Challenge: 50 Books discussion

Hello!

If anyone is interested in reading The End of the Affair by Graham Greene over the remainder of July, I'm glad to give the moderator-role another try.

If you are interested, let's follow the reading schedule below. This is a short book (my copy is only 160 pages) and my edition is divided into Books.

July 14 - July 19: Books One and Two
July 20 - July 26: Books Three and Four
July 27 - July 31: Book Five

I will *try* to post new discussion questions on Sundays, but if you have questions you really want to pose to the group or ideas of discussions, please please post them.

I'll leave you with this quote by Graham Greene that is on the back of my book. How might these words apply to Maurice Bendrix, who is the main character of the novel?

"A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses a moment of experience from which to look ahead."

I'm trying to get a copy. This sounds like a pretty interesting book.

I'm in! I'm in!! :)

Hello!

This is a relatively safe post that is spoiler-free, so if you haven't started reading but still want to take part in our group discussion, feel free to read on. Hopefully I'll give you some things to think about as you start the novel.

I have to admit that I'm a bit of a fangirl when it comes to Graham Greene. He really is one of my favorite writers ever. His writing is just so gorgeously simple and complex all at the same time. So far, this novel has not disappointed, and it feels a lot like a later novel, The Quiet American, which is in my top five favorite novels ever.

I know now that the line I quoted above is the actual first line of the novel. But my first question for us to talk about is this: How did you feel about the narrator (Bendrix) after the first paragraph of the novel?

Then my second question is: How have your feelings about him changed (or stayed the same) once you got to the end of Book Two?

Another masterstroke of this novel (in my oh so humble opinion) is the way that Greene is playing with the opposition of love/hate. What are your thoughts about Bendrix's love and his hate? Why is this such an important aspect to his character as well as to the novel as a whole?

And...he begins by saying that this novel is about hate, but later in the novel he seems to question this basic assertion. What does Bendrix love and what does he hate? Is it possible that he loves and hates the same thing (or things) at the same time? How does this make him a more complex character?

If I were reading this with a class, I would ask them to think about two specific questions:

(1) Is Bendrix a reliable narrator (even he questions his own reliability at one point during Book Two, where he writes "I sometimes wonder whether anything that I am putting down here is true.")? Can we believe trust him as a narrator?

(2) Why is Bendrix writing this story?

And two more questions to think about and discuss:

(1) Who is this novel really about? There's a point where Bendrix says "I, I, I, as though this were my story, and not the story of Sarah, Henry, and..." Is this story about Bendrix? Or is it about Sarah? Or even Henry? Who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist (keeping in mind that the antagonist doesn't necessarily have to be a character in the story).

(2) Bendrix is writing this story through the distance of time. What he is recounting has happened at least three years in the past, but some events happen many more years earlier. How does that impact his story? How does it impact the moments he recounts and how he narrates them?

And finally, I feel like this is a hallmark of Greene's novels -- he sets up the narrator to think about a pivotal moment or a pivotal choice, the decision to act vs. the decision not to act, and it seems that this is happening with Bendrix. Particularly when he thinks about his decision to approach Henry on the Common. In this novel Greene seems to be playing with the idea of choice vs. fate (or predestination, if you like). I don't know if I actually have a question here but it's something we can talk about. Did Bendrix actively make the choice to talk with Henry that night, and if so, was it that choice that triggered everything that came after? Or was it a moment predestined to happen, and thus everything that followed was destined to happen? Couldn't have happened any other way?

I hope everyone is liking the book so far. I saw a film version of this novel many years ago but now, once I finish reading the book, I want to go back and watch the movie again.

lisa wrote: "His writing is just so gorgeously simple and complex all at the same time."

This book (well, Books 1 & 2 of the book) is packed with sentences that should be in Bartlett's book of quotations. If this were my book and not the library's, I think my copy would be almost completely underlined, because nearly every sentence is striking me as Real and True and Disarming about love and relationships. As soon as I'm done with the book and there are no more spoilers for me, I'm going to go into Goodreads' quotes database and probably add nearly every one for this book!

As for your question about how I felt about Bendrix at the beginning vs. at the end of Book 2, and his love/hate dichotomy, I love it. I completely and fully and totally (Yes, that much. That's like 300%!) get where he's coming from. I feel like ... Well, it goes back to the quotes: I feel like everything he (whether Bendrix or Greene) is saying is Truth. All of the heartbrokenness, and the fine line between loving someone and hating them (and especially hating someone who left you heartbroken), and time passing... I feel like I know exactly where he's coming from, and I can totally sympathize. And yes, it's completely possible that he loves and hates the same thing at the same time. You break up with someone -- or better yet, they break up with you -- and part of you is still in love with them, and you have those happy memories, but the other part of you wants them to Die and Be Miserable and Suffer and all sorts of nasty things, but partially because you still love them and they hurt you. They hurt you, now you want them to hurt, so it ends up being a tale of hating someone, hating the someone you love(d), because they made you hurt. Totally real.

And your other questions --

Is Bendrix a reliable narrator? I hadn't thought of that. Let's see... I'll say that he's a reliable narrator when discussing the parts with Parkis (a straightforward narrative, nothing to get wishy-washy about), but his memories of Sarah might not be as reliable. If he's so caught up in this love/hate thing, and hating what he loves/d, then maybe he doesn't do the best job of describing *exactly* what happened, and with the exact emotions or intentions behind everything that happened. Time and hurt can change your interpretation of events.

Why is he writing this story? hmm... Dunno. Maybe I'll find out in Books 3, 4, or 5? :)

Who is this novel really about? I had thought it was about Bendrix and Sarah (not Bendrix+Sarah, but about each of them, individually, and how they intersected), but when I got to the sentence you quoted, I wasn't sure anymore. Did that sentence really mean the story wasn't about him, or was that his way of saying he's not part of her life? Or him being sort of ... self-deprecating or ... self-loathsome or a gloomy gus? Kind of wallowing that he's not part of her story anymore / he's not important enough to be part of the story. But based on what the introductory essay told me about Book 3 (but not about Books 4 or 5), maybe it's supposed to be about Sarah? And then Henry and Bendrix just happen to be characters in the story about her.

[Greene] sets up the narrator to think about a pivotal moment or a pivotal choice, the decision to act vs. the decision not to act, and it seems that this is happening with Bendrix. Particularly when he thinks about his decision to approach Henry on the Common.

Yes, I noticed that, too. I think I only noticed one instance (but maybe there are more) when Bendrix makes some comment to the effect of "If I hadn't gone to talk to Henry that night..." You start to think, "Yeah, what *if* you hadn't talked to Henry? You wouldn't be having Sarah followed, but would you be happier or more miserable?" It made Bendrix happy to know that Henry was having trouble with Sarah and was doubting her, but if he hadn't had her followed, he wouldn't have what he thinks is actual proof that she's seeing someone else. Sooo... Would he be better off or not? It sort of reminded me of "The Darkest Timeline" on _Community_ or the episode of _The Big Bang Theory_ when Leonard imagines asking Penny out on a date after they broke up :D

I totally agree with you about Greene writing what is True and Real and Heartbreaking. His sentences are just so haunting and that fits especially this novel because Bendrix is haunted by his time with Sarah. Maybe that's one of the reasons he is writing (like you I don't think I'll know the answer until the end of the book)--as a way to finally let go of the entire affair and bring it to an end. I keep thinking that the "affair" in the title is not just a reference to Bendrix and Sarah. That it is also referring to something (or more than one) something else.

I don't know yet if he is a reliable narrator. Bendrix is accustomed to writing fiction and so how much of the account is fictionalized for the sake of selling his book? Don't know yet but might have a better idea by the end.

I don't think there are any spoilers in here, just generic speaking about the book, but if anyone's following along and you haven't finished the book yet, read cautiously.

Okay, I've finished the book, and I'm still not sure about why Bendrix is writing the book (I'll get to that more below) or whose story it is. Can't it just be the story of Bendrix+Sarah+Henry+Smythe+Parkis+... ? That's my answer.

As for your questions about why is Bendrix writing this story, and "how much of the account is fictionalized for the sake of selling his book," do we even know that he's writing this as a book? Is it possible that he's just reminiscing (and letting us in to his head)/telling us a story? Is there somewhere (and I may have missed it) that says or implies that he's actually writing a book to sell? That could change my view of whether he's a reliable narrator and telling us the actual truth.

So, anyway, I'm done, yet I'm still confused about those two points :) I kept waiting for a light to go on, but even as I finished the final sentence, I never figured out those two questions!

And is it horrible to say that I enjoyed Books 1 & 2 WAY more than 3-5? All that gushing about Greene's language about what is Real and True, and the rest of the books just fell flat! I was kind of disappointed; I mean, it was still a decent story, but that beautiful language disappeared in Sarah's diary (obviously), and even everything after that! I was so sad.

I just finished the book and...I think I loved it? I want to write more but my internet connection is not cooperating and so I'm typing this on my phone.

I do think that the overall tone of the book changes at the beginning of Book 3. I loved Book 3 because the voice was so different and it gave Sarah's view of things. And I loved Book 4 because there was hope, however fleeting. And momentary. Though I wasn't a huge fan of Book 5 (and I think this must be where the book as one of Greene's 'Catholic novels' may come into play) I thought that on the whole I enjoyed the book immensely. For me, that moment where he says if he was writing this story as a novel he would stop there--maybe that really was where the book should have ended?