Anatomy of a Catholic Classic: Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair at 75

"The End of the Affair really does tell the tale of the end of an affair, but it’s fraught with all kinds of Catholic/theological questions that plague both the lovers and the readers—and for that matter, Greene himself."

From Crisis

By Kevin T. DiCamillo

“Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering in order that they may have existence.” (Léon Bloy, epigraph to The End of the Affair)

“If you have tears to shed, prepare to do so now.” This was the inscription I used to write whenever I gave a copy of Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair to anyone as a gift. Perhaps I did it because, upon first reading Greene’s final text of his so-called Catholic teratology, whose other titles include Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, and The Heart of the Matter, the book appears to be what both movie versions turn it into: a classic tearjerker.

But no book stays in print for 75 years, spawns a couple of films, and still sparks debate simply because it makes readers reach for the Kleenex. And The End of the Affair is deceptively deft in all the places where the three other novels that preceded it come down a bit heavy-handed: the protagonist, writer Maurice Bendrix, who is simply a stand-in for Greene himself, begins by having no time for God and winds up fighting with every fiber in his body (and mind and soul) against believing in Him.

It’s a strange combination, told against the backdrop of World War II London. A great bulk of the book is from the purported purloined diary of Bendrix’s mistress, Sarah Miles, the wife of the impotent loveable-loser civil servant Henry. In truth-in-advertising, the book really does tell the tale of the end of an affair (between Bendrix and Sarah), but it’s fraught with all kinds of Catholic/theological questions that plague both the lovers and the readers—and for that matter, Greene himself.

The End of the Affair really does tell the tale of the end of an affair, but it’s fraught with all kinds of Catholic/theological questions that plague both the lovers and the readers—and for that matter, Greene himself.

Though I hate using the phrase, I feel compelled to warn the reader of a “Spoiler Alert” in case you have not read the novel or seen the film treatments. That said, the short version of the short version of the heart of the matter (to use Greene’s other Catholic-novel title) focuses on whether God hears and answers our prayers. Simply put: during one of Bendrix and Sarah’s trysts, a series of V1-German bombs are pummeling London. During a lull, in both the lovemaking and bombardment, Bendrix goes to check and see what the damage looks like.

At that moment, another V1 (“V” for “Vengeance,” named by Hitler himself) explodes, knocking Bendrix out under a door and debris. Sarah comes to his aid, but he is buried and she can only feel his cold hand; after some time, she assumes he his dead. Sarah retires to the bedroom and, though she is no more “religious” than Bendrix, she prays to God that if God will let Bendrix live, she will give him up—a prayer of desperation, since she knows he is dead.

Bendrix, however, comes to and staggers back to the bedroom, where he sees Sarah on her knees in prayer. Of course, he knows nothing of the oath she has made and wonders why Sarah did not come to help him. She explains that she did, but he was dead. Bendrix—who has the world’s worst jealously streak—doesn’t believe her, and Sarah rushes off.

Two years pass and Bendrix runs into Sarah’s cuckolded husband, Henry, who is sitting dejectedly in the rain. Though he has no idea that Sarah and Bendrix were lovers, Henry is convinced that his wife is currently having an affair and asks Bendrix to his home to discuss the matter. Once there, Henry produces the card of a private investigator’s office and is ashamed he even considered having his wife followed.

Bendrix, playing the part of the helpful friend, offers to go to the P.I., since “jealous lovers are less ridiculous than jealous husbands.” Henry begs Bendrix to forget the whole matter. But two things happen: first, Sarah comes home; and second, Bendrix hires the private eye to spy on her.

But more importantly, Sarah breaks her vow made in prayer: she meets Bendrix for lunch, and once more they kiss. Soon after, Sarah suddenly dies—with another 70 pages left in the novel.

This brings up all kinds of theological issues: Does God answer prayers in situations that seem desperate, even impossible? Catholics, of course, believe that He does, and thus we have Sts. Jude and Rita of Cascia for precisely those occasions. But on a thornier level: Does God punish us—not in Hell or Purgatory, but here and now—when we break our promises to Him made in prayer?

Liberal theologians tend to shy away from this line of thinking, but I’m not so sure: John 5:14, where Jesus admonishes the man at the pool of Siloam to “Go and sin no more, lest something worse happen to you” is a pretty straightforward directive that if you sin after being cured (of sin and/or of illness) something worse may happen to you.

So, the affair officially ends with Sarah’s death. But this is just the start of what seem to be a series of miraculous healings. An atheistic public “preacher,” Mr. Smythe, whom Sarah had consulted to try to get her mind off of her oath—and who suffers from a red-wine-stained face—is healed of it after Sarah had touched it. Mr. Parkis, the somewhat dimwitted but always entertaining P.I., has a young son, Lance, whose stomach ailment is cured after invoking Sarah’s intercession. Worse (for the protagonist Bendrix, who just wants God to leave him alone so he can be miserable and write his middling books), both Henry and Bendrix are stunned to learn from Sarah’s mother, a moocher and inveterate debtor who is constantly hounding both men for money, that she had Sarah baptized as a child. And as a sort of finale, Sarah, in her last months, had been receiving instruction from a priest about the one, true faith.

Thus, in death, Sarah—whom Evelyn Waugh commented in his review of The End of the Affair is “consistently loveable”—is transformed from a “bitch and a fake” (her words, from her diary) to a penitent and wonder-worker.

Greene, whose long life and endless travels produced an extensive body of work, is one of those very rare writers who never wrote a bad novel, despite the fact that he wrote so many of them. While it is true that he often lacks anything that resembles experimentation in form and he often leans on the most obvious ending a novel can offer (the death of either the protagonist or antagonist), that’s still not too shabby when one considers he produced 25 novels, many of which became movies (the most famous of which remains the classic film noir par excellence: The Third Man).

It is often remarked, by scholars who know more about Greene’s personal life and body of work than I could hope to, that this is his most personal work. Indeed, it was dedicated to “C”—short for “Catherine”—the woman he actually did have an affair with. And while the book does indeed provoke one to choke back tears, it simultaneously turns the reader inward toward one’s own spiritual journey and “relationship” (a word I hate to use) with God. Perhaps I hate the word “relationship” because what Greene is describing is one’s love affair with God, or, more precisely, God’s love affair with each one of us.