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The End of the Affair

Graham Greene,

Monica Ali (Introduction)

3.92 · Rating details · 50,958 ratings · 4,536 reviews

"A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses a moment of experience from which to look ahead..."

"This is a record of hate far more than of love," writes Maurice Bendrix in the opening passages of The End of the Affair, and it is a strange hate indeed that compels him to set down the retrospective account of his adulterous affair with Sarah Miles.

Now, a year ...more

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Paperback, 160 pages

Published October 7th 2004 by Vintage Classics (first published 1951)

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Mar 30, 2009 Ben rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone in love, out of love, or trying to understand emotion

Recommended to Ben by: Jeremy, J, Ofmatt, Logan, and Erik

Shelves: good-fiction, religion-spirituality, transformative-experience, favorites, all-time-favorites, memorable-characters, important-message, read-in-2009, to-read-again, war

This book is extremely special to me. It amazed me. It flipped me around and turned me upside down. I was overtaken, absorbed, and transfixed in a whirlwind of emotion.

The End of the Affair was exactly what I needed to help me through some recent difficulties in my personal life. (No, I didn't have an affair with a married woman, heh. But a relationship did recently end for me, and that kind of thing is painful, and tough to deal with, as you probably know.) This novel helped me through all that ...more

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Jun 17, 2016 Jennifer Masterson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: emotional-roller-coaster, classics, tissues-needed, audio, a-whole-lotta-cheetin-going-on

5 Stars!!! I just spent 3 days being read to by Colin Firth and it was fantastic!!! This is the best narrated audiobook I have ever listened to!!! Now let me say a little about the book itself. I loved it! From the first sentence I was entranced in this complicated love affair. The writing is exquisite! It grabbed my soul and set me on fire!

"This is a record of hate far more than of love." - Maurice Bendrix

"The End of the Affair" is about a writer named Maurice Bendrix. Maurice is a very jealou ...more

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Aug 11, 2012 karen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: distant-lands, littry-fiction

this is the story of a jealous man and a jealous God fighting for the soul of a woman who desperately wants to believe in one of them.

oh, and it's a complicated thing, belief.

the relationshippy parts of this book are divine. a woman in an unfulfilling marriage takes a lover, maurice, and puts all of herself into the relationship. maurice, for his part, should perhaps have been called "marcel," because his involvement in the relationship is pure proust. overanalyzing, obsessing, becoming jealous ...more

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Aug 03, 2017 Paul Bryant rated it it was ok

Shelves: novels

Note : every possible plot spoiler included here... but I don't care. Let's go.

So let me get this right. This miserable sourpuss atheistic type author guy Maurice meets this hot slutty (their word) woman Sarah who is married to England’s most boring civil servant Henry. They have a full on steamy affair right under Henry’s nose for four years and are very happy, except Maurice gives the impression that even when he’s happy he’s miserable. Like Morrissey. Similar name. Anyway, it’s World War 2 an ...more

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Jan 29, 2017 Adina rated it really liked it

Shelves: mcewan-barnes-coetzee-and-co, romance, british, 1001

“The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity. The words of human love have been used by the saints to describe their vision of God, and so, I suppose, we might use the terms of prayer, meditation, contemplation to explain the “The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity. The words of human love have been used by the saints to describe their vision of God, and so, I suppose, we might use the terms of prayer, meditation, contemplation to explain the intensity of the love we feel for a woman. We too surrender memory, intellect, intelligence, and we too experience the deprivation, the noche oscura, and sometimes as a reward a kind of peace. The act of love itself has been described as the little death, and lovers sometimes experience too the little peace. ”

I am terribly late with this review but it wasn’t my fault. One of my colleagues borrowed my book before I got the chance to transcribe the quotes I chose and I had to wait until he brought it back.

The End of the Affair is part of Greene’s Catholic series. I bought it before I found out about this tiny but significant detail and I started this with dread. I was expecting some kind of religious preach but it wasn’t the case, fortunately. The author struggled all his life with the dilemma of God’s existence and he projected his doubts on the narrators of some of his novels. As such, the novel, among other things, becomes a meditation on the probability of God’s existence.

The first part of the novel is more profane and describes, as you can guess, the end of an affair between a famous writer, Maurice Bendrix and the wife of a civil servant, Sarah. In the 2nd part we find out more about the reasons behind the sudden ending and the story becomes more of a discussion about God.

"Man made God in his own image, so it’s natural he should love him. You know those distorting mirrors at fairs. Man’s made a beautifying mirror too in which he sees himself lovely and powerful and just and wise. It’s his idea of himself. He recognizes himself easier than in the distorting mirror which only makes him laugh, but how he loves himself in the other."

The story is not linear, it jumps back and forth in time. We learn how the love story begun, how it was consumed by passion and jealously and how it abruptly ended with a betrayal from Sarah. We get to also find out her point of view, beautifully introduced by her journal.

I would have been annoyed and taken aback by the religious talk weren’t for Greene’s amazing talent for words. Just as in The Quiet American, the author’s prose is superb, I could probably quote here half of the novel and I would still miss some beautiful lines.

“I have never understood why people who can swallow the enormous improbability of a personal God boogle at a personal Devil. I have known so intimately the way that demon works in my imagination. No statement that Sarah ever made was proof against his cunning doubts, though he would usually wait till she gone to utter them . He would prompt our quarrels long before they occurred: he was not Sarah’s enemy so much as the enemy of love, and isn’t that what the devil is supposed to be. I can imagine that if there existed a God who loved, the devil would be driven to destroy even the weakest, the most faulty imitation of that love. Wouldn’t he be afraid that the habit of love might grow, and wouldn’t he try to trap us all into being traitors, into helping him extinguish love? If there is a God who uses us and makes his saints out of such material as we are, the devil too may have his ambitions; he may dream of training even such a person as myself, into being his saints, ready with borrowed fanaticism to destroy love wherever we find it. “

The novel was intriguing and beautifully written, as I said, but I wouldn’t recommend it as the first contact with Graham Greene’s work due to its subject. The Quiet American is a much better choice, in my humble opinion.
...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Fabian rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

Of the less than ten novels in the universe which can conceivably be called PERFECT* (that is, without a single flaw, with so much mastery over the daunting literary terrain that it leaves the reader panting, gives him goose bumps, makes him believe in the sphere of art all over again)—two of them undoubtedly are written by Graham Greene. I have lionized “The Quiet American” before. Now it’s “The End of the Affair” which left me wondering—why isn’t Graham Greene more widely read? The yarn told i ...more

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Oct 24, 2018 Fergus rated it it was amazing

O SAISONS! O CHÂTEAUX! QUEL ÂME EST SANS DÉFAUTS?
Arthur Rimbaud

When a wartime climacteric upsets the unthinking romantic tryst of two lovers - the high-minded Sarah, and the popular writer Bendrix - for some strange and unexplained reason right afterward, Sarah walks out on her beloved forever.

And Rimbaud‘s youthful self-revelation of humanity’s hidden sins - that prise de conscience which we call coming of age - is plumbed in dramatically different ways by each one of them.

For Bendrix, it’s a f ...more

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May 26, 2007 Kelly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: always-on-my-mind, 20th-century-postwar-to-late, favorites, fiction, give-me-seven-years, melancholia, brit-lit, worlds-lost-dead-and-dying, grand-opera

I am not only committing to the five stars for this review, I wish I could give it more. To say it deserves it would be rather an understatement. Reading the book was actually one of those physically memorable experiences: curling up in a ball with it, crouched over it reading behind piles of work I should have been doing, completely zoning out the world around me until it was forced to my attention, not to mention the actual physical pain I felt at the beauty of some of the language employed. G I am not only committing to the five stars for this review, I wish I could give it more. To say it deserves it would be rather an understatement. Reading the book was actually one of those physically memorable experiences: curling up in a ball with it, crouched over it reading behind piles of work I should have been doing, completely zoning out the world around me until it was forced to my attention, not to mention the actual physical pain I felt at the beauty of some of the language employed. Greene's writing here is just absolutely astounding. I cannot emphasize that enough. It is an obsessive love he writes of, obstensibly. That's what the back cover and the short summaries would have us believe that this book is about. But that is not all this book is about. Not even close.

Greene writes about hatred, the nature of belief, the nature of God and what it means to believe in Him, the physical and emotional experience of love, the effects that that love can have on our lives.... and blends it all together so that we see that none of those things can be seperated. This is one of three novels in his "Catholic" trilogy, and the love of and need for God is as intrinsic as the love and need for our soulmates in life. Everything in the end is about God, but through love and hate and the deepest emotions that can be written out from our core. Greene manages to convey emotions and ways of thinking about life and love that we have all felt, but in such a beautifully done way perhaps we could never quite express what it meant ourselves. There were phrases in the book that brought back vivid, intense flashes out of my own experiences, little poignant moments that exactly fit just some random little sentence inserted into a two page rant. That happened over and over again. If I did such things to my books, I would have paragraphs highlighted on every page.

Many times during the book a sort of stream of consciousness is evident in the narration where it is unclear whether the narrator is expressing his thoughts or those of his lover's, whether his thoughts are now or in the past, or whether he can really tell himself which it is. I found that device to be very powerful, showing the effect that even the memory of great events can have upon us, and how visceral the feelings can be even all these years later. Greene is also not afraid to lay his characters bare, perhaps get them on our bad side, to show them in all their ugliness and pettiness- which makes them all the more real. It is how we all act in love and in times of desperation and need. This was so much better done than Heart of the Matter, where I think Greene really tries to keep the reader at more of a distance. That was a mistake. /This/ is a book that gets one thinking about God and love and what it's all about. One has to get at the reader's core before such basic beliefs can really be brought out to be questioned and beaten. And the author won't do that without first going there himself through his characters and his deeply felt, naked writing.

Anyway... possibly the best treatise on love and God I've ever read, and certainly the one that will stay with me the longest. Those were just some random thoughts that came to me upon finishing it, but I hope it is enough that someone else will read it. It's an experience that everyone should have. ...more

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Jun 24, 2016 Lizzy rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, england-britain, read-2016, ww2, classics-literay-fiction, war, stars-4

Spoil alert!

Can a reader feel like having a split personality? I doubted myself while reading Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. I loved it and hated it; I thought it certainly deserved 5 stars for a few pages, but later found myself suffering so much and started loathing it. So, it could not deserve more than 2, right? It’s not fair to suffer for nothing, I had to make someone pay for it! I loved Sarah and Bendrix and despised them at the same time. Don’t try to understand me, I don’t under ...more

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Jun 09, 2013 Jason rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, reviewed

Ruh roh.

Sorry, Ben. And Kelly. And karen. This book really did not do it for me. In fact, that is kind of an understatement; my two-star rating is generous in that I actually feel sort of bad for disliking it as much as I did. I know it hits certain people on an emotional, gut-deep level and I am not arrogant enough (I am arrogant, just not arrogant enough) to universally proclaim its lack of literary value. My point is that I’ve often had people come onto my reviews and say, “Oh, thanks for let Ruh roh.

Sorry, Ben. And Kelly. And karen. This book really did not do it for me. In fact, that is kind of an understatement; my two-star rating is generous in that I actually feel sort of bad for disliking it as much as I did. I know it hits certain people on an emotional, gut-deep level and I am not arrogant enough (I am arrogant, just not arrogant enough) to universally proclaim its lack of literary value. My point is that I’ve often had people come onto my reviews and say, “Oh, thanks for letting me know this book sucks. Now I can take it off my shelves.” Don’t do that! Don’t not read this book on account of this review. It is only a reflection of this novel’s impact on me, and I am just one person. And a relatively unimportant one, at that.

Okay, so here is why this book sucks. First of all, I was genuinely liking it at the beginning. It is absolutely well written, and I enjoyed the narrator’s slow reveal of his history with Sarah and Henry. I was all geared up to hate the narrator, too, who I thought was going to be some detestable marriage violator. (It can be a lot of fun hating awful characters, can’t it?) Except as I continued reading, I came to realize that we, the reader, are perhaps not meant to hate Bendrix at all. In fact, I think we are being asked to identify with him, possibly, which sucks for me because I can’t. I don’t. So thanks, Mr. Greene, for taking the fun out of that angle.

And then the book shifts to Sarah’s journal entries, at which point everything for me came to a grinding, screeching halt. Sarah is by far the lamest character ever created. Her internal struggle—the struggle that lies at the center of the novel’s plot—is one that I could in no way relate to. It is during the description of this struggle that the novel takes a turn into an awkward territory of faith and the challenges presented on account of that faith (or lack thereof), and it was simply a huge turnoff for me. I’ve already returned this book to the library so I can’t quote it directly, but certain passages, paraphrased, rang very shallow to me, like, “my love for her refused to accept (view spoiler), whereas my hatred for her had full faith in it.” Oh, for fuck’s sake, give me a break. Really?

Anyway, I am super sorry I did not love this book. The only character I liked was Henry and I got the suspicious feeling I was supposed to dislike him, so it was just an all around mismatch for me. But I will try to do better next time. ...more

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Jan 12, 2013 Julie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: a-buck-and-change, favorite-books, your-cheatin-heart

Update 11/11/2017: On this, my third experience of Graham Greene's masterpiece, I chose the audiobook, narrated by Colin Firth. . . and I just want to say to all fellow citizens of our beautiful Planet Earth:
I'm sorry.
I'm truly, truly sorry.
I'm sorry I was flippant with fossil fuels.
I'm sorry that I was erroneous with my emissions.
I'm sorry that I drove my car longer and slower than necessary.
I'm sorry that I took the long way home.

It turns out, in listening to this audiobook of The End of the A ...more

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Nov 22, 2019 Ines rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Well, this book has been hard to finish, the huge problem is that the writing and therefore the communication with the reader is really slow, verbose and totally mind intricate.
Even in the syntactic level, it's often difficult to understand who the subject is because there are often passages with subtext and anticipations that we will find only in the chapters not yet read.
I find myself very surprised by this writing, because it is not the same that I tasted in the "Power and the glory" where is ...more

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Aug 19, 2019 Steven Godin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: great-britain, fiction

Love aside, most of the great romantic novels of the 20th century also includes a fair share of both pain and hate, and Graham Greene's The End of the Affair is certainly one of them. I'd say, it's one of the most honest and endearing explorations of love (and adultery) I have read in a long time, and one reason why it works so well is that is does everything so much more openly than similar type novels. But I found it's not without it's faults, albeit only small niggles, as Greene employs a mix Love aside, most of the great romantic novels of the 20th century also includes a fair share of both pain and hate, and Graham Greene's The End of the Affair is certainly one of them. I'd say, it's one of the most honest and endearing explorations of love (and adultery) I have read in a long time, and one reason why it works so well is that is does everything so much more openly than similar type novels. But I found it's not without it's faults, albeit only small niggles, as Greene employs a mix of flashback, stream-of consciousness and conventional narrative, partly based on diary entries. Greene takes the basic conventions of romantic fiction but he also goes about transcending genre, which pushed this up into a different class from your bog-standard love story.

Set in London during the blitz the novel is centred around a sort of anti-hero, the jealous, calculating and malicious Maurice Bendrix, a second-rank novelist, who makes the acquaintance of his neighbour’s wife, Sarah, and of course they fall in love. But it is an affair tortured by his envy towards the husband Henry, and her overwhelming guilt, and after Bendrix is nearly killed by a bomb blast, her involvement in extramarital activity with him becomes too much to bear. After a couple of years pass, Henry, who is ignorant of the affair, approaches Maurice about his wife’s infidelity with another man, and the intrigue of the narrative is heightened when a private detective starts to investigate.

I had already seen the Ralph Fiennes / Julianne Moore film adaptation, which was pretty good, but the novel is far superior, as Greene, who was arguably at his peak when he wrote this, goes to greater depths to enlarge the reader's understanding of love and it's various subdivisions, of which most get explored. I found myself going up and down like a yo-yo when it came to how I felt towards the three main characters, myself being torn by the love/hate interplay between them. With this being a meticulously British novel, it comes as no surprise we get the rain lashing down, but through the dreary weather, pain and unpleasantness, the novel for me will be remembered for the brief moments of pure love and passion. ...more

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Apr 23, 2013 Samadrita rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-and-more, european-literature, novellas-short-novels-short-stories, christianity, romance, my-god-is-better-than-yours, britain, human-drama, not-worth-it

I'm trying very badly not to launch into a full fledged rant against this book as I type this out because rants are rarely, if ever, proper reviews. And I want to pose a rational argument explaining my dislike for this book.
As much as the sexist ramblings of the protagonist and the selfish, irrational actions of the main characters served to irritate me to a great extent, I still reigned in my impatience and held out hope for the narrative till the time I was done with the very last page. But s ...more

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Mar 18, 2014 Adam Dalva rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Remarkable structure - the plot twists and turns in unexpected ways. The meta-textual aspects were great (his mini-essay on flat characters toward the end jumps out), as were the ways that he allows the narrator to waffle. There is a found text interval that I found slow, which brings us to the one problem: this is one of Greene's "Catholic Novels," and I am convinced that the focus on Catholicism did damage to the book. The moment the upper case Him appeared, the plot began to diffuse and the s ...more

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Feb 10, 2016 Bionic Jean rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, read-authors-e-h

A contemporary novel entitled The End of the Affair would be a very different book. But this is not a contemporary novel; it dates from 1951. It is set in Clapham, London, partly during the Blitz of World War II, and partly later in 1946, and since it is written by Graham Greene "the affair" covers a far wider scope than the reader might expect. It dates from what are considered to be the author's best years, the age of postwar austerity, keying in to the readers of the time's recent vivid memor ...more

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Feb 23, 2015 Diane rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, movie-adaptation, classics

I really liked this book until the last few chapters. And then I wanted to throw it across the room.

I knew the basic plot of The End of the Affair because I had seen the movie version with Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore, but this was my first serious consideration of the text. It is a novel about the jealousy and anger one man feels after a love affair has ended.

“I measured love by the extent of my jealousy.”

Maurice Bendrix is a writer who is obsessed with Sarah Miles. Sarah abruptly ended h ...more

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Feb 25, 2011 Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-2013, reviews-5-stars, re-read, reviews, greene-land

"A Thinly Disguised Autobiography" (Fictitious Letters Never Sent or Written)

Letter 1 (dated April 30, 1950 from CW to GG):

Oh, my most desirable Godfather,

I’m sorry to learn you’re suffering from writer’s block. I don't recall you mentioning this affliction before.

I’m not the best one to give advice on such matters, but they say you should write about things with which you are familiar, not that there is much for you that doesn’t fit within this category. Perhaps, my love, you could write somet ...more

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Jul 06, 2014 Jr Bacdayan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

When does love end? Does it ever really end?

I cannot answer these questions, nor will I try to. You see, for me, the end doesn’t really matter. Why can’t love be as it is and why must it end altogether? “.. love had turned into a love-affair with a beginning and an end.” quips Bendrix, the affair may end but love is different matter . Sometimes I think that people love endings because they fear the continuity of life. They crave the solidity of a construct with a beginning and an end. You’re ei When does love end? Does it ever really end?

I cannot answer these questions, nor will I try to. You see, for me, the end doesn’t really matter. Why can’t love be as it is and why must it end altogether? “.. love had turned into a love-affair with a beginning and an end.” quips Bendrix, the affair may end but love is different matter . Sometimes I think that people love endings because they fear the continuity of life. They crave the solidity of a construct with a beginning and an end. You’re either happy or sad and that’s it for you. And why shouldn’t they? It seems such a reprieve from the pendulum of life that’s ever in motion. Change is always feared. But does love change? Ah, that is the question. In the case of this novel, love changes its name into hate, the fine line between the two blurred by its very nature. What is that old cliché? The more you hate, the more you love? Yes, that one.

“Hatred seems to operate the same glands as love; it even produces the same actions. If we had not been taught how to interpret the story of the Passion, would we have been able to say from their actions alone whether it was the jealous Judas or the cowardly Peter who loved Christ?”

The novel starts with the narrator’s declaration that the book is one of hate. He delivers his promise and it is indeed filled with jealous, angry, and mistrusting episodes interspaced by small scenes of love. Of course, it is to be expected in a novel about an affair. After all, don’t they say that evil begets evil? But is it really evil? If society edicts that sin is the transgression of the law, then I would agree that adultery is sin. But is it evil? Is it not good? Considering that this affair is one of love, how can such intense love be anything but good? A lot of people would say that this relationship is founded on a lie, so it cannot be then considered love. I disagree, love doesn’t depend on backgrounds. Love takes root by itself between two people no matter who they are and what their circumstances. Okay, I do not condone love affairs. I believe that if you willingly vow to exclusively love someone till death then you should uphold it. But I think love, no matter what form, is never evil. It may be detrimental to others, but to give yourself so much to another can never be considered an act of evil. Why then did it change its name to hate?

One cannot talk about this novel and disregard its association with a God. When the affair ended, as the title suggests, Bendrix focuses his attention on God. He blames God for its end, and though an unbeliever, he is haunted by his mistress’s belief in God. Some say that Graham Greene was a little too pushy in his usage of God in the novel. To a certain extent I would agree, it was indeed a little disconcerting at times when the narrator would address God as You and casually talk to him in his mind. But then I realized that it was necessary as God was the only one he could lash out to. Henry, the mistress’s husband was too likable a chap and too forgiving a man to hate. Also the two men would develop a weird bond which gave them comfort in its own way. Of course Bendrix owned up to saying that he hated himself, but he never really hated Sarah. God, omnipresent as they say, was forever available for condemnation and so it was that he undertook it with a vengeance. Bendrix needed an outlet for the intense feeling of love he had no way of showing, so he turned it into an intense hatred for God. Sarah’s irrational belief in God irked him to a great degree, and that it was the cause of their separation intensified his hatred all the more. But then to hate something is to recognize its existence. How can one hate something that isn’t there? Of course, one can hate an idea, but then one does not talk to an idea. With Bendrix’s hatred grew a furtive unrecognizable relationship with God. He even admits to saying “I hate You, God, I hate You as though You existed.” It is really intriguing for isn't the greatest commandment for believers to love God? If so, then hating God is the the greatest sin. In the end, Bendrix offers a prayer to God saying:

“O God, You’ve done enough, You’ve robbed me of enough, I’m too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone forever."

A prayer of surrender, a prayer that asks for desertion is a prayer nonetheless.In the end, he grew some semblance of faith from hatred. Hatred that originated from a love based on sin.

If there ever was something that I would consider the prime idea that that one can interpret from the novel, it is the curious occurrence that something like faith would spring up from as vile a thing as hate. That adultery can pave the way for friendship. That something like sin can create love. That the end can lead to a beginning.

Sometimes the ugliest things produce the ones most beautiful. ...more

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May 31, 2008 Annet rated it really liked it

Shelves: family-ties, europe, heartbreaking, very-british, classics, emotional

I really should read more of Graham Greene...

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Dec 26, 2016 Carol rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: not-united-states, recommended-by-friend-s, england-scotland-ireland-wales

I didn't love this novel as much as I understand I should, based upon views of my most erudite GR friends. Further processing no doubt is in order prior to penning a review.

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Feb 20, 2017 Joe Valdez rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-general

Love is in the air--or maybe anxiously repressed--in February and my romantic literature jag continues with The End of the Affair, the 1951 doomed romance by Graham Greene. This was my first exposure to Greene's fiction and while I was struck by the celebrated British author's intricate prose, keeping time like a Swiss clock, this novel is deficient in story, forgoing action for the reflections of its melancholy male narrator. These musings proceed from revealing to unceasing and finally, I just ...more

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May 29, 2019 Piyangie rated it really liked it

Shelves: brittish-lit, my-library

This is my first read of a book by Graham Greene. Two of his books are in my personal collection for about a year now, somehow or other being pushed behind other reads until now. I also need a little preparation of mind when I venture into a new author because I'm always nervous in such situations (this might sound absurd but it is true for me). However, after reading I felt like kicking myself for keeping the book so long without reading.

The first thing that drew me into the book is not the st This is my first read of a book by Graham Greene. Two of his books are in my personal collection for about a year now, somehow or other being pushed behind other reads until now. I also need a little preparation of mind when I venture into a new author because I'm always nervous in such situations (this might sound absurd but it is true for me). However, after reading I felt like kicking myself for keeping the book so long without reading.

The first thing that drew me into the book is not the story nor the characters, but Greene's intense and powerful writing. Greene displays such rawness, such openness, and such sincerity in his writing. This writing draws and ensnares the readers and imprisons them in his words. If you consider the story, it is pretty simple. But it is just a base for Greene to develop all the raw human emotions one feels when a relationship ends. I read that Greene's personal relationship with one Lady Walston inspired him to write this, so perhaps the personal experience speaks for the intensity of his writing.

The story is simple and beautiful. The first-person narrator, who is also the male protagonist, tells his story of the end of an affair; and at the same time, he goes beyond his story, laying bare all his inner conflicting emotions to his audience. The story touches thematically on love, hate, pain, jealousy, obsession, life, death, and faith. Greene has worked strongly on the themes through the relationship of the male protagonist, the writer Maurice Bendrix and the female protagonist Sarah Miles, wife of a civil servant.

There are very few characters in the novel. I believe I didn't like any of them. But I get this queer feeling that Greene was bent upon his characters' being understood rather than liked. If that was his goal, he did achieve it brilliantly. You may find it hard to like them, but you will certainly understand them; you will feel their emotions and you will pity them.

The story was a sad one, yet I enjoyed it. The ending deviated from the thematic flow of the story creating an out of sorts effect, but the overall reading experience was satisfying. I could honestly say that Graham Greene has done very well with a common theme. ...more

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Jul 06, 2020 Margitte rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary-novel, 2020-read, british-author, british-novels, relationships, reviewed, wwii, fiction

There are so many angles with which this novel can be approached. Mine might be a little off-kilter, but here goes. The review contains spoilers.

I experienced the plot as the development of an unlikely friendship between two men who both were deeply in love with a women who had the ability to cast a spell over all the men she met. Bendrix was the lover, and our introspective protagonist. Henry was her husband, or pimp, as Bendrix would accuse him of in one of his jealous, yet heartbroken moments ...more

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Jan 12, 2017 Robin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Robin by: Perry

Shelves: 1001-before-you-die, literary-fiction, favourites, 2017, english

I’m not at peace anymore. I just want him like I used to in the old days. I want to be eating sandwiches with him. I want to be drinking with him in a bar. I’m tired and I don’t want anymore pain. I want Maurice. I want ordinary corrupt human love. Dear God, you know I want to want Your pain, but I don’t want it now. Take it away for a while and give it me another time.

I'm reeling in astonishment at this incredible work. Not only was Colin Firth's audio performance of this astounding (do yourse I’m not at peace anymore. I just want him like I used to in the old days. I want to be eating sandwiches with him. I want to be drinking with him in a bar. I’m tired and I don’t want anymore pain. I want Maurice. I want ordinary corrupt human love. Dear God, you know I want to want Your pain, but I don’t want it now. Take it away for a while and give it me another time.

I'm reeling in astonishment at this incredible work. Not only was Colin Firth's audio performance of this astounding (do yourself a favour and listen - you will be transported), but the WRITING, oh the writing of this perfect novel had me in the first few paragraphs, knowing that this book would be one of my new favourites. I found myself going back to the print version to drool over phrases and chapters that were lingering with me.

This is the story of Maurice Bendrix, a man consumed with hatred. His lover Sarah had called off their affair two years earlier during WW2 (her reasons unknown to him) and he is steeped in bitterness. By chance, he runs into Henry, Sarah's husband, and it re-ignites his hate and jealousy, so much so he hires a private eye to spy on her.

We learn all about the affair, how it began, and Sarah's reasons for ending it. The love story alone is so compelling. The descriptions of their love and desire for each other are gorgeous and painful. Bendrix is a jealous lover, who loses trust the moment she is out of his sight. Their love is double-edged and so real. So ordinary, corrupt and human. So beautiful.

Sometimes I get tired of trying to convince him that I love him and shall love him for ever. He pounces on my words like a barrister and twists them. I know he is afraid of that desert which would be around him if our love were to end, but he can’t realize that I feel exactly the same. What he says aloud, I say to myself silently and write it here.

But to the tale of passion Greene adds in a spiritual dimension that blows the story sky-high, giving readers so much to mull over. What is faith, what is divine intervention? Does God exist and hear our prayers? To what extent will He go to confirm and inspire belief? Or is it all in our heads? There are many crises in this book - those of the heart and those of the spirit. By bringing God into the equation, Greene created a four-way love story that gripped this reader's heart AND soul.

You needn't be so scared. Love doesn't end. Just because we don't see each other... ...more

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Dec 07, 2017 Susan rated it it was amazing

Published in 1951, this is set in London during, and shortly after, the years of the Second World War and draws autobiographically on his own love affair with Lady Catherine Walston, which began in 1947. This book is more a record of hate, than of love, our central character, Maurice Bendrix tells us. Indeed, Bendrix is full of hate and anger, jealousy and spite. The novel begins in 1946, when Bendrix, an author, runs into Henry Miles on Clapham Common. Bendrix was having an affair with Henry’s ...more

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Jul 19, 2015 kohey rated it it was amazing

It's a true gem.I'm a Buddhist,so it's somewhat hard for me to understand some parts about Christianity. I've never read a book that tells me how deeply love can affect each other and how difficult to love or to be loved is.
In this book,‘LOVE’and‘HATE’are never,ever mundane and cheap words,to be sure.

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Nov 29, 2017 Roger Brunyate rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: religion, illustrated-review

Of Love and Hate

I first read this in 2007, and wrote a brief review on Amazon, which I reprint below. Reading it again now, ten years later, I very much stand by my original views and rating, but find myself fascinated by different things.

======

[2007 review]

I wish it were possible to read certain books for the first time without knowing how they will turn out. But publishers seem to imagine that once a book becomes a classic (and this is one of Greene's masterpieces) the plot becomes common pro ...more

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Oct 11, 2013 Perry rated it it was amazing

Shelves: libri-classici

Just Let You Leave Without a Trace?

"How can you just walk away from me,
When all I can do is watch you leave?
Cause we've shared the laughter & the pain and even shared the tears
You're the only one who really knew me at all."
Phil Collins, Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now), 1983.

As I'm trying to write a review worthy of this book, for some reason this damn song keeps replaying in my head. I guess it does sort of remind me of the plot of this book. [In any case, I MUST finish writing this as ...more

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Jan 10, 2017 Sara rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, classics

This book was not at all what I expected. It took a turn that I could not have imagined and then it became about so much more than just an ending of a love affair, it became about love itself, about hate, about jealousy and indifference. And it became about religion and about God, which is an entirely different thing than religion itself. I felt pain and confusion and sorrow and anger. I was Bendrix and then I was Sarah, and I understood and misunderstood them equally.

Greene is a masterful stor ...more

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About Graham Greene

Graham Greene

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Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenplay writer, travel writer and critic whose works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world. Greene combined serious literary acclaim with wide popularity.

Although Greene objected strongly to being described as a “Catholic novelist” rather than as a “novelist who happened to be Ca ...more

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