Details
Synopsis
Graham Greene's 1951 novel centers on the attempt of Maurice Bendix, a London novelist, to learn why his lover, Sarah, had abandoned him without a word of explanation several years before. In the course of the story, Sarah dies, and Maurice comes into possession of her journal, which provides an explanation that is hardly less perplexing to him than the original mystery itself. The novel is permeated with the concepts of sin, guilt, and redemption, and is considered one of Greene's most "Catholic" works, though Greene himself rejected that label. The story is drawn partly from his 10-year affair with Catherine Walston, a married woman (and convert to Catholicism) he met in 1946.
| Size | | Length: | 191 pages | | Height: | 7.8 in | | Width: | 5.3 in | | Thickness: | 0.8 in | | Weight: | 5.6 oz |
Industry Reviews
"One of the best, most true and moving novels of my time, in anybody's language."
William Faulkner
"The opening pages of Graham Greene's new novel, 'The End of the Affair,' are electrifying. They have a quality that, although it is hard to define with any precision, is immediately recognizable, the quality one becomes aware of as one reads the first few sentences of Henry James's 'Portrait of a Lady' or hears the first words of the plays of Ibsen's maturity. It informs one that what is to follow is to be an exhibition of an artist's complete control of content and technique. There is no falling off in the later pages of Greene's newest novel; it remains from first to last an almost faultless display of craftsmanship and a wonderfully assured statement of ideas. Greene has achieved artistic maturity, at once discovering exactly what he wants to say and the best possible way of saying it."
New Yorker - Anthony West (11/10/1951)
"An absorbing piece of work, passionately felt and stirringly written. There are exceedingly few novelists who can match Greene's superb command of language, mood, and suspense."
Atlantic Monthly - C. J. Rolo (11/19/1951)
"The story [is] a singularly beautiful and moving one....Mr. Greene has entered fully into a scene of high emotion which anyone else would have shirked. Instead of pistol-shots there are tears."
Commonweal - Evelyn Waugh (08/17/1951)
"The most brilliantly written of Mr. Greene's books."
Saturday Review - Anne Fremantle (10/27/1951)
"This is beyond question a wonderfully written book. Here Greene has abandoned violence, and this is all gain. The needs of his characteristic shock tactics have still to be met; for melodrama he has substituted a few mild miracles but these need bother nobody and can even be ignored without much loss. The narrator, a novelist who is Sarah's lover, is superbly drawn."
Manchester Guardian - Norman Shrapnel (09/07/1951)
"In spite of its startling conclusion this is an uninspired and rather humourless novel. Almost all the characters are stock characters."
Shrapnel
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