The End of the Affair
"This is a record of hate far more than of love," writes Maurice Bendrix in the opening passages of The End of the Affair, and it is a strange hate indeed that compels him to set down the retrospective account of his adulterous affair with Sarah Miles—a hate bred of a passion that ultimately lost...
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"This is a record of hate far more than of love," writes Maurice Bendrix in the opening passages of The End of the Affair, and it is a strange hate indeed that compels him to set down the retrospective account of his adulterous affair with Sarah Miles—a hate bred of a passion that ultimately lost out to God. Now, a year after Sarah's death, Bendrix seeks to exorcise the persistence of passion by retracing its course from obsessive love to love-hate. At the start he believes he hates Sarah and her husband, Henry. By the end of the book, Bendrix's hatred has shifted to the God he feels has broken his life but whose existence he has at last come to recognize. Originally published in 1951, The End of the Affair was acclaimed by William Faulkner as "for me one of the best, most true and moving novels of my time, in anybody's language."
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780142437988 (0142437980)
Publish date: August 31st 2004
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Pages no: 160
Edition language: English
This book starts out as a story about an affair and ends up being about a personal quest to discover God and Catholicism. Bendrix's endless first-person rant about love and hate is quite boring for me. His blind jealousy falls flat; his passion has no pulse. Things pick up a little when we get to se...
I wonder why the British novelists who are passionate about religion seem to be mostly Catholics (yes, thinking of Waugh here). Is it perhaps too difficult to be passionate about the C. of E.?Anyway, Greene always raises the questions which can be perfectly well posed and thought about by atheists; ...
Playing out like a classic noir film, 'The End of the Affair's Maurice Bendrix dissects his affair with Sarah Miles. He can't let it go. She left him with no explanation and at the start of the novel, two years later, a chance encounter allows him the opportunity to pick at his scars. Its uncomforta...
So sad; the emotion in the writing is palpable. The exploration of love , hate and their end has a poignancy that exploration of their beginning can never have. While falling in love is often experienced similarly by us all, its end is often experienced uniquely, underlining the sense of abandonment...
I think the audio is the way to read this book. You go Firth.
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