Review: The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

 

• 
• Genre: Modern Classic
• Published: 1951
• Pages: 160

 

 

The love affair between Maurice Bendrix and Sarah Miles ended two years ago, but a chance encounter with her husband and then herself ignites the bed of jealousy again. 

This is my third Greene and has I think, cemented my admiration for this author forever. It is his writing that I love first. It feels as if Greene rolls every word around in his mouth before carefully placing them down on the paper before him. He writes with all the delicate craft of a sculptor, chipping and polishing away so that there are no superfluous words or phrases. Each scene is carefully layered and there are so many parts I wish now I hate noted down. This book begs to be re-read just so I can appreciate it all again.

It is narrated by Maurice Bendrix who is an author and through the book he reflects  on the process of his writing and the difficulties with it that he has especially during and after the affair. The is a strange kind of consciousness in it – as if Greene himself is discussing writing the book whilst writing it himself.

The End of the Affair is one of the novels where Catholicism plays a main part. In the two other books I have read – Brighton Rock and The Quiet American religion has played an important or elemental part in the story. Rather then portraying characters of staunch faith however, they may be atheists, almost contemptuous of God’s existence. The struggle with doubt and the temptation of sin play important roles within his novels.

Another theme that runs through these three books is obsessive, almost destructive love. In Brighton Rock Pinkie marries Rose because he thinks she has seen something that might incriminate him. Rose shows him devotional love despite how unkind he is to her. Thomas Fowler from The Quiet American is rather pathetically in love with Phuong, perhaps as a means to cling onto youth and usefulness. In The End of the Affair it is Maurice Bendrix’s jealousy that infects his love.

An interesting parallel in The End of the Affair, is that Bendrix as an author is described to be like a God in his ability to create a world and characters, pushing them around the storyboard and being able to change them at his will. Sarah also refers to Bendrix throughout their affair as ‘You’ with the capitalisation. At the heart of this book is the struggle between faith and doubt – mortal and immortal love.

I am not a religious person and you don’t have to be to enjoy this book. Greene is simply a very good writer who is not pretentious and it doesn’t feel as if he tries to be literary. He has a strong voice and an independent style of writing – a confident writer who knows his craft well. That’s what I admire about Graham Greene. Some authors just have it, some authors have to try to have it. Greene has got it.

Also, as a classic I think that it will still resonate with people today – Greene is able to tap into the human heart and in the end – society may have changed a lot but as people, we are all the same and so the range of emotions, the kinds of characters that you meet in this book will still be entirely relevant today and tomorrow and hopefully in the next hundred years.

A word of warning to those who read the Vintage edition of this book with the introduction by Monica Ali. I know you are not supposed to read Introductions first so I consciously avoided reading it but I couldn’t help but glance past the giant clanger of a spoiler that is the very first sentence. I wouldn’t say it ruined the book for me at all because it is not a book with a massive plot and so there is not much really to spoil. You read it for the writing and the deeply human characters. it however took away from me the experience of discovery, mystery and hope that I would have liked for myself. 

Thank you Monica Ali, from the bottom of my heart. Just watch me throw Brick Lane to the very bottom of my TBR pile. That is a rather lame revenge but there you go. I’m sure I’ll forgive her.

I’d like to thank a Mr Forder, who gave me Brighton Rock at my old school’s summer fair not long before I left for university. He said I should read it, that it was very good and I did'n’t do so until a good few years later. The book had a mummified fly in one of the pages but it was my first introduction to Graham Greene and I don’t think I’d have read him without the recommendation.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe

 

Genre: American Classic

Published: 1851

Pages: 449

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first published in 1851 in an abolitionist periodical in response to the second Fugitive Slave act which made it illegal to aide runaway slaves.

It is a very powerful novel and must have been incredibly influential during its day.

Stowe wrote with a furious passion, putting everything she thought and believed into this book. She occasionally diverted off into little rants, at first inventing contrived situations where characters or bits of passing dialogue were used purely to deride the slave trade. Towards the end she dispensed with creating characters and went on to simply lecturing the reader.

If you take the story away from the context and purpose you end up with something that isn’t very well written when you compare it to the likes of Dickens or Austen. The plot is rather loose and floating, feeling rather unplanned and the ending is weak.

From a non-religious perspective also, there was a lot of religious preaching which does not usually bother me, but this was just too much at times. I did not mind the characters when they were praying or talking about the bible, but Stowe fell into giving her own preaching.

However, put it back into context and what you do have is a very strong novel that must have stirred up a few hearts. She appealed to the fact that – you could not possibly be a real Christian, unless you were against slavery. If you owned slaves, traded in them or any way your soul was somehow at risk.

She criticised people who used used religion to justify slavery but she also believed that it is not enough to free slaves out of Christian duty, but you also have no prejudice against them at the same time.

From a modern day, non-religious perspective I found the preaching a lot to get through, but if you put it into the context it would have been appropriate for the audience she was writing for. The book was not written just to tell a story, it’s purpose was more far reaching.

Stowe does not shy away from informing the reader in not so many words, the way slaves were treated. Although for the most part she doesn’t actually show a lot of the brutality and most of the slave owners you meet in the book were the good kind. You heard through stories told by the characters about their histories and experiences.

The characters were all, mostly interesting and I enjoyed much of the dialogue which felt very realistic and natural. None of them were particularly fleshed out apart from Augustine St Clare who became my favourite.

There were two stories – the main being about Uncle Tom, who submitted to being sold down south due to the financial difficulties of his previous kind master. The secondary about Eliza and George who instead of relying on fate, took it into their own hands and fled.

Uncle Tom became a symbol of the strength of your faith in God. In modern times he has become a negative stereotype for giving into white men without a fight. I don’t think this is strictly fair, he did not physically fight against his masters, twice because he did not have to – but he did not give in emotionally or spiritually. Eliza and George played the other half – the slaves who disobeyed to flee to Canada. Although both sides showed that Christianity would in the end free them.

Stowe of course would have met and spoken and heard of such stories first hand and put them into this book. I believe both Eliza and Uncle Tom were based on real people.  So in a way it is hard to try to compare this to other classical novels, it feels much more a piece of propaganda.

I only gave this book three and a half stars because I felt that it did not capture my attention or imagination very well. Situations, conversations and characters felt contrived merely to put her point across. I am however a modern day reader – and I judge it from this perspective. I think it has become dated, but an important book of it’s time.