The End of the Affair

By Graham Greene

Graham Greene's masterful novel of love and betrayal in World War II London is "undeniably a major work of art" (The New Yorker).

 


Maurice Bendrix, a writer in Clapham during the Blitz, develops an acquaintance with Sarah Miles, the bored, beautiful wife of a dull civil servant named Henry. Maurice claims it's to divine a character for his novel-in-progress. That's the first deception. What he really wants is Sarah, and what Sarah needs is a man with passion. So begins a series of reckless trysts doomed by Maurice's increasing romantic demands and Sarah's tortured sense of guilt. Then, after Maurice miraculously survives a bombing, Sarah ends the affair—quickly, absolutely, and without explanation. It's only when Maurice crosses paths with Sarah's husband that he discovers the fallout of their duplicity—and it's more unexpected than Maurice, Henry, or Sarah herself could have imagined.


 


Adapted for film in both 1956 and 1999, Greene's novel of all that inspires love—and all that poisons it—is "singularly moving and beautiful" (Evelyn Waugh).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Mar 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781504052474

Graham Greene

Graham Greene (1904–1991) is recognized as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century, achieving both literary acclaim and popular success. His best known works include Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter, The Quiet American, and The Power and the Glory. After leaving Oxford, Greene first pursued a career in journalism before dedicating himself full-time to writing with his first big success, Stamboul Train. He became involved in screenwriting and wrote adaptations for the cinema as well as original screenplays, the most successful being The Third Man. Religious, moral, and political themes are at the root of much of his work, and throughout his life he traveled to some of the wildest and most volatile parts of the world, which provided settings for his fiction. Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour.  

Book preview

BOOK ONE

I

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 say ‘one chooses’ with the inaccurate pride of a professional writer who—when he has been seriously noted at all—has been praised for his technical ability, but do I in fact of my own will choose that black wet January night on the Common, in 1946, the sight of Henry Miles slanting across the wide river of rain, or did these images choose me? It is convenient, it is correct according to the rules of my craft to begin just there, but if I had believed then in a God, I could also have believed in a hand, plucking at my elbow, a suggestion, ‘Speak to him: he hasn’t seen you yet.’

For why should I have spoken to him? If hate is not too large a term to use in relation to any human being, I hated Henry—I hated his wife Sarah too. And he, I suppose, came soon after the events of that evening to hate me: as he surely at times must have hated his wife and that other, in whom in those days we were lucky enough not to believe. So this is a record of hate far more than of love, and if I come to say anything in favour of Henry and Sarah I can be trusted: I am writing against the bias because it is my professional pride to prefer the near-truth, even to the expression of my near-hate.

It was strange to see Henry out on such a night: he liked his comfort and after all—or so I thought—he had Sarah. To me comfort is like the wrong memory at the wrong place or time: if one is lonely one prefers discomfort. There was too much comfort even in the bed sitting-room I had at the wrong—the south—side of the Common, in the relics of other people’s furniture. I thought I would go for a walk through the rain and have a drink at the local. The little crowded hall was full of strangers’ hats and coats and I took somebody else’s umbrella by accident—the man on the second floor had friends in. Then I closed the stained-glass door behind me and made my way carefully down the steps that had been blasted in 1944 and never repaired. I had reason to remember the occasion and how the stained glass, tough and ugly and Victorian, stood up to the shock as our grandfathers themselves would have done.

Directly I began to cross the Common I realized I had the wrong umbrella, for it sprang a leak and the rain ran down under my macintosh collar, and then it was I saw Henry. I could so easily have avoided him; he had no umbrella and in the light of the lamp I could see his eyes were blinded with the rain. The black leafless trees gave no protection: they stood around like broken waterpipes, and the rain dripped off his stiff dark hat and ran in streams down his black civil servant’s overcoat. If I had walked straight by him, he wouldn’t have seen me, and I could have made certain by stepping two feet off the pavement, but I said, ‘Henry, you are almost a stranger,’ and saw his eyes light up as though we were old friends.

‘Bendrix,’ he said with affection, and yet the world would have said he had the reasons for hate, not me.

‘What are you up to, Henry, in the rain?’ There are men whom one has an irresistible desire to tease: men whose virtues one doesn’t share. He said evasively, ‘Oh, I wanted a bit of air,’ and during a sudden blast of wind and rain he just caught his hat in time from being whirled away towards the north side.

‘How’s Sarah?’ I asked because it might have seemed odd if I hadn’t, though nothing would have delighted me more than to have heard that she was sick, unhappy, dying. I imagined in those days that any suffering she underwent would lighten mine, and if she were dead I could be free: I would no longer imagine all the things one does imagine under my ignoble circumstances. I could even like poor silly Henry, I thought, if Sarah were dead.

He said, ‘Oh, she’s out for the evening somewhere,’ and set that devil in my mind at work again, remembering other days when Henry must have replied just like that to other inquirers, while I alone knew where Sarah was. ‘A drink?’ I asked, and to my surprise he put himself in step beside me. We had never before drunk together outside his home.

‘It’s a long time since we’ve seen you, Bendrix.’ For some reason I am a man known by his surname—I might never have been christened for all the use my friends make of the rather affected Maurice my literary parents gave me.

‘A long time.’

‘Why, it must be—more than a year.’

‘June 1944,’ I said.

‘As long as that—well, well.’ The fool, I thought, the fool to see nothing strange in a year and a half’s interval. Less than five hundred yards of flat grass separated our two ‘sides’. Had it never occurred to him to say to Sarah, ‘How’s Bendrix doing? What about asking Bendrix in?’ and hadn’t her replies ever seemed to him … odd, evasive, suspicious? I had fallen out of their sight as completely as a stone in a pond. I suppose the ripples may have disturbed Sarah for a week, a month, but Henry’s blinkers were firmly tied. I had hated his blinkers even when I had benefited from them, knowing that others could benefit too.

‘Is she at the cinema?’ I asked.

‘Oh no, she hardly ever goes.’

‘She used to.’

The Pontefract Arms was still decorated for Christmas with paper streamers and paper bells, the relics of commercial gaiety, mauve and orange, and the young landlady leant her breasts against the bar with a look of contempt for her customers.

‘Pretty,’ Henry said, without meaning it, and stared around with a certain lost air, a shyness, for somewhere to hang his hat. I got the impression that the nearest he had ever before been to a public bar was the chophouse off Northumberland Avenue where he ate lunch with his colleagues from the Ministry.

‘What will you have?’

‘I wouldn’t mind a whisky.’

‘Nor would I, but you’ll have to make do with rum.’

We sat at a table and fingered our glasses: I had never had much to say to Henry. I doubt whether I should ever have troubled to know Henry or Sarah well if I had not begun in 1939 to write a story with a senior civil servant as the main character. Henry James once, in a discussion with Walter Besant, said that a young woman with sufficient talent need only pass the mess-room windows of a Guards’ barracks and look inside in order to write a novel about the Brigade, but I think at some stage of her book she would have found it necessary to go to bed with a Guardsman if only in order to check on the details. I didn’t exactly go to bed with Henry, but I did the next best thing, and the first night I took Sarah out to dinner I had the cold-blooded intention of picking the brain of a civil servant’s wife. She didn’t know what I was at; she thought, I am sure, I was genuinely interested in her family life, and perhaps that first awakened her liking for me. What time did Henry have breakfast? I asked her. Did he go to the office by tube, bus or taxi? Did he bring his work home at night? Did he have a briefcase with the royal arms on it? Our friendship blossomed under my interest: she was so pleased that anybody should take Henry seriously. Henry was important, but important rather as an elephant is important, from the size of his department; there are some kinds of importance that remain hopelessly damned to unseriousness. Henry was an important assistant secretary in the Ministry of Pensions—later it was to be the Ministry of Home Security. Home Security—I used to laugh at that later in those moments when you hate your companion and look for any weapon … A time came when I deliberately told Sarah that I had only taken Henry up for the purpose of copy, copy too for a character who was the ridiculous, the comic element in my book. It was then she began to dislike my novel. She had an enormous loyalty to Henry (I could never deny that), and in those clouded hours when the demon took charge of my brain and I resented even harmless Henry, I would use the novel and invent episodes too crude to write … Once when Sarah had spent a whole night with me (I had looked forward to it as a writer looks forward to the last word of his book) I had spoilt the occasion suddenly by a chance word which broke the mood of what sometimes seemed for hours at a time a complete love. I had fallen sullenly asleep about two and woke at three, and putting my hand on her arm woke Sarah. I think I had meant to make everything well again, until my victim turned her face, bleary and beautiful with sleep and full of trust, towards me. She had forgotten the quarrel, and I found even in her forgetfulness a new cause. How twisted we humans are, and yet they say a God made us; but I find it hard to conceive of any God who is not as simple as a perfect equation, as clear as air. I said to her, ‘I’ve lain awake thinking of Chapter Five. Does Henry ever eat coffee beans to clear his breath before an important conference?’ She shook her head and began to cry silently, and I of course pretended not to understand the reason—a simple question, it had been worrying me about my character, this was not an attack on Henry, the nicest people sometimes eat coffee beans … So I went on. She wept awhile and went to sleep. She was a good sleeper, and I took even her power to sleep as an added offence.

Henry drank his rum quickly, his gaze wandering miserably among the mauve and orange streamers. I asked, ‘Had a good Christmas?’

‘Very nice. Very nice,’ he said.

‘At home?’ Henry looked up at me as though my inflection of the word sounded strange.

‘Home? Yes, of course.’

‘And Sarah’s well?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have another rum?’

‘It’s my turn.’

While Henry fetched the drinks I went into the lavatory. The walls were scrawled with phrases: ‘Damn you, landlord, and your breasty wife.’ ‘To all pimps and whores a merry syphilis and a happy gonorrhea.’ I went quickly out again to the cheery paper streamers and the clink of glass. Sometimes I see myself reflected too closely in other men for comfort, and then I have an enormous wish to believe in the saints, in heroic virtue.

I repeated to Henry the two lines I had seen. I wanted to shock him, and it surprised me when he said simply, ‘Jealousy’s an awful thing.’

‘You mean the bit about the breasty wife?’

‘Both of them. When you are miserable, you envy other people’s happiness.’ It wasn’t what I had ever expected him to learn in the Ministry of Home Security. And there—in the phrase—the bitterness leaks again out of my pen. What a dull lifeless quality this bitterness is. If I could I would write with love, but if I could write with love, I would be another man: I would never have lost love. Yet suddenly across the shiny tiled surface of the bar-table I felt something, nothing so extreme as love, perhaps nothing more than a companionship in misfortune. I said to Henry, ‘Are you miserable?’

‘Bendrix, I’m worried.’

‘Tell me.’

I expect it was the rum that made him speak, or was he partly aware of how much I knew about him? Sarah was loyal, but in a relationship such as ours had been you can’t help picking up a thing or two … I knew he had a mole on the left of his navel because a birthmark of my own had once reminded Sarah of it: I knew he suffered from short sight, but wouldn’t wear glasses with strangers (and I was still enough of a stranger never to have seen him in them): I knew his liking for tea at ten: I even knew his sleeping habits. Was he conscious that I knew so much already, that one more fact would not alter our relation? He said, ‘I’m worried about Sarah, Bendrix.’

The door of the bar opened and I could see the rain lashing down against the light. A little hilarious man darted in and called out, ‘Wot cher, everybody,’ and nobody answered.

‘Is she ill? I thought you said …’

‘No. Not ill. I don’t think so.’ He looked miserably around—this was not his milieu. I noticed that the whites of his eyes were bloodshot; perhaps he hadn’t been wearing his glasses enough—there are always so many strangers, or it might have been the after-effect of tears. He said, ‘Bendrix, I can’t talk here,’ as though he had once been in the habit of talking somewhere. ‘Come home with me.’

‘Will Sarah be back?’

‘I don’t expect so.’

I paid for the drinks, and that again was a symptom of Henry’s disturbance—he never took other people’s hospitality easily. He was always the one in a taxi to have the money ready in the palm of his hand, while we others fumbled. The avenues of the Common still ran with rain, but it wasn’t far to Henry’s. He let himself in with a latchkey under the Queen Anne fanlight and called, ‘Sarah. Sarah.’ I longed for a reply and dreaded a reply, but nobody answered. He said, ‘She’s out still. Come into the study.’

I had never been in his study before: I had always been Sarah’s friend, and when I met Henry it was on Sarah’s territory, her haphazard living-room where nothing matched, nothing was period or planned, where everything seemed to belong to that very week because nothing was ever allowed to remain as a token of past taste or past sentiment. Everything was used there; just as in Henry’s study I now felt that very little had ever been used. I doubted whether the set of Gibbon had once been opened, and the set of Scott was only there because it had—probably—belonged to his father, like the bronze copy of the Discus Thrower. And yet he was happier in his unused room simply because it was his: his possession. I thought with bitterness and envy: if one possesses a thing securely, one need never use it.

‘A whisky?’ Henry asked. I remembered his eyes and wondered if he were drinking more than he had done in the old days. Certainly the whiskies he poured out were generous doubles.

‘What’s troubling you, Henry?’ I had long abandoned that novel about the senior civil servant: I wasn’t looking for copy any longer.

‘Sarah,’ he said.

Would I have been frightened if he had said that, in just that way, two years ago? No, I think I should have been overjoyed—one gets so hopelessly tired of deception. I would have welcomed the open fight if only because there might have been a chance, however small, that through some error of tactics on his side I might have won. And there has never been a time in my life before or since when I have so much wanted to win. I have never had so strong a desire even to write a good book.

He looked up at me with those red-rimmed eyes and said, ‘Bendrix, I’m afraid.’ I could no longer patronize him; he was one of misery’s graduates: he had passed in the same school, and for the first time I thought of him as an equal. I remember there was one of those early brown photographs in an Oxford frame on his desk, the photograph of his father, and looking at it I thought how like the photograph was to Henry (it had been taken at about the same age, the middle forties) and how unlike. It wasn’t the moustache that made it different—it was the Victorian look of confidence, of being at home in the world and knowing the way around, and suddenly I felt again that friendly sense of companionship. I liked him better than I would have liked his father (who had been in the Treasury). We were fellow strangers.

‘What is it you’re afraid of, Henry?’

He sat down in an easy chair as though somebody had pushed him and said with disgust, ‘Bendrix, I’ve always thought the worst things, the very worst, a man could do …’ I should certainly have been on tenterhooks in those other days: strange to me, and how infinitely dreary, the serenity of innocence.

‘You know you can trust me, Henry.’ It was possible, I thought, that she had kept a letter, though I had written so few. It is a professional risk that authors run. Women are apt to exaggerate the importance of their lovers and they never foresee the disappointing day when an indiscreet letter will appear marked ‘Interesting’ in an autograph catalogue priced at five shillings.

‘Take a look at this then,’ Henry said.

He held a letter out to me: it was not in my handwriting. ‘Go on. Read it,’ Henry said. It was from some friend of Henry’s and he wrote, ‘I suggest the man you want to help should apply to a fellow called Savage, 159 Vigo Street. I found him able and discreet, and his employees seemed less nauseous than those chaps usually are.’

‘I don’t understand, Henry.’

‘I wrote to this man and said that an acquaintance of mine had asked my advice about private detective agencies. It’s terrible, Bendrix. He must have seen through the pretence.’

‘You really mean …?’

‘I haven’t done anything about it, but there the letter sits on my desk reminding me … It seems so silly, doesn’t it, that I can trust her absolutely not to read it though she comes in here

Reviews for The End of the Affair

[jackmessenger-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

As our lives progress and experience accumulates, we can find that books we once disliked now to speak to us in powerful ways. Conversely, books we once loved can cease to speak to us at all.

As a young man I loved the books of Graham Greene. I recall visiting my local bookshop, my pockets jangling with the handful of change I had saved up over weeks, so that I could buy another novel from among Greene?s prolific output. His stories would show me people and places I would never otherwise have known, and states of emotion and intellectual struggle that I would never otherwise have experienced. They helped me mature at a time when maturation was desperately needed. I am tremendously grateful for that.

Now, however, as I dip in every now and then to one of Greene?s books ? still ranged faithfully on my shelves like old love letters ? I find myself dissatisfied and disappointed. My older self cannot recapture how I must have felt all those years ago.

The End of the Affair is shot through with Greene?s customary preoccupations ? love and its inevitable disillusionment, the struggles of religious faith, the shabby accommodations and compromises we all must make in order to survive ? but I find there is a forced and redundant air about them now, and they seem irrelevant to the world we inhabit. There is still much to admire in his prose (hence the quote pinned to my Goodreads profile), but these are isolated gems in an otherwise barren desert. I couldn?t help thinking that this novel could so easily have been a fraction of its length and made an excellent short story.

Times change and we change with them.

[dbsovereign · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of Greene's explorations into the morality of choice. Inexplicably spurned by his mistress our tormented lead character delves into the reasons why. A heart-breaking tale of love and obsession.

[maxernst11 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Zoals altijd bij Greene zeer complexe compositie die de spanning aanhoudt. Ook het hoofdthema is typisch Greene: de relatie tot God in verhouding tot de echte liefde tussen man en vrouw. Goed geschreven, maar qua thema toch echt verouderd

[bohemima · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Greene's writing is brilliant, as usual. The main character is odious. As the plot unfolds, the book becomes something of a polemic for R.C. values. Nevertheless, it repays the reader with a great experience.

[joririchardson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was certain that this book would be dry and dull, and it was left unread on my shelf for a long time before I finally decided to read it. However, by the first chapter, I was drawn into the story.Greene writes with the natural ease of a truly talented, insightful author. I even flipped through the introduction while in the first half of the book, wondering if this was a true story.One of the most realistic, honestly written books that I have read. Greene spares us no emotion, and is completely unabashed at having made his main character, Bendrix, an unpleasantly bitter, spiteful man. Normally, I dislike books in which the main character is so undesirably natured, but this book brought an aspect of the villain-hero to an entirely different level. We understand Bendrix, we sympathize with him, and we feel as if we know him.Realistic, vivid characters, expressive dialogue, and genius writing.A very unexpected surprise of an excellent book.

[blintnatc · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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[readanygoodbooks50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is a quiet read but a profound moral achievement.

[Natalie S · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I wasn't sure what to expect based on the synopsis, but this was a surprisingly thoughtful and engaging story.

[Leslie B Hibbard · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Leslie B Hibbard Do not waste your time on this, it's truly awful. I will say this is the first and last book by Graham Green for me.

[siok-76276 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The book opens with Maurice, the narrator, chancing upon Henry, the husband of the woman he once had an affair with. Henry suspects his wife, Sarah, of having an affair, and Maurice volunteers to engage a private investigator. It turns out that Sarah is meeting a spiritual guru in an attempt to find out if there is God, and in the process of the investigation, Maurice gets hold of Sarah's diaries. The diaries reveal why she left Maurice (which I called the first ending) and that she still loved him.

[clairemgreg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyed the book. A small qualm:

I'm somewhat disappointed by Mr. Greene's inclusion into the plot, at the very end of the book, of the revelation that Smythe's face was cured miraculously. Part of what made Sarah's arc so interesting to me was how all of the little events that brought her closer to faith could be interpreted as either divine intervention or simple coincidence. There's no obvious correct answer; it could go either way, and so if one believes, one is actively choosing to believe. Sarah struggles to formulate an uncertain response to uncertain stimuli. Her ultimate conversion is the culmination of her internal struggle, not simply the result of undeniable miracles. The revelation of a bona fide miracle at the end of the book has the effect of taking that choice away from the reader, that same choice that made Sarah so interesting. By providing a seemingly 'correct' answer (for the world of this novel, at least), the author has denied his readers the freedom of interpretation, the nuance and complexity that come with discussions of faith. Or maybe I'm just being overly picky and letting my own lack of religion get in the way. I really did like this novel, even though I'm pretty baffled by Mr. Greene's presentation of both religion and atheism.

[soylentgreen23 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Graham Greene's novels can generally be divided between the entertainments and the more serious literary fare - with a notable blurring of those lines at different points in each - and The End of the Affair is clearly more literary than most. Bendrix is in love with Sarah, who is married but has continued with her fractious affair with the writer for longer than is perhaps sensible. Could it be love? But this is love in the wartime, and tragic things happen at such times...

[rmarcin-630843 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Simply heartbreaking book of a man, Maurice Bendrix, in love with a married woman, Sarah Miles. She is in love with him as well, but because she wishes to become Catholic, she is told by a priest that she can't divorce Harry to be with him. They carry on an affair during WWII, but when Maurice is hurt during a bombing of his building, Sarah makes a deal with God that if Maurice lives, she will stay away from him. She breaks it off, and Maurice can't handle it. He then goes to a PI, who gives him evidence of an affair. He is angry, and claims he hates Sarah. Devastating news follows.
In this short novel, which is semi-autobiographical, is very sad, and leaves you emotionally drained.

[ghost_boy-691444 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For someone who is single, I sure like reading books about adultery I've noticed.

I liked this book. Thought it was a little better than Brighton Rock. I liked that one too, but this doesn't have as much slang.

I love how Greene writes conflict. This one has some with three characters over religion. I wouldn't say you need to be religious to enjoy the story, but keep in mind Greene is religious.

Can really talk about too much other than this has some great quotes. I really wish these Penguin editions would stop spoiling the books though. The description gives too much detail in the flap.

[breathslow · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not my favourite Greene novel. It all seemed a bit wooden and arch, and the none of the characters particularly interesting. Maybe I missed something.

[baswood · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Published in 1951 Graham Greene's The end of the Affair is a book that evokes that epoch in a London suburb, just at the end of the war. Greene talks about the common which is in fact Clapham common a place I used to know well and perhaps its main theme is an adulterous affair a situation I also know well and so I felt right at home with this book. The quality of the writing astounded me as soon as I started reading, but perhaps that was because of all the 1951 science fiction books I have been reading recently. The major themes of adultery and catholic faith, which caused something of a scandal at the time of publication, may not appear so relevant in the 21st century, but the thoughts and feeling of the characters involved remain as vivid as when the book first hit the streets.

Having said that the quality of the writing, characterisation and setting are superb, there are many other things that make this novel, worth stepping back to appreciate. Greene writes this novel in the first person. Bendrix (Greene?) is a novelist living from his royalties and advances from his publishing company. Bendrix has an affair with Sarah who is married to Henry a high flying civil servant, Greene in real life had an affair with Lady Catherine Walston who refused to leave her husband because of her catholic faith and Greene deliberately merges himself with his central character to the effect that it is not clear at times who is speaking. It is like he is taking authorial intervention to another level, mixing some stream of conscious techniques, with flashbacks, but never losing sight of the story; for example this could be Greene or Bendrix talking:

"When young one builds up habits of work that one believes will last a lifetime and withstand any catastrophe. Over twenty years I have probably averaged five hundred words a day for five days a week. I can produce a novel in a year, and that allows time for revision and the correction of the typescript. I have always been very methodical and when my quota of work is done, I break off even in the middle of a scene."

At other times Bendrix confesses that he is having trouble with bringing one of his characters to life in his latest novel and one immediately thinks of Richard Smythe in this novel; an atheist Hyde Park Corner speaker who Sarah visits from time to time, or perhaps the catholic priest who always has the right answer to questions of faith.

Using the first person technique enables Greene to pour into his writing all the needs, the worries, the ego, questions of identity, and lust of a man who falls in love and hates himself and his lover for the situation in which he finds himself. Bendrix is all too human, his actions at times are not those of a considerate human being, but he knows this and refuses to stop himself; because he is in love; Bendrix says to Richard Smythe; lovers aren't reasonable are they:

‘Can you explain away love too?’ I asked. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘The desire to possess in some, like avarice: in others the desire to surrender, to lose the sense of responsibility, the wish to be admired. Sometimes just the wish to be able to talk, to unburden yourself to someone who won’t be bored. The desire to find again a father or a mother. And of course under it all the biological motive.’

Bendrix has a love/hate relationship with Henry the husband of Sarah, he is intensely jealous of Henry's fortune in being able to share his life with Sarah, although he knows that their relationship is now platonic. Of course writing in the first person does not give Green insights into Sarahs real thoughts and feelings until later on in the novel when he gets sight of her personal diary.

At this stage in Greene's life and work, his flirtation with catholicism was almost all consuming and so when writing in the first person in a semi-autobiographical style in this novel, there is no surprise when a catholic priest enters the story. His words and advice get in the way of Bendrix needs, he becomes a frustration and Bendrix cannot understand his faith and influence on Sarah. It is a dichotomy that looms large at the end of the novel as it does in many of Greene's books and makes this novel personal to the author. There is also something supernatural that hovers over this story, taking it out of the realism that serves for much of the book. It is this supernatural element that did not quite ring true for me and somehow dated the novel, in not a good way.

It is a book that I could not put down and when this happens I find that I probably read a little too quickly. However having read many of Greene's novels I am hoping I did not miss too much. 4.5 stars.

[mbmackay · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I've long been a Graham Greene fan, but dipping back into this back was a fail. The central premise - of the naughtiness of an affair - hasn't aged well. And as a result, I found it hard to find the characters realistic.
I didn't finish. Maybe I'll go back for another try in the fututre , but . . .

[ManuelTT · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an intense love story. That unique love that is only experienced with one person, once in a lifetime, and that inexorably marks you forever. And that only happens to some human beings, although I couldn't say whether to many or to few. The novel was published in 1951, and the love story between Maurice Bendrix and Sarah, which takes place in London during World War II, is fundamentally conditioned by two facts. First, by his destructive jealousy, which continuously bleeds the relationship and affects both of them, but especially Maurice. And on the other hand, by Sarah's constant torment regarding the existence of God, her regrets, her prayers, her remorse, since she could never stop following her instincts, both physical and emotional. And that conflict spreads to Bendrix due to certain dramatic circumstances in the plot. A religious conflict that, today, aside from being absurd, seems to me to be complete stupidity. Of course, I have read the work 69 years after it was published, and religion no longer conditions the life or thoughts of many people at all. In contrast, the love story described in the novel is a fact that remains fully relevant and will continue to be so in the future.
The edition I read in electronic format has an epilogue. But I was surprised that it was not the end of the novel but an interpretative critique by someone about Greene's narration and then about his work in general. And as I read it, I noticed how pedantry, stupidity, disrespect, and even arrogance appeared time and again. Finally, I saw the commentator's name, and everything became clear. It was Mario Vargas Llosa. (Translated from Spanish)

[MiguelC · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Colossal and heartbreaking. A descent into the infernos of love triangles. Graham Greene reveals himself as a surgeon of the human soul and shows us its dark intricacies. Masterpiece. (Translated from Spanish)

[febeyer · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

In the past eight months or so, I have read seven or eight books by Graham Greene. They have all been enjoyable reads with some profundity. I'm surprised this one is the highest rated of his works on Goodreads and that people, who's opinion I respect, like this novel.

I didn't enjoy it, one problem is that the setting of Clapham Common, London just after the war doesn't come alive. It's not that Greene needs a exotic setting like the the Congo or Vietnam, he wrote about Brighton brilliantly in "Brighton Rock". Neither do the main players, the cynical novelist, Maurice, his saintly lover Sarah and her weak husband Henry, have much to recommend them. The plot device of having the private detective, Parkis, get Sarah's diary for Maurice was hackneyed. Also the contents of her diary detailing her struggle for a relationship with God just annoyed me. The comic Parkis was the only character I liked.

It's amazing how many novels Greene wrote and how different they are while all being distinctively his. This one didn't do it for me, but I'm still looking forward to my next GG - I'm hoping to find a second hand copy of "The Ministry of Fear" also set in London I believe, the movie was fantastic.

[EMEDECE · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am enjoying this wonderful confession. (Translated from Spanish)

[Ines Tezanos · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I can define it with one word: ANCIENT. (Translated from Spanish)

[lakesidemusing · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thank you, Colin Firth.

Your voice added depth and meaning to a piece of literature which previously left me feeling profoundly indifferent. It's been ten years since I read The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. My reaction at the time was one of total apathy - no connection, no sympathy, not so much as a trace of like or dislike toward any of the characters. Greene's prose elicited a similarly flat response.

However, listening to you read Greene's work was a very moving, albeit depressing, experience. So depressing, in fact, it took weeks to finish a short six and a half hour audiobook. (I put it aside several times to read something cheerier.) How did that feeling elude me in print?

Several weeks have passed, and I continue to think about an audiobook that left no lasting impression in print. As various passages come to mind, I marvel the sheer beauty of Greene's writing. I still don't care much for the story, but I can appreciate what Greene accomplished and will now consider reading more of his work.

This production is a testament to audiobooks and the power of the spoken word.

My rating: 4.5/5 stars

[Antonelaa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Can we stop talking about the male characters and give more credit to Sarah? Thank you. (Translated from Spanish)

[AnaOlS · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Sometimes I wonder if eternity, after all, will be nothing more than the infinite prolongation of the moment of death..."
Beautiful, right?
I entered the bookstore and as I went down to the lower floor, the first thing that caught my attention was the shelf full of titles published by Libros del Asteroide. Certainly, the cover of this one stood out among the others.
When I read the synopsis, I hesitated to pick it up, thinking: another title about love and heartbreak, and I put it down again. But I couldn't leave without it.
And how right I was, because it turned out to be more than just another work. I loved the author's writing style, which I was not familiar with. The characters grow as the story unfolds. The point of view of the person who is the lover, their fears, their doubts... and an unexpected ending.
The protagonist's growth, her newfound faith... and the "flowerpot" husband.
Three characters that have made me question whether we really know the people around us. (Translated from Spanish)

[drfuriosa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is my favorite of Greene's novels, for it deals with the complexities of marriage and infidelity, of love, and of faith. I listened to this on Audiobook, NARRATED BY COLIN FIRTH. Totally brought the experience to a new level.

[julia1955 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The End of the Affair is a complex novel. The main character, Maurice Bendrix, has had an affair with Sarah, the wife of diplomat Henry Miles. When Henry mentions to Maurice that he suspects his wife is being unfaithful, it will be Maurice who hires a detective to find out. His motivation is jealousy. The novel takes place in London between 1940 and 1944. (Translated from Spanish)

[LadyCotillalectoraLagartijaplatea · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I give it three stars for how well it's written. But I didn't like the toxicity of the relationship, due to the insecurities and complexes of the protagonist, which leads him to fall very low. And then, when the topic of faith started... I was about to abandon it with 40 pages left. I finished it out of pure stubbornness. It confuses and frustrates me that someone forgets about themselves, about what they want and desire, for a religion (any religion), since its only purpose is to subjugate women. (Translated from Spanish)

[beth.clarke · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A beautifully written novel that starts out quite strong but fell short as the plot unfolded. Overall, a thought-provoking book that is well worth one's time.

[nog_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Greene sinks this well-written novel in the last chapters. Perhaps his most overtly Catholic novel, since it features miracles.