The End of the Affair

Rating:
Summary: A powerful story
Review: This is a great book. It is a powerful story that deals with love between a married woman named Sarah and a writter named Maurice who start out as friends then become lovers.The affair ends suddenly, and Maurice doesn't know why. When he sees her again after two years he becomes obssesed with Jeolousy and a strong desire to be with her again. He hires a detective to follow Sarah because he believes she is having an affair with another man. Graham Greene does a great job of describeing Sarahs anguish as she goes through a crisis of conscience and a search for God, and the selfeshness of Maurice who only cares for himself. This is a story of love under difficult circumstances.

Rating:
Summary: "I want ordinary corrupt human love."
Review: This is a religious novel about profound human suffering. Originally published in 1951, Penguin Classics recently published a centennial edition of Graham Greene's "Catholic novel," THE END OF THE AFFAIR, on the 100th anniversary of his birth. The story is autobiographical. In his excellent Introduction to this new edition, Michael Gorra reveals that Greene rather casually converted to Catholicism in 1926 to appease his fiancee, Vivien Dayrell-Browning, and that Greene's novel was based upon his own obsessive affair with Catherine Walston, which lasted for much of the 1950s (pp. vii; xiv). (Greene dedicated his book "TO C.") THE END OF THE AFFAIR is as much "a record of hate" (p. 1) as love story, and it it is actually about the end of two relationships: the end of Sarah Miles' adulterous relationship with the narrator, Maurice Bendix, and the end of Bendix's relationship with God. Whereas her adultery leads Sarah to sainthood, it leads Bendix to living hell. "O God," he prays bitterly at the end of the novel, "You've done enough, You've robbed me of enough, I'm too tired and too old to learn to love, leave me alone for ever" (p. 160).

Set in London during World War II, the novel gives Bendix a mystery to solve: why did Sarah end their affair on a June day in 1944 without explanation, saying only that "people go on loving God, don't they, all their lives without seeing Him?" (p. 58). Bendrix, a writer admired (like Greene) for his "technical ability," meets Sarah at a party thrown by Sarah's dull, civil-servant husband, Henry Miles. "There was never any question in those days of who wanted whom," Bendix recalls, "we were together in desire." The affair burns on for several years until Bendrix is knocked unconscious by a bomb during an afternoon tryst. Believing her lover is dead, Sarah immediately makes a promise to God by praying, "I love him and I'll do anything if you'll make him alive . . . I'll give him up forever, only let him be alive." When Bendrix recovers, Sarah keeps her promise, and Bendix's love soon turns to hate. Years later in 1946, after befriending Sarah's husband Henry, Bendix learns that Henry is suspicious that Sarah is involved in an affair. This prompts Bendrix to hire a private detective, which leads him to the discovery that his only rival is God.

Reading THE END OF THE AFFAIR is experiencing Graham Greene at the heights of his ability as a writer.

G. Merritt

Rating:
Summary: A candid observer of emotions
Review: What I love about Graham Greene is his simple and straightforward style. This is the kind of story that can easily turn drippy and snivelly in less skilled hands. Mr. Greene uses a direct and candid, but always compassionate, tone to describe the evolution of the 3 central characters, and the tragedy experienced by each one. Good, worthwhile reading.