Dark, disturbing, passionate and beautiful
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This is a book about darkness and light, but mostly darkness.
It is about jealousy, vengeance, bitterness, loathing - I could go on. A deeply passionate and angry man, the narrator falls in love with a married woman who then inexplicably leaves him one day after a close shave with a bomb in war-torn London.
Then follows his quest to uncover why she left. I don't want to spoil what comes next by telling any more, but it is such a moving book. I was moved to tears by the beauty of it when I first read it, aged 15, and it still has the same effect, some (quite a few) years later.
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The space between us
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Anyone who has lived in London could place the Common that forms a geographical centrepiece in The End Of The Affair by Graham Greene. It doesn't really matter if it's the particular place one thinks it is, because it's what happens in the houses at or near its periphery that is central to the book. And the relationships between man and woman, between classes, between interests could be anywhere.
Maurice Bendrix is a resident of the suburban, unfashionable, southern extremity of the open space. He has rented rooms in which he labours over his writing. He is a novelist with several books and some critical acclaim to his name. He is a passionate man, a sceptic, perhaps in every sense, and he is nothing less than scheming in the way that he manipulates friends, acquaintances and probably anyone in order to conduct his research, and perhaps to secure his other interests as well. It was during one such foray into the mind of a fictional civil servant he was trying to invent that he began to see Sarah Miles. She was the wife of a real civil servant and the affair was constructed to enter her husband's mind, though it took a more conventional initial route.
Sarah and Henry, her ministry mandarin husband, live in a large freehold on the fashionable north side of the Common. One feels that, left entirely to his own devices, Maurice would not have a great deal in common with the lifestyle of the Miles household. But when he meets Sarah, he finds a passionate woman whose devotion to the institution of her marriage is not matched by the satisfaction she derives from it. Sarah's frustrations are great, her needs are obvious, and the affair with Maurice ignites.
Their passionate, highly physical affair lasts some years. One day in 1944, however, a robot bomb lands outside Maurice's house and he is injured in the blast. Initially Sarah thinks he is dead. Then, somehow, their relationship ends, maybe because she seems almost disappointed that he has survived. They see nothing of one another for two years.
Maurice, of course, assumes she has moved on to richer pastures, to another more novel lover, who can satisfy her demands in new, less committed ways. He hires a private detective to check on her. He talks to her husband and others with whom she has been acquainted. What he discovers is a surprising change of direction in her life and her priorities, a change that neither he nor Sarah's husband can either explain or accept.
Ultimately The End Of The Affair is about the space between people. Relationships are always limited, no matter how intimately they are shared. The Common, the geographical space between Maurice and Sarah, becomes a symbol of the no man's land that must be crossed when people interact. We enter into this territory when it is our intention to go part-way to meet the psyche of another, but perhaps we never really leave home. The territory can only be entered, but probably not crossed, when there is mutuality, at least a partially shared desire to meet in the unsafe space. But it remains a position that can be retracted, a space that can be abandoned at will.
But what emerges in The End Of the Affair is that this space is specific to particular relationships. Scratch the surface of a different association of that same person, and it will reveal a different territory, perhaps not even sharing recognisable landmarks with the first. Perhaps, therefore, we project onto others what we want them to be. Perhaps relationships are never really shared, and remain at best pragmatic and, more likely, ultimately selfish. In the end, The End Of The Affair suggests that they are not, but it is only a suggestion.
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A Gem
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I recently re watched the film as I loved that very much and it put me in the notion for reading the book. Boy was it worth it. A fantastic story written first from Brendrix's perspective and then through Sarah's. I found the ending made much more sense than the ending chosen in the film.
I enjoyed following the ups and downs of their relationship and Greene's insight was so enthralling. I can quite easily see myself reading this book again before the year is out.
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Ashendon Book Group says...
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For many of us our first Graham Greene which was chosen primarily because then we can watch the film too (which has Ralph Feinnes in it). Many found the plot a bit thin and felt the material covered could have been condensed into a book half of the size. However some felt that the book was well written and it was felt that the intensity of the feelings were all consuming "something that is not felt very often", which was just as well as the depth of emotion led to the destruction of the characters involved. On reflection the GG fans in the group did say this wasn't his best so we shouldn't give up on him as an author just yet. Bring on the film!!
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Gripping and quite poignant
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An interesting study of sexual and emotional jealousy and insecurity. The edning is very downbeat and bitter.
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