 "Trust in Love" | 2009-07-21 |
| - Reviewed By mesibley |
The narrator, Maurice Bendrix, purports to hate Henry Miles and his wife Sarah at the time he happens to run into Miles. It is 1946. Bendrix and Miles had not seen each other since June 1944.
Henry Miles is a civil servant. He was an Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Pensions. Later he was moved to the Ministry of Home Security. At his request Maurice follows Henry to his house. Henry is worried about Sarah.
Sarah and Maurice Bendrix had been out of contact for eighteen months. The affair between the two had begun in 1939. When Sarah gets in touch with him after his meeting with Miles, Bendrix is elated. (He has just arranged with a private detective to have Sarah followed. Henry expressed to Maurice a sense of unease.) Well, that is the set up. The writing is sensitive, nuanced. Sarah had refused to leave Henry for Bendrix.
Eventually, in 1946, Henry sees that Bendrix and Sarah had been lovers. In current parlance, Maurice accuses Henry of enabling the liaison. The book embodies Graham Greene's sincere embrace of Roman Catholicism in the 1940's. Much of the plot and the themes of the novel turn on the religious and spiritual understanding of the characters.
Sarah Miles berates herself for having no trust in love. What vows, what promises must be kept to God and to man Sarah wonders. This is her dilemma, the dilemma of a fundamentally good person. Further developments of this excellent story I leave to the reader to discover. |
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 "Period Piece?" | 2009-05-18 |
| - Reviewed By User: APTVNT7U6RZC3 |
It may be the gulf in their time and ours but I could not get into these characters. Sarah's taking up with someone like Smythe and the scene with Bendix and "the boy" at the Smythe apartment might be believable for 1940's England, but are not realistic today in most of the US. Many Catholics today get divorced and accept cremation. Perhaps at the time a book like this, dealing with these issues, was a breakthrough.
There are some interesing observations about love and hate. The scene with the book reviewer was good, as was the funeral, the portrait of Sarah's mother and some of the conversations between Bendix and Henry. It's hard to believe how Sarah's diary went missing. I found the diary's prose stilted and wonder how many diaries actually use quotes.
I read this book because the author was recommended to me. I note that a other contemporary reviewers rate this very highly, Some, who give it high marks, seem have read a lot of Greene, so it may be that I have picked the wrong book. I will probably read another Greene.
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| "Obsession" | 2009-02-22 |
| - Reviewed By User: A125GJMZ6JA0FG |
The End of the Affair is a novel of obsession. Obsessive love and obsessive hate, and the fine line between the two. The protagonist, Bendrix, is tragically flawed. Graham Greene uses words wonderfully. His simple style is utterly readable, and his exploration of love and lovers is unique and true.
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 "An Affair Ends with a Vow to God" | 2009-02-15 |
| - Reviewed By bbrody13 |
This is a very well-written account of a love affair that ends after one lover makes a vow to God that they will break off the affair if their lover's life is spared in an accident.
Issues of hate, the nature of god, the nature of knowledge and knowing, and the essence of what constitutes love are explored in the back-drop of grief and vengeance. Both lovers strive to discover what is real both within themselves and externally. |
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| "Enjoying a woman with Love -- the only way" | 2008-12-07 |
| - Reviewed By robertcmeyer |
Written in four parts, this book commences with the "affair" proceeds in part two to the "end", enlightens you in part three by reading "her" diary, and ends with Greek-tragedy-like conclusion which assuredly will put any reader to tears. Greene manipulates the heart's strings in this novel as well as any other by his hand.
Centering upon the view of protagonist Maurice Bendrix - called almost always as Bendrix - we learn of a peculiar love triangle between he and pal Henry Miles and Henry's wife Sarah. Nothing fantastically complicated occurs. People outgrow one another during a classic WW II and post war marriage between two British thirty-somethings. In a time and land when divorce was less acceptable, the alterative was an "affair." So the title.
Miscommunication abounds, and largely because of a communication with God. The threesome evolves from the Miles and Bendrix to Bendrix, Sarah and God. And, then the issue becomes: whose God? The uncommitted version, the Protestant, or the forbidding Catholic. The end delves with a funeral rite of being either simple or Catholic - with family and friends discussing or even feuding about which would have been the choice of the deceased who exercised no formal religion during life. Like "Brideshead Revisitied", this theme emanates to a great verbal brawl and religion actually aggravates sores as opposed to providing cure.
In the end, Bendrix is so disillusioned that he proclaims, "Never again would I be able to enjoy a woman without love?" Or is he merely growing up?
But, Bendrix also resolutely admits, "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 for ever." A man of uncertain belief in the almighty, the once agnostic has to admit to God's existence in order to be upset and angry at Him for what was wrought upon Bendrix.
The time of the novel is important in understanding these concepts. This may be a product of its time. The novel was written when Mao and Stalin aggressively challenged religion and most religious beliefs. Literally billions of people were subjected to governmentally induced programs of disbelief, while disbelieving Bendrix freely elected to believe under the most arduous of situations. And, perhaps all are sad.
Written in British style, the novel is not as complicated as predecessor authors - Waugh, Forster,. . . many of whom are mentioned in this novel. Greene uses a clean and crisp style -- which more purely depicts scenes than American impressionists Hemingway and his progeny -- and his book moves quickly and effortlessly with only an occasional accent of flowery prose. Greene's sophisitcation stealthily sneaks past the reader -- proof of the genius of the writer. |
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| "All Time Top Ten" | 2008-08-26 |
| - Reviewed By myablo |
| One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Intense, lyrical, true. Perhaps the greatest obsession novel ever written and one of the greatest love stories. At 153 pages, there is nothing superflous or unnecessary. |
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