44. The End of the Affair
Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Recommended by:
Author: Graham Greene
Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II, Romance
192 pages, published 1951
Reading Format: Audio Book
Summary
Set in London during and just after the Second World War, The End of the Affair examines the obsessions and jealousies within the relationships between three central characters: writer Maurice Bendrix, Sarah Miles, and Sarah’s husband, civil servant Henry Miles. The narrator of the book is Maurice, a rising writer during World War II in London based on Graham Greene, and focuses on his relationship with Sarah based on Greene’s lover at the time, Catherine Walston, to whom the book is dedicated. While Maurice and Sarah fall in love rapidly, he soon realizes that the affair will end as quickly as it began as he cannot contain his all consuming jealousy and frustration that Sarah will not divorce Henry, her kind but boring husband. When a bomb blasts Maurice’s flat as he is with Sarah, he is nearly killed. After this, Sarah breaks off the affair with no apparent explanation. Maurice is still consumed with jealousy and hires a private detective to discover Sarah’s new lover. Through her diary, Maurice learns that when Sarah thought Maurice was dead after the bombing, she made a promise to God not to see Maurice again if God allowed him to live again. After her sudden death from a lung infection, several miraculous events occur, bringing meaningfulness to Sarah’s faith. By the last page of the book, Maurice may have come to believe in a God as well, though not to love Him.
Quotes
“It’s a strange thing to discover and to believe that you are loved when you know that there is nothing in you for anybody but a parent or a God to love.”
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”
“I want men to admire me, but that’s a trick you learn at school–a movement of the eyes, a tone of voice, a touch of the hand on the shoulder or the head. If they think you admire them, they will admire you because of your good taste, and when they admire you, you have an illusion for a moment that there’s something to admire.”
“My passion for Sarah had killed simple lust forever. Never again would I be able to enjoy a woman without love.”
“I measured love by the extent of my jealousy.”
“I became aware that our love was doomed; love had turned into a love affair with a beginning and an end. I could name the very moment when it had begun, and one day I knew I should be able to name the final hour. When she left the house I couldn’t settle to work. I would reconstruct what we had said to each other; I would fan myself into anger or remorse. And all the time I knew I was forcing the pace. I was pushing, pushing the only thing I loved out of my life. As long as I could make believe that love lasted I was happy; I think I was even good to live with, and so love did last. But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly. It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death; I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck.”
“I hate you, God. I hate you as though you actually exist.”
My Take
The End of the Affair is the first book that I have read by iconic British writer Graham Greene and it did not disappoint. I especially enjoyed listening to the Audio Book version narrated by Colin Firth (an actor I like quite a bit) who does a great job with the material. Greene brings to life the misery, insecurity and jealousy that is the ugly underbelly of Maurice’s all consuming, obsessive love for Sarah. A fascinating, albeit depressing, book that I can unreservedly recommend.
