Rating: Summary: Simply Fabulous... Review: Greene's "The End of the Affair" is nothing short of a masterpiece. After I picked it up I could not put it down, and I have read it several times since.Greene's depiction of the emotion of love found and lost is heart wrenching. You feel his words, and empathize with his pain. This book was written from Greene's own experience, and can be seen as autobiographical to his own depictions of love. This book is a must read for understanding the true raw emotion of love, and the emotions that stem from it's loss. You won't read a page without prolific questioning of the topics of: jealousy, hate, love, and God. It's meaning has added to all conversations about love with it's asking: "Can hate only stem for those who we once loved",and "Can jealousy only exist with desire?"
Rating: Summary: surprisingly unconventional Review: ...definitely not a mainstream crowd pleaser but would appeal to those who are sufficiently open-minded to explore the darker and metaphysical side of love, hate, and religion. before i started the book, i believed it to be only about the affair between two lovers but discovered, disappointingly at first, that it went way beyond that as to make a religious commentary. ultimately, it makes one wonder whether there is a greater force/spirit that dictates the outcome of an event(?). other than the philosophical point(s) of view, i enjoyed the marvelous prose and the author's skill in conveying the deepest of human (including female) emotions, which moved me greatly. i can't say that the ending is the most satisfying one i've come across, but i haven't been able to come up with a better one myself. for whatever it's worth, read it for the lyrical style and the morose ambience, but avoid it if you detest complicated character sketches and stories that make you think...
Rating: Summary: Was it me? Review: I tried...I really, really tried. I bought the book and thought "Hey, if a movie's being made out of it, there must be something there." Well, I've rethought that idea and I certainly hope the moview is better than the book. I found the writing style to be quite heavy handed and I felt at war with the story and they way it was written. I could only make it through to the middle and then giving up...I couldn't make heads or tails as to what was up and what was down. I sincerely hope the movie is better. <heavy sigh>
Rating: Summary: a thinking person's love story Review: Graham has created tremendously three-dimensional characters - whether the major players or the occasional characters, drawn so well in just a few scenes, such as the detective and his son. The only question I found unanswered was why Sarah and the narrator fell so deeply in love so quickly, what in particular they found in each other that she hadn't found in previous affairs. But as a tale of love and jealousy and the all-too-human ways we react to rejection, it's a must-read. Definitely one of the most satisfying novels I've read.
Rating: Summary: A dissenting opinion Review: Graham Greene was at his best writting slick crime thrillers; those books have a liquidiity and vibrancy which THE END OF THE AFFAIR, and the other "catholic" novels, heavy-handedly lack. THE END OF THE AFFAIR is dower, ponderous, repetative, and futhermore, implausible. Sarah is an engageing and well-drawn character, but that she and the preminently unpleasant Maurice would ever find themselves together stretches credibility. Maurice is beyond cynical, he crosses over into sadistic, and having made that tonal journey, cannot be remedied in the reader's eyes. Events are also reletively obvious, and there is an inordinant amount of repetition of ideas-- as though Greene were padding out the book. It would have worked much better as a terse little novelella, perhapse with some tainted peniciline and a spy ring thrown in instead of third rate philosophical ramblings based on a romance as joylessly implausible as MINISTRY OF FEAR was giddily absurd.Graham Green coudl be a compelling and fun writer, but almost every time he tried to get high-minded, he exposed himself as terminally jejeune. THE END OF THE AFFAIR is a perfect case and point.
Rating: Summary: WOULD GREENE APPROVE OF NEW MOVIE? Review: With another Greene book put on film, this story would likely be more appreciated by Greene than the previous version. The author never liked American directors or how they interpreted his works: if you want to see a great example of Greene's attitude, read A THINKER'S DAMN which recounts the events behind the filming of THE QUIET AMERICAN.
Rating: Summary: Superbly written, well-plotted, realistic, haunting Review: The story of a woman lost between two men, a husband and a lover, told from the lover's point of view. The plot is dramatic, the characters unwittingly and wittingly involved in one of the most common human stories. Greene's writing style is perfect. There is not a word or an activity wasted, and at the same time the tale is beautifully and compellingly told. This book is an amazing example of the finest literary composition, but it is also fascinating in the acute and at times understated manner in which these three character's psychologies play together to enmesh the hearts of two men and the life of the woman. This is also a spiritual novel, asking questions while at the same time attempting answers. And throughout, there is a strong sense of honesty that one doesn't find in most romantic novels. The characters seem to be real persons, whose lives are not dramatic or dramatized, but related in all their smallness, their dissatisfaction, their quest for understanding, and that inexplicable desire for something more. I was surprised to find that this small book was such a satisfying as well as haunting read. Anyone planning to write fiction, particularly romance (not that silly fluff romance, but something meaningful), should become acquainted with this novel. It tells so much so very well.
Rating: Summary: Haunting and gut renching portarit of love. Review: In this book Greene took on his most diffcult subject, love. Greene novel is increable becaues it shows how love and miricales can be twisted into something ulgy and painful.The narrative takes an unflinching look at adultry in a way rarely looked at, what is more intresting is how you are made to like all the charaters, you never hate henry once like you would in other stories. THe narration of mauirce is hanuting, he is thoughts and what he feels never leaves you, it will always stay with you when ever you feel love. As for Sarah, she is easily one of the most intresting woman ever in lietaure, every thing she syas feels real, all her diariy enteris seem real and she become all the more human.
Rating: Summary: Exceedingly beautiful Review: Sarah will go down as one of the most beautiful characters in all of literature. I wish I knew her in real life.
Rating: Summary: Introduced to Greene by John Irving Review: I was curious to read a Graham Greene novel after recently completing A Widow for One Year by John Irving, where several references are made to this author. I couldn't believe how fresh it read after so many years. All the pain and longing so eloquently described...the irony...the near connections. Just wonderful! Also an interesting twist in the relationship between Bendrix and the lover's husband Henry...they both long for what the other has and that brings them oddly closer. You will think about this again and again.
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