot așa, era frica, disperarea, rușinea. Era totul, mai puțin succesul".
Așa cum am mai spus, Anthony este un ratat, dar fără să fie un om rău. Ceea ce-l descrie cel mai bine este următoarea observație: "Să ceară o slujbă era tot ce detesta mai tare, și tocmai asta părea să fie slujba vieții lui". Este un inadaptat, ce însă nu merita să aibă sfârșitul pe care i l-a pregătit scriitorul britanic. Lectură plăcută!

[Zoeb · Rating 5 out of 5]

The past is literally another country in this early brilliantly wrought, melancholic, almost elegiac novel by the one and only Graham Greene. "England Made Me" begins with an unusual epigram, a line from a Walt Disney classic (back in those days when Disney used to make classics instead of cashing in to pointless remakes, as they do now) - "All the world owes me a living" and while that seems initially true for only one of the novel's compellingly etched protagonists (for how could there be any antagonist in Greene's brilliantly realistic milieu of moral complexity?), it turns out, at the end of 208 pages of an almost sad, wistful story, that almost everybody else too were yearning for his or her moment in the sun, for some stab at fortune, riches or fame, and all of them are doomed to fail.

In many ways, then, "England Made Me" is about failure. That is what made it a slightly discomfiting read for me - there is a vein of almost suicidal fatalism to be running through the organically sculpted narrative. What Greene called that "splinter of ice" so essential for writing coagulates here to lend it a frosty, cold-blooded atmosphere. And it is set in Sweden, beautiful but in a chilly fashion, rendered stirringly, precisely by Greene's tight yet always fluid prose that both lets the plot unfold naturally without ever losing its sense of place and time.

There is failure all around here, it is there in Anthony Farrant's perennial status as a pariah, a wanderer, a freebooter who steps in and out of multiple hack-jobs across the breadth of the world, for one reason or the other, generally because of that stubborn pride that won't allow him to lose his decency. It is there in the shabby, almost decadent Professor Hammarsten, whose deluded dreams of staging "Pericles" will never see the light of the day, even till the end. And it is there, most unforgettably, in the novel's most compellingly broken character, the down-trodden, outwardly cynical reporter Minty, still a haplessly devoted Harrow boy, in how even his scrappy belief in his faith cannot give him the escape from his humdrum state of exile in this strange land.

Even the well-heeled and established cannot escape this sense of inadequacy. Anthony's twin sister, Kate, still nursing an inextricable link to her wayward brother that almost borders on an implicitly incestuous bond of lovers, is still broken and incomplete inside even as she is now the mistress of a powerful man. That man, Krogh, modeled loosely on the real life Ivar Kreuger, is himself an outcast in his own country - he is unable to relate to the English ambassadors and ministers who invite him to poetry readings; he falls asleep in operas and he cannot quite overcome the initial thrill of discovery; he is at sea when it comes to understanding subtleties.

They are brilliant creations, plausible, human, real and Greene even goes out of his way, audaciously, to sneak into their minds, to let us see the bustle of all their jumbled thoughts and conflicted feelings. And yet, even with its distinctly melancholic air, "England Made Me" is far from depressing - it is enlivened by how convincingly Greene infuses a spirit of camaraderie between the unlikeliest characters, between the freewheeling Anthony and the inwardly insecure Krogh, between the well-connected Minister and the shabby Minty, between the tormented, befuddled Kate, considering and weighing her alliance to Krogh and the mean-spirited Fred Hall, Krogh's utterly devoted right-hand man who can even spill blood to pay his loyalty. The novel is full of superbly crafted sequences when we see each of these characters spark off each other to the most unexpected ends and even as one can predict what the climax would hold for a few of these characters, trust Greene to pull off the rug in the most unexpected ways, as he sets up these characters tautly in place in the first half and then lets the simple, even laid-back narrative reach eventually to a heartbreaking finale of catharsis.

Above all, above even failure, looms the inevitable shadow of home. And of the past. The title alludes to the birthplace of Anthony, Kate, Minty and Hall - and how their hard-bound sense of English identity and personality cannot be molded or adapted into the frosty, indifferent air of this strange land. Anthony's recklessness and old-school dignity, Kate's indecisiveness, Minty's spiritual mediocrity and Hall's thuggish loyalty, all owe their source to England in some way or the other. But just as England is their home, it is also the past that haunts these and other characters - Krogh's almost nostalgic longing for the thrill of first discovery that propelled him to his success and also the side-plot of the ambitious, belligerent factory worker Andersson whose arrival in the penultimate part of the novel propels it to its inescapable denouement.

It is a simple but profound story, of loyalty and betrayal, of fraternal love and the seductive thrill of young romance, of a grubby allegiance to faith and money and it is a wonder how beautifully, effortlessly Greene weaves in a wealth of rich detail, journalistic observation, skilled, multi-layered characterisation to make it a concise, complete, thoughtful read that also remains compelling from cover to cover, almost like a haunting classic film; even the prose has a cinematic quality to it to cram in even the quietest or simplest scenes a welcome blend of tension, drama and unexpected poignancy. Discover this under-appreciated yet almost mesmerising, hypnotic classic and find out for yourself.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

"England Made Me" is a novel by Graham Greene first published in 1935, it was republished as" The Shipwrecked" in 1953. I'm not sure why it was originally titled "England Made Me", and I have absolutely no idea why it was republished with the title "The Shipwrecked". Maybe if it had taken place in England or on a ship or a deserted island I'd get it, but it wasn't at any of these places, it took place in Stockholm, Sweden.

Now I have to figure out if I liked the book and the answer is, I don't know, maybe. If I have to like the main character to like the book, then no, I didn't like it, because I certainly didn't like Anthony Farrant. Anthony is an annoying man who never seems to try very hard at anything he does, and therefore has been a failure at one job after another. His family has heard the words "I have resigned" over and over again. They receive cables from all over the world, "I have resigned" from Shanghai, "I have resigned" from Bangkok, "I have resigned" from Aden, but his twin sister Kate knows that these messages really mean, "Sacked. I am sacked. Sacked."

Anthony is out of work again and Kate gets him a job with Erik Krogh, a wealthy Swedish businessman. Kate is his personal secretary and mistress. I don't like Kate much either, Anthony and Kate’s relationship borders on the incestuous, and I get tired of her constantly trying to take care of him when he is certainly old enough to be taking care of himself. There is also Minty, a paparazzi type reporter (yes apparently they had paparazzi in the 1930's already). He follows Krogh everywhere he goes trying to get a "story". When Minty meets Anthony and finds out he is working for Krogh (as his bodyguard), he bribes him for information. They become fast friends which was also strange to me considering they know each other about a day before they're best friends.

I probably wasn't supposed to, but I liked Erik Krogh. Krogh is ruthless in his pursuit of more wealth and power. Krogh has no allegiance to any country. His only loyalty is to himself and his fortune. Krogh is engaged in all kinds of shady business deals of which I understood little about other than they weren't "quite" legal. Krogh also lies to a labor union leader to avoid a strike and then frames the man for wrongdoing and ruins his reputation before firing him. The reason I liked him was because he reminded me of George Babbitt from the Sinclair Lewis novel, "Babbitt". The mystery is why he reminded me so much of Babbitt, but the entire time I was reading it I was thinking of George Babbitt, and I loved that book. I wish more of the book would have been about Krogh and less about Kate and Anthony, I may have ended up hating Krogh too, but I wish I would have been given the chance. I think a story about the workers in the factory, which is barely mentioned would have made the book much more interesting, but then again I guess it would have been a different book in that case.

I like endings that surprise me, and this one surprised me. I did not see it coming at all. So I'll give him a star just for that. Another star for this quote which Dickens fans may recognize, or if you don't they should look it up:

"Tell me, how many men-'

'Only two' she said. 'I'm not promiscuous.'

'In Coventry?'

'Once in Coventry,' she said, 'and once in Wotton-under-Edge.'

'And you are ready for a third?'

'Barkis is willing,' she said."

It's a short book so go ahead and read it, I'll give it three stars altogether.

[Monty Milne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is only my second Greene, after “The Honorary Consul”, and although I enjoyed that, this left me distinctly underwhelmed. The Swedish setting could have been interesting but Sweden exists only to supply a bit of background – nearly all the characters are English – and that background is grey, wet and depressing. There were flashes of interest in some of the characters and occasionally in the plot, but….

None of the characters are likeable and the plot is so thin I sometimes got bored. Krogh is a socialist caricature of an evil capitalist, and he and his corrupt empire don’t seem to me to come to life on the page. The most interesting character is Minty. Although just as repellent as the other characters, his story hints at Greene’s own internal conflicts. Like Greene, Minty was bullied at school and converted to Catholicism. Well call me a heartless bastard if you like, but life isn’t easy for any of us, and for an adult to mope on about his unhappy schooldays – especially when they were as privileged as Minty’s/Greene’s – makes me think they should just Get Over It.

Minty’s Catholicism is equally unconvincing and seems to make no difference to his miserable and corrupted life. In fact the only evidence of it is his possession of a collection of superstitious trinkets. Instead of putting him in the category of Thomas a Kempis this just makes him look childish, as if the only point of his Faith was to assemble magical tat to turn away his school bullies.

I intend to read more Greene – especially “The Power and the Glory” – and I won’t be put off by this. But I think it’s a pity it is included in Bloxall’s 1001 Books List – there are at least five Greene novels on the consolidated multi-edition list. 1300 or so of the best books in world literature of all time, and Greene bags five places? This seems excessive, and I think even most admirers of Greene would concede that this one doesn’t really deserve to be there.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthony and Kate are twins who haven’t seen each other for a while, as Anthony has been taking and losing jobs across Asia. Now Kate has found him a job in Sweden, working for her lover who runs a very successful company. Anthony finds himself caught up in a situation which challenges his moral perspective.

Greene is really excellent at exploring these murky moral dilemmas and the figure of the Englishman abroad, trying to survive in an alien and corrupt environment. I enjoyed that aspect of the book much more than the emotional entanglement between Kate and Anthony.

It didn’t have the tension of some of his more noted works, but the characters were memorable (particularly the down at heel journalist Minty) and it was quite a compelling read.

[Axel Ainglish · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a splendid book.And more if You think it was his first work. Sensitive and with plenty of beauty in the scenaries and well depicted main characters. A story of love and friendship settled in the old days (meaning e.g. the fifties) where ethics intervene reassuring the reader about how things must be. Highly recommendable for all sort of people. Is not easy not to be moved by a so touching story and way of writing. One would like to be as the main character. Although appearing this one as a bit of a guy with a fake past and a good for nothing. Because at the end is the one who shows what one must not do and where one shall not be involved in. Charming people would You think when it begins. Though his sister's affair, the millionaire gooses chasing lover, is not precisely that. Lovely story from a great author, anyway. Nowadays Greene may be considered a bit naive (he may be superficial too in some of his works) or reserved to girls and guys around seventeen. For times passes and in Art maybe more than in anything else. Besides, Le Carré showed up in the sixties and about the spies genre he swept Greene and some others, somehow. For sure not all GG dealt about the Spy novels. And of course, Greene has more mature works that may be better,can't tell, did not follow this author. Was a bit the bestseller kind, during a long time, think. Only read and liked The Man Within and A Burnt Out Case (some may think this one is better) and watched The Third Man (how not). Read Our Man in Havanna too, which has a fine sense of humour, but found not much more in that one. A tad childish, the Havana Man. About The Thin Man, watched too and bored me. So stopped following this author. Anycase happen to rew read this England Made Me once years after my fourteen (when read it for first time) and stood liking it. A small jewel a bit forgotten. Sometimes the beginnings of a writer maybe better than the ones done when already famous. Wasn't it better A Burnt Out Case than The Comedians or The Power and the Glory or The Human Factor? And weren't those much more famous instead? At least, A Burnt Out Case I liked. But to me the ones I just mentioned were very boring, don't even remember if I could have finish them. Same applies to The End of the Affair, boring and besides, am not a believer. Agnostic as much. Could not finish it. Anycase, perhaps GG has grown old badly and is even too naive and more for teens than he ever was. That's another one.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this book had been writen in the last few years with it's banking crisis and failing economies you could say that he was just merely jumping on the bandwagon but this was first published in 1935 and was the book that was said to have brought him to prominence within the literary community.

As with many of Greene's books he paints a moody scene but there is little action and all the characters are seen as flawed, damaged by public school life.The book is basically about the decline of a conman, Anthony Farrant, who has been sacked from various jobs and kicked out of gentlmens' clubs all over the world but finds a kindred spirit in his sister's boss/boyfriend, Krogh, who gives him a job. Ultimately Farrant is killed by a jealous accolyte of Krogh.

Although the relationship between Farrant and his twin sister Kate is interesting this book fell rather flat with me. I personally found none of the characters particularily appealing and although the book is supposed to be about 'personal morality' none seemed to show anything but a selfish self-centred personality. The character Minty I found particularily distasteful.

Although this was an interesting read it is not one which will live long in the memory (personally I feel that when Greene is good he is very good but when he is poor he is shocking and this falls nearer the latter than the former) but perhaps that is because I never went to public school.

[Nadine · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a character study, excellently done.
Great atmosphere and the style is special. Every word is exactly as it should be.
Women are not stereotypical women, caught in their time, but three-dimensional and not what the men want them to be.
It's about family.
And yet it is difficult to read, not easy and not very light. So it took me longer than expected. But I liked it, it just didn't blow me away.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

The protagonist in Graham Greene’s novel, England Made Me, is the puckish rogue Anthony Farrant. He is a globe-trotting man mostly of no fixed abode and, for that matter, no fixed job or income. He lives by his wits, killing time between instances of fleeting stability, by subscribing to a philosophy of unfounded optimism that “something will turn up.” Something invariably does, but generally in the form of concerned family members and acquaintances. Rascals can often be lovable, but there’s an element of deceit and dastardliness about Anthony. Even his doting twin sister, Kate, perceives him to be an “irrevocable, seedy adventurer.”

That said, Greene masterfully paints an indelible, harum-scarum portrait of Anthony’s nature and character. And everything that Anthony is, his twin sister isn’t—they are heads and tails of the same coin. Kate is sensible, stable, conscientious, hardworking, and ambitious in her own way. She is also profoundly fond of her brother, as evidenced by the somewhat peculiar number of times she repeatedly expresses her love for him. The plot, such as it is, is Kate’s determination to bring her errant brother to heel. She entices Anthony to Stockholm (the setting of the novel), where she is well-connected with Krogh, a wealthy industrialist who has made good after doing time in the trenches.

Krogh is another well-drawn character. He is currently neck-deep in a very fragile business deal, involving inevitable financial chicanery in which timing is the key to either success or ruin. Krogh is a social misfit. He only knows one thing—commercial megalomania; it’s his constant preoccupation. Paranoia about a potential worker uprising has Krogh hire Anthony as a bodyguard, a hopeless mismatch, for among Anthony’s many undesirable traits is his philandering. Lucia, or Loo, whom he meets casually, becomes his latest target.

Anthony is utterly cavalier about his bodyguard role. In fact, he routinely draws Krogh out of his comfort zone in one whimsical situation after another. Rather than a peremptory firing, Krogh’s normal reaction to an underperforming employee, Anthony has an oddly humanizing effect on Krogh. Another minor character also crosses paths with Anthony. Minty is a shabby, third-rate reporter, living in semi-squalid conditions, who gets journalistic fodder by soliciting others to provide it to him. He also appears to be a confirmed, passionate misogynist.

Throughout the story, the clock is ticking on Krogh’s deal. Kate tries ineffectively to get Anthony to take his job seriously; Anthony has persuaded himself that he loves Loo and is going to her in England; and Minty scrabbles around for printable gossip about Krogh and his network. Tragedy is precipitated by the rather late appearance of a final player in the drama (he has only made phone appearances thus far). Hall is Krogh’s slavishly devoted “fixer,” and has been nervously handling the critical deal from Amsterdam. Arriving in Stockholm, he appears to misread the Krogh-Anthony situation, and takes deadly initiative.

Overall, Anthony is the life-and-soul of England Made Me, whereas all other action appears to unravel in jerky fragments. Despite Greene’s exquisite subtlety, it is not difficult to discern where the denouement is headed and what it will be. Puzzling to readers may be the random bursts from third-person into first-person narration, and snippets of stream-of-consciousness prose. Equally puzzling is the novel’s title: if the meaning is apparent somewhere in the story, this reader missed it.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

England Made Me was the 5th novel by Graham Greene, originally published in 1935. Anthony Farrant comes back from lying and cheating his way through the Far East and Middle East, returning to meet his twin sister, Kate, who works for a Swedish businessman, Eric Krogh.

Anthony has grifted through his life, living from hand to mouth. His sister wants him to settle in Sweden, promising him a job with Krogh. Krogh is a crook himself, wheeling and dealing in stocks as he tries to advance his empire in the US. Anthony takes a job as a sort of body guard, but doesn't really want it.

He meets an English girl on holiday with her parents and is torn between staying with his sister and going back to England to be closer to Lou.. Also in the mix is an English reporter, an expat living in Sweden, trying to make a living getting stories about Krogh.

It's an interesting wandering type story, moving from one character to another. As Anthony begins to discover more and more the type of person Krogh is, he has to decide on a course of action. This will lead to the climatic ending. Greene isn't necessarily an easy author to read but his stories are always unique and different. I've been enjoying my exploration of his works (4 stars)

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

England Made Me (1935) is one of the last novels by Graham Greene on my list to read. I had expected it to take place in England given the title, but was surprised to find it take place in Stockholm, Sweden. This is where the never-do-well Anthony Farrant has landed after his latest failure in Aden (in Yemen), where his twin sister, Kate, works for millionaire businessman Erik Krough. She also serves as his mistress. Anthony Farrat is a charming failure with the gift of the gab who is prone to over exaggeration. Another equally fascinating creation is the English journalist exile Minty, who owes his meager existence to covering the doings of Krough and is a different sort of failure than Anthony. There is a lot of talk about class and what constitutes being a gentleman, which refer to traditional English standards of living and respectability that Anthony and Minty cling to. They are exiles who lust for the green fields of England and curse the fates for not having been born with money, because both believe that given a chance and trust of an investment they could be successful. Kate is more of a realist and has pinned her future on Krough. Anthony doesn't really have the fortitude to plan long term-he has spent too much of his life scraping to get by and moving from one colonial outpost to another trying to make a name for himself. It seems here he has decided to finally do the right thing and then return to England-the sure sign of a tragedy in waiting. There is a curious subplot involving one of the Swedish journalists who is an Anglophile and dreams of staging a production of Shakespeare's Pericles. I was trying to figure out why Greene chose that play, and it may be because it has a mixed reputation and doesn't have a long history of being staged like some of his more famous tragedies. Perhaps, Greene is equating the narrator of the play, Gower, with Krough-since so many of the characters fates are tied to this industrialist's success. A lesser known Greene novel, but another compelling story from the master.

[Frederick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to take a guess that the title "England Made Me" comes from the school song of Harrow. I won't Google it for this review, because I want to write this while these thoughts are still in my mind. Harrow comes up as a theme in this novel, even though it's set in a highly fictionalized Sweden.
Having read, over the last three and a half months, at least sixteen novels by Graham Greene, I can say that one of the main pleasures of reading him is seeing the variations he makes on his themes.
Just about everything in this novel from 1935 is reflected in books Greene wrote before it and after it.
There is the great glass office building of the mogul, there are British ex-pats, there is the recurrence of the word "mauve." There is the sardonic view of cremation. The oddly frank descriptions of coupling, the stage magician's attitude toward Catholicism, the introduction of what is essentially a short story about two thirds of the way through (and, in this case, as usual, a good one) and the startling wit. There is often a literary man thrown in, whose utterances allow Greene to practice the art of parody; there is a newspaperman the main characters are wary of, and there is, here as all the other Graham Greene novels, a glimpse of the suffering of each character.
England Made Me may not be the best starting place for the reader of Graham Greene. He is in practice mode here, even though he'd already shown, three years earlier, in Stamboul Train (Orient Express) his technical mastery of the form. Throughout his career Greene pulls back between his more accomplished works and rehearses. But he had to stay in print and England Made Me is by no means shabby.

[Smiley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly, I found out I first read this novel in 1974 and, vaguely, I sold it to the DASA Book Cafe some years ago and forgot to look at the last page in which, normally, I would write down the date read and time (presently) in pencil. For some reason, I've learned not to write in ink since, I think, all books I've bought and read are too precious to write, underline or scribble in ink.

Just imagine, time simply flies, I mean I read it some four decades ago and also went to watch the film in the cinema. I had been reading this novel and reached somewhere with my tedious struggle due to my fledgling reading capability. Therefore, I fairly enjoyed watching the 1973 film [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England...], in fact, we can see the book cover show the two key characters. We normally have long had Thai subtitles for foreign films so it's all right for our understanding but there is something deeper than that, for instance, the novel's plot, theme, climax, etc.

So I need time to find a copy and reread it for a review.

To continue ...

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another worthwhile Greene novel with three memorable characters. The plot is okay but it's the characters that are the essence of the novel. Anthony Farrant is 30, has travelled a lot, is charming, handsome, unreliable, lost a number of jobs and doesn't tell the truth. He meets up with his twin sister in Stockholm. Kate Farrant is intelligent, efficient, practical, who loves her brother Anthony.
She works for financier, millionaire, Erich Krogh. She is also Erich's girlfriend. Erich is a self-made entrepreneur who is a shy, lonely man who is involved in some shady financing operations to keep his business afloat. He has a ruthless sidekick in Hall who does Erich's bidding. Greene's concise writing style, plot twists, being introduced to a new country and his focus on human contradiction and moral ambiguity always leave me feeling satisfied after reading his novels. If you are new to Greene I would start with The End of the Affair, The Quiet American or Brighton Rock.

[Katie Grainger · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first started reading England Made Me I found it a little boring but as the book progressed I got into it. The story is about Anthony and Kate Farrant, who are twins, Anthony is the brother who can't hold down a job and Kate comes to 'rescue' him and take him to Sweden to work for her lover and employer Krough.

Krogh is a corrupt business man with a huge fortune who Kate is due to marry. Anthony with his sense of justice is unable to stomach Krogh's dodgy dealings, when he steals stories to the press it has dire consequences.

Like all Greene's books there is a strong moral element running through. It is probably one of the most interesting of Greene's novels I have read to date. I thought the character of Minty was particularly interiguing, he was an interesting weird little guy who's interactions I enjoyed reading.

[Kingfan30 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really don't know what to say about this book. I never really got into the story and still can't really tell you what it was all about. I have no idea what Krogh was involved in, I think I must have drifted off at some point and missed something. None of the characters were particularly likeable and some seemed to come and go without any point to them. At least it was a short read and hey its another one ticked off the list.

[John McCaffrey]

Continuing my Graham Greene journey has led me to this novel. Set in Sweden, but all about the English fascination with societal division, Greene puts forth two main characters, twins, brother and sister, who fall under the golden hand of a tycoon who has lost connection with the working class that sprung him. Dark, at times depressing in its cynicism, but also realistic in its depiction of limitations in people no matter the heights they soar.

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

"You'll stay of course" he asked with contempt.
"No," Kate said, "I'm leaving."
"Oh, fine," Minty said, "fine. How it'll hurt them. Couldn't your think up anything better than that?"
"Oh," she said, "a few days ago I could have ruined them. A word to Battersons. But what would have been the use? There's honor among thieves. We're all in the same boat."
"He wasn't a thief," Minty said, defending
"We're all thieves" Kate said, "stealing a livelihood here and there and everywhere, giving nothing back."
"Minty sneered: "Socialism"
"Oh no," Kate said, "That's not for us. No brotherhood in our boat. Only who can cut the biggest dash and who can swim."

Apologizes perhaps for quoting the end (I tried to mask the spoiler a bit, but its hardly likely that a set up like this would end differently than it does) but it is really a great window on the book because it can be read both straight and ironically. The plot revolves around people looking to get what they can and there is a definite race to the bottom that starts at right out of the gate. But Anthony gets into trouble exactly because he does have a moral line he doesn't want to cross, and it does have to do with a brotherhood identification with another working man. He also gets into trouble because he is trusting (a bit strangely for all his supposed experience slumming) and because he is a sensualist, living in the moment. The whole drama is kicked off because of Kate's hope is that by bringing Anthony back into her life she can recapture an emotional life herself, transcend this cynical view that she gives at the end. But her inability to be one or the other just puts the two ways of life into conflict - and savagery always wins.

Also but quoting I can maybe explain why I give this three stars instead of 4, because I didn't really enjoy reading it that much - we are kept at quite a distance from the characters - a distant third person for the most part, and lots of elliptical dialogue. Very much like life I suppose, but a lot of heavy intellectual lifting to try and bring some order, which is usually the point of bothering to write something down with a beginning and and end.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

England Made Me is an early novel by Graham Greene; it was his sixth.  And despite its setting in Sweden, it's a very 'British' novel and the title* directs the reader to think about the source of the losers who make up the cast of characters that surround the international financier whose machinations propel the plot.  Greene being Greene, he's not alluding to the geographical England, but rather to the society that he despised. The novel attacks the British class system, and mocks the public school ethos that can be mimicked by a Harrovian tie, but never penetrated by the 'wrong' class. (You can buy such a tie for £124 from *eyeroll* Smart Turnout, but presumably today's Old Harrovians can detect frauds as easily as 'Minty' does in the novel.)

The fraud in the Harrovian tie is Anthony Farrant, (said to be modelled on Green's ne'er-do-well brother).  Anthony has been in the Far East, getting sacked from one job after another but sending postcards to his sister saying that he has resigned.  For reasons not satisfactorily explained in the novel, his twin sister Kate adores him, and she wangles a position for Tony when she becomes secretary to the finance mogul Erik Krogh. (Who is said to be modelled on the real life Ivar Kreuger whose legacy is dubious.  He died in 1932 so I guess Greene was safe from being sued.)

So Tony turns up in Stockholm, unable to speak a word of Swedish, but that doesn't matter because none of the other characters seem to either. 

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/08/05/e...