Book Review: The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

Published about 24 hours ago • 2 min read

THE END OF THE AFFAIR, by Graham Greene

Reviewed by Kristen West McGuire

(New York: Penguin Classics, 2004, 192 pp.)

A "tell all" retrospective on Graham Greene in the New York Times Book Review tainted my opinion of Greene. Sure, I knew he was no saint. But according to the scribe in Gotham City, Greene’s lust was legendary and could even be said to fuel his art. And of course...his books were condemned by the Church during his lifetime.

And yet the sinner wrote some powerful books. He explores the effect of religious conversion on an illicit romance in war-torn 1940's London in The End of the Affair. Jesus steals the heart of a woman.

The book is written from the perspective of the lover jilted by Jesus, Maurice Bendrix. Sarah is his lover, the wife of a bureaucrat named Henry. The timeline of the book jumps as Bendrix, recounts the story from the vantage points of the present dull bitter ache of a scorned lover, interspersed with memories that piece together the background story for the reader.

Bendrix is devastated that she breaks things off after a terrible bomb nearly kills them. He cannot comprehend why. Eventually, he hires a private detective (along with Sarah's husband, in an ironic twist) who steals her diary and reveals the agonizing truth. She loves Jesus more than both her husband and her former lover.

Greene himself later said that the first person point of view made the novel very difficult to write. He made this point in the context of his writing craft. However, it is not a stretch to see that the central character, Bendrix, was similar to Greene in many respects. The book is even dedicated to "Catherine, with love," a reference to Greene’s mistress at the time.

A question looms large in the background: can anything good come from an adulterous affair?

The ending is one of most satisfying character sketches I have ever read. And yet, I wish I did not know the rest of the story of the author. Be he a saint or sinner, he gave me much to consider in my assessment of my relationship with Jesus, and the passions that fuel my actions in real life and in my secret soul.

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