The End of the Affair (1951)

The End of the Affair by Graham Green is an outstanding story of adultery and it’s aftermath and another happy surprise from the 1,001 List for me. I was not expecting a story with such depth of emotion but, perhaps, because I listened to an audio version as read by Colin Firth, I was quite taken and touched with this story.

We come into the story after the affair has ended. Maurice Bendrix, a novelist, had met and taken up with a neighbour’s wife, Sarah. They fell passionately in love, yet Maurice could never quite convince himself that Sarah was true to him. The time is during WW II and when a bomb falls on his house while they are together and Maurice is almost killed, Sarah ends the affair. The next few years sees the end of the war and Maurice sinking into bitterness and hatred of Sarah. When her husband comes to him and talks about his fears that she may currently be involved with someone, Maurice hires a private detective to have her followed. What the detective uncovers and what is revealed in Sarah’s stolen diary produces the drama and emotion that left me breathless and near to tears.

Although slightly dated, the overall story of the agony of two people caught up in an impossible situation is totally compelling. Apparently the author himself went through a long and difficult adulterous affair and, in fact, this book is dedicated to his mistress, Catherine. This fact perhaps explains why the writing brings such a sense of authenticity to the story and why the poignant moments held such a ring of truth. Obviously this author was also conflicted in his religious beliefs as well, which is something that has come up in other books by him that I have read. I can’t praise Colin Firth’s narrative highly enough, his was the perfect voice to bring this story to life, and make The End of the Affair one of my top vocal experiences. I would have given this book a 4 star rating but the audio performance raises this to a 4.5. ( )

Being this, the first of my Graham Greene...I am in love. But! Let me just say that the incredible narration of Colin Firth made me all melty. He could probably read ingredient lists from cracker boxes and make it sound heavy with meaning and emotion. An affair, of course, is the topic of this novel. Colin does excellent first person narration of the main character, Maurice Bendrix, as he falls in love and is inexplicably tossed from it and into a jilted lover's swamp of questions, remorse, and melancholy. Yeah, it is a typical love story BUT the way it is told is timeless, classic, pulls your heartstrings and you are making all sorts of groans and moans for him without a thought. Mr. Firth won an Audie (like a Grammy for Audiobooks) for this performance and well he should! He said, in his acceptance speech, that this novel hit home with him in a deeply personal way. You can feel that in his voice. You really can. I am still fairly new to the audiobook circuit but what a smashing one to have in the first few!

My favorite and most thought-provoking line from the entire novel, “If I'm a bitch and a fake, is there nobody who will love a bitch and a fake? ( )

Colin Firth has the perfect voice for this no wonder he won the Audie award.
An interesting discussion of whether God exists and what belief requires of us all wrapped up in WWII and an affair. ( )

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 storyteller with a complete command of his craft. He teases us with making Bendrix a writer and describing how he writes and fashions a story, but there is something beneath the description that mingles truth and mendacity, just as they are mingled in the persons of Sarah and Bendrix. As I watched Bendrix swing between love and hate, I thought of Janus the God with two faces and realized that love and hate are the same emotion turned on its head. Have you ever truly hated someone that you did not love? It is too strong an emotion to waste on someone to whom you have been otherwise indifferent. It springs from love in the face of betrayal or severe disappointment, and it is love morphed into another guise and, as such, it can morph back again.

I was initially confused about the relationship between Bendrix and Henry, but I do think that when we love and lose someone we feel tied to those who have also loved and lost. In the end, we control so little of what is truly deep emotion in us. Trying to control it is as futile as battling with God. God always wins. ( )

This is the story of Maurice Bendrix and his relationship with Sarah Miles, the wife of his friend Henry. The story begins with Maurice looking back on the relationship and reconstructing the narrative, as befits a protagonist who is a writer. At one point he gets a hold of Sarah’s diary, in order to understand why she ended the affair, and excerpts of the diary are included in the book.

I’d rate this 3 stars for the story as a whole and 1 extra star for Colin Firth’s narration. I thought the book worked best when it was in the mind of Maurice; Graham Greene, as a mid-20th-century man, is somewhat less convincing when he’s trying to write from the viewpoint of a woman. And Colin Firth’s lovely voice went a long way to making Maurice seem more likeable than he could be if I’d read this in print. So get the audio if you can! ( )