The End of the Affair

By: Graham Greene

Narrated by: Colin Firth

Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

Earphones Award Winner (AudioFile Magazine)

Audie Award Winner, Audiobook of the Year, 2013

Audie Award Nominee, Best Solo Narration, 2013

Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) won the Audie for Audiobook of the Year in 2013—for his first audio performance, The End of the Affair. The love affair at the center of this 1951 classic novel takes place in the bomb-strewn last days of World War II, and just after. Bendrix, a writer in war-torn London, has fallen in love with Sarah, the wife of an acquaintance. Though unhappily married, Sarah won’t leave her husband; she ends their affair and abruptly vanishes, reducing Bendrix's inner life to rubble. His investigation of Sarah’s disappearance reveals the role her newly-awakened Catholic faith played in her decision to leave, and other startling truths.

The End of the Affair mirrors Greene’s own relationship with a married woman, and positions religion as a pivotal element in both the inner turmoil and outer destruction occurring in his life at the time. Firth brilliantly conveys Greene’s characteristically bleak emotional terrain in an intimate, nuanced, and unhurried performance.

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©1951 Graham Greene (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Colin Firth

I would never have read this book if it had not been for the reviews. They were right; Colin Firth makes this book come alive. The book was good and certainly worth reading, but Colin makes it like going to a play. I will listen to this over and over again. Take a chance - you will be glad you did.

quality writing, dull reading

i found the story, the plot and narration extremely monotonous in the way of many classics that you force yourself to get through.

Can it get any better?

Colin Firth reading The End of the Affair, what more can I say? It’s as good as you’d suspect.

Beautifully enchanting

The story, the Mesmer narration by Colin Firth—just lovely, so revealing about human nature and our relationship with God.

Finally read it!

It's a beautiful written story about our suffering and struggles with emotions. I thought it was sad but then there was the hidden treasure underneath all that. God is the center of the story and ours doubts. Colin Firth is amazing narrator. I could listen to him for long time. highly recommend.

Compelled to review

What did you love best about The End of the Affair?

I usually do not bother to review things-- but this is compelling-- Outstanding on all counts. Writing, and acting the way it should be!!

“It's all human nature, sir, isn't it?”

'I would have liked to have left that past time alone, for as I write of 1939 I feel all my hatred returning. Hatred seems to operate the same glands as love: it even produces the same actions. If we had not been taught how to interpret the story of the Passion, would we have been able to say from their actions alone whether it was the jealous Judas or the cowardly Peter who loved Christ?'

Maurice Bendrix is a moderately successful novelist--films are made from his books, and he is 'praised for his technical ability'--but he earns little money from his writing and calls himself a scribbler. Beginning his account of an affair he had with Sarah Miles during WWII, he says, 'this is a record of hate far more than of love.' He then recounts recently seeing Sarah's civil-servant husband Henry at night standing in the rain without an umbrella and, instead of passing by unseen, addressing him. Had God or the devil moved him? He had had no contact with the couple ever since the affair ended over a year and a half ago, and he was unsure whom he hated more, Sarah or Henry, who'd remained obtusely innocent of the affair. On that rainy night, Henry ended up inviting Maurice home because he wanted to confide in him: suspecting Sarah of having an affair, he'd contacted a detective agency to investigate her but would like Maurice to laugh at him for being a fool so he can burn the agency's letter and forget his suspicions. 'Then the demon spoke,' however, and Maurice offered to visit the detective for Henry, initiating a tragic chain of events. As Maurice tells us, 'How twisted we humans are. . .' (Maurice makes plenty of similarly bleak comments, like 'Why do we have this desire to tease the innocent?')

It's not easy for Maurice to revisit the past: 'If this book of mine fails to take a straight course it is because I am lost in a strange region.' Throughout his account (his confession!), Maurice's honesty about the affair, about his self-centered love, jealousy, and hatred, and about his dislike of God, is so appalling that reading Graham Greene's novel The End of the Affair (1951) felt like watching a man flay himself in public. It also made me wonder how much of it is autobiographical (apparently Greene based the character of Sarah on the woman with whom he had an affair and to whom he dedicated his novel).

If it sounds unpleasant, it is, but it is also brilliant and funny and moving. The brilliance shines in philosophical and psychological insights (e.g., 'The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than happiness'). The humor lies in witty lines (e.g., 'He had very limited small talk, and his answers fell like trees across the road') and ironic situations (e.g., detective Parkis having named his son Lance because he believed that Sir Lancelot found the Holy Grail when actually he found Guinevere's bed). The emotional impact comes from the pain and suffering of the characters (e.g., Maurice strangling his and Sarah's affair before it can end naturally), and their gestures of humanity (e.g., Maurice putting a pair of biscuits by Henry's bed).

Greene's characters feel real, especially Sarah, Henry, and Maurice, but also supporting ones like the sad-eyed detective Parkis and the desperate rationalist Smythe, and thus the relationships between them are absorbing. The third of the five books of the novel consists almost completely of Sarah's diary, and reading her naked words feels like an invasion of privacy of a real person and casts an intensely ironic light on the incidents that Maurice relates in the first two books.

Colin Firth reads the audiobook superbly. He does not over-dramatize or showily alter his voice when speaking for different characters. Instead, he reads every word, phrase, sentence, and paragraph with perfect understanding of the English language, the author's style, the mood and meaning of each scene, and the mind and emotion of each character. He enhances the novel.

WWII plays a big part in the affair, and Greene concisely evokes what life was like in London then (e.g., 'Once in the blitz I saw a man laughing outside his house where his wife and child were buried.'), but the novel is most deeply about time (or eternity), love (or jealousy and hate and forgiveness), God (or devils), faith (or unbelief), miracles (or coincidences), reality (or magic), writing (or writing block), truth (or fiction), and memory (or misperception). I suppose that Greene finally stacks the deck against atheism a bit too neatly; or do I just want to dismiss miracles as coincidences? Anyway, the suffering of the main characters is all so human and real that I am willing to give them whatever comfort they can find, and in Maurice's case his argument with God gives him little comfort. Even amidst his self-absorption, however, Maurice reveals a path to salvation, regardless of whether or not one believes in God, when he says, 'I had become nearly human enough to think of another person's trouble.'

Wow.

If you could sum up The End of the Affair in three words, what would they be?

Absolutely F****** Brilliant.

Any additional comments?

Colin Firth is a phenomenal reader. His timing and cadence are as good as you get. He sucks you into the plot and holds you in place. Graham Greene's prose is absolutely beautiful. He uses words like a painter and makes characters feel real; imperfect, struggling, and real. The book flew by and a part of me was sad when it ended.Great audiobook.

First Graham Green experience

If you could sum up The End of the Affair in three words, what would they be?

I really enjoyed this book. It was very thought provoking. Colin Firth did an excellent job breathing life in to each character.

What did you like best about this story?

The interplay between the three characters.

What does Colin Firth bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

A very clear understanding of the emotions felt by each character. Although Henry comes across as a very aloof civil servant, his reaction to his discovery of Sarah's relationship with Bendrix is very profound. He struggles with his perceived rules of proper society, and how he should react, and his own failures brought on by his job duties.

If you could take any character from The End of the Affair out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Bendrix.

Any additional comments?

As stated, this was my first experience with Graham Greene. While Colin Firth could make a telephone book sound interesting Graham's story is just as poignant today as in 1951, when he wrote this novel.

excellent performance

I like the author and Colin Firth's narration makes it come alive. Perhaps because he is English