The End of the Affair

After my last read was a little disappointing, I decided to go back and revisit some Graham Greene. One of my favourite authors, The End of the Affair is the work I'd always ranked highest. I've always been a little morbid where books and films are concerned; I'm a sucker for tales of woe. What greater tale of woe can you get than Maurice Bendrix's bitter narration and searing jealousy at the sudden end of his affair with civil servant's wife, Sarah?

Bendrix's love, and hatred, for Sarah is deep and twisted. His hatred stems from his possessive passion for her. He looks back on their wartime affair, which he poisoned with his insecurity, after a chance encounter with her husband. When he meets Henry, whom he had cuckolded, he is unsettled and suspecting Sarah's infidelity. It has been some time since Bendrix saw her and old feelings are awoken. Henry is considering hiring a private eye to get his answers; it's an idea he disregards, but Bendrix cannot. So we follow his present quest to see if Sarah has moved on, while he reflects on what went wrong.

I've always loved this story as a compelling take on the power of jealousy to destroy those things we treasure. Bendrix is a man who believed he had exactly what he wanted in Sarah, but he is forever in limbo while she remains married to Henry. He's aware of previous lovers and cannot disregard these niggling memories to enjoy the present. As he muses, "because I couldn't bear the thought of her so much as touching another man, I feared it all the time, and I saw intimacy in the most casual movement of the hand".

Bendrix's love for Sarah is unhealthy, and eats away at him; "I measured love by the extent of my jealousy, and by that standard of course she could not love me at all". He takes it as far as wishing "I'd rather be dead or see you dead...than see you with another man", as "anyone who loves is jealous".

One day, after Bendrix's building is bombed while Sarah spends the night with him, he nearly dies; Sarah, apparently disappointed by his survival, leaves, and he does not hear from her again. Bendrix falls apart, and his bile builds. The "end of love" he so dreaded has arrived; he is a broken man and the scars do not heal well.

The second half is where Greene builds on the religious themes of his previous novels. The End of the Affair is considered to be the most Catholic of Greene's works, and as the reasons for Sarah's abandonment become clear, the story focuses more on the exploration of faith and non-belief. Bendrix is as angrily opposed to Sarah's adopted beliefs as he was about whether she loved him enough. He becomes enraged and vindictive towards the priest he encounters and Catholic views of God. Even after Sarah is out of his life for eternity, he continues his vitriol towards the deity while miracles surround those who encountered her.

The strengths of this book for me were its exploration of jealousy, and how love can be a destructive force. The religious elements were of interest, but I'd forgotten since I last read this how major a part they played.

I've read some critiques of the character of Sarah, and how underdeveloped she appears; however, I felt this to be crucial to forming some kind of understanding of Bendrix's perceptions. Arguably, he never truly knew Sarah, not deeply; he was so blinded by his passion and desire for her, he lost sight of who she was and how she felt for him. It's this tunnel vision which forms his angry, bitter voice which gives this novel its power.

I enjoyed re-reading this, and I'd always recommend Graham Greene to anyone. Immensely readable, this story is a great tap into those deep, dark emotions which rarely appear in works about love and heartbreak. It's also allegedly based on a real-life affair Greene himself had, so there's interest too in imagining the parallels with Bendrix's author character. In general, it's a reliable rush hour read which I never fail to enjoy.

(Available in hardback, paperback, Kindle and audio from Amazon)

A Glass of Blessings

One thing needs to be said before I can even start to review this book; everybody must read Barbara Pym. Named by Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil in the Times Literary Supplement as "the most underrated novelist of the century" back in 1977, her work was unknown to me until I stumbled upon Excellent Women last year. I was stunned that it had taken so long for her books to come to my attention. Something of a Jane Austen of the 1950s, her works are witty social comedies capturing a time sandwiched between the great changes of the Second World War and the Swinging Sixties.

2013 marks the centenary of Pym's birth, so along with many Pym fans I'm marking the occasion by reading my way through one of her works a month. Rather than being logical and going by publication date, I decided to start slightly at random and chose A Glass of Blessings, first published in 1958.

Our heroine is Wilmet Forsythe, who has a comfortable, if dull, life with her civil servant husband Rodney and mother-in-law Sybil. Her world circles around the community in the high Anglican church she attends, where she often finds her thoughts wandering. During one service where Wilmet's mind is typically elsewhere she spies Piers Longridge, the handsome brother of Rowena, her old friend in the suburbs. Wilmet is intrigued by Piers and his mysterious life and soon starts to find him a welcome romantic distraction from her safe existence at home.

Wilmet finds her heart a-flutter as she fantasises about how her influence could change him from his moody, brooding, drinking ways. However, what Wilmet hasn't considered is just why Piers is unmarried, and she soon realises her assumption that he lives with a "colleague" isn't quite on the mark.

This book represents so many of the things I love about Pym's writing. Her stories are complex webs of many well conceived characters who all fit together into a deliciously funny portrait of 1950s London. Every detail of her characters is irresistible. For example, her choice of names add a richness and help to create a clear portrait of how she's imagined them. Wilmet and Marius Ransome are obviously fabulous examples, but Rodney summarises his safe, civil service ways; spinster Mary's name highlights her good, devoted nature and, my favourite of all, Keith. 

Piers' lover (as is implied but never explicitly stated) was a great construct. In a world of money and dressing for tea, Keith is from the lower social echelons. He dresses down, works in a coffee shop and models knitwear patterns. This contrast served both as great comic material but also a subtle way to illustrate the changing nature of society at the time. In the periphery there are great little sketches involving the goings on at the clergy house, a kleptomaniac male housekeeper and the students at Piers' Portugese classes.

It would be easy to take a simple view on both this story and Pym in general. Her tales may be a narrow view of a specific time in English history. What I love, however, is that we get sneaking glimpses of a society in flux through Wilmet's inquisitive and innocent eyes. Women can vote and work, but females with a career are a novelty; women clearly have their place. As Wilmet mused about working women, "I suppose some of them try to combine marriage with a career - I mean the ones who carry baskets as well as briefcases and look both formidable and worried, as if they hoped to slip into the butcher's before going to their desks". Father Ransome is from a more impoverished parish Wilmet suspects benefits from "these days of the welfare state". Similarly, we are witness in Wilmet's wanderings to the postwar redevelopment of urban areas; "I supposed it was a good thing that children should now be running about and playing...their shouts and laughter drowned out by the noise of the machinery that was building hideous new homes for them". That's before we even touch upon Piers and Keith's relationship in a time when homosexuality was illegal.

A Glass of Blessings is a perfect rush hour read. I chuckled away as Wilmet's focus flitted from important events to the silly, little details our bored minds often occupy themselves with. Every character fitted so well and all rang true. I even found myself feeling somewhat lucky to be on my way to another day in the office as Wilmet longed for excitement and a purpose in an age where being a professional wife was the norm. So, for some escapism with depth, I couldn't recommend this novel more highly.

I'm already looking forward to next month's dose of Barbara Pym!

(Available in paperback or on Kindle at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blessings-Virago-Modern-Classics-ebook/dp/B0050C86T0)