The End of the Affair

Ok I’m only halfway through The End of the Affair, but I’ve been talking everyone’s ears off about it around the office and just had to go ahead and write a review before finishing it (something I’m generally opposed to doing).

I’m not sure quite how to capture just how exceptional Firth’s performance is, but I'll give you two good examples. Graham Greene writes a lot about how close together love and hate are (apathy being the true opposite of both), and Colin Firth totally connects with his meaning. When Firth says the word “hate” you really feel rapture simmering beneath the surface. When he utters the word “love” he spits it out like venom. The two are irreparably intertwined. The subject matter is there - this being, in essence, a record of great passion gone wrong - and Colin Firth does it justice. Every word is impassioned without ever being too much or over the top. Narrators have to be careful to walk this fine line when dealing with emotionally heavy material and Firth succeeds perfectly. But Bendrix, the protagonist isn’t just a man of great feeling – he’s also a curmudgeon, he’s difficult, he’s maybe a little cruel – but Firth makes you care for him despite the fact that you really don’t like him. Another vocal juggling act performed without flaw.

I have never read The End of the Affair before and only have a vague memory of seeing the movie, so I don’t really know where the book is going to end up – but I just hope I can somehow elongate the delicious few hours left that I have with it. Seriously, seriously, seriously – don’t miss this performance.

The inner world of a man tortured by a romance ending too soon.

It was the period when he finds her again and there is hope for their romance.

The investigator..love the accent.

The coming together of Bendrix and his lover's husband after her death.

Please have Colin Firth be a featured narrator again! I would buy anything he narrates.

To my shame I have never before read "The End of the Affair". To my joy my first experience of Graham Greene's extraordinary words was with the performance of Colin Firth. I have, for better or worse, begun to restrict myself to only a few narrators. Those voices, so intimate, like a lover in my ears. Listening to another can feel ... wrong, disloyal. As Colin speaks he inhabits the dejection of the abandoned lover, the hopeless innocence of the cuckolded and the faint quaver of the loved. Greene created a core of desperate longing entwined in a mystery. Colin's performance is compelling, evoking a searing honesty. His female voice is perfect; Colin chooses a modulation of his own, avoiding a character and thus striping further that naked, fragile honesty. I am unsure as yet, how I feel about the fourth and final act of the novel, merely because a theme jars with my own atheism. I easily forgive that mild uncertainty in thanks for the moment early in the third when my breath caught: and Colin and Graham took me somewhere...unexpected.

This is without question the most beautifully narrated book I have experienced in the 10 or more years I have been listening to audio books. It also shows how an exceptional audio book can be so much more effective than prose on a page. I had tried and failed to read The End of the Affair a couple of times in the past, always succumbing to boredom over the unlikable characters, turgid story, and narrow emotional range. (I realize that I'm swimming against the stream here, but even heartfelt anger becomes tedious after a while.) Still, with an actor as gifted as Colin Firth as the narrator, I felt it was worth investing in one more try.

I am so glad I did! Firth made you feel the pain of the characters, pain that had merely seemed self-indulgent when written on the page. His voice gave depth to what otherwise felt like a shallow story line. And while I still found the end of the book to be mawkish, the narrator's many layered voice won't leave my head. That is what a superb audio book can do.

I bought this book quite a while ago but was moved to listen by a great customer review. Colin Firth, one of my favorite actors is truly an outstanding reader. He made this book a real listening experience. I can't say enough about his excellent expression and ability to bring the narrator's character and his emotions to life. This is a difficult book, it is full of strong emotions and demanding questions and it could easily be misread. I was drawn into the book immediately and captured entirely by the narration. This is a terrific example of a good book enhanced even further by a great reading. The themes of love and hate, death and faith are so weighty yet so well served by such a thoughtful performance.

I know I'm in the minority here and many will think me shallow.... but dare I call this drivel? Okay so for me, this book went on and on..... I love God... I hate God....I love my lover.....I hate my lover....I love my spouse.... I hate my spouse...I love myself....I hate myself.....life is random....life is by design....there is a God....there is not a God.....and so forth. Now I saved you a credit, except P. S. Colin Firth did a terrific job narrating.

A few years ago, I'd seen the movie version of this novel (which is also excellent, by the way), and I'd put it on my mental list of things to do to read the book. And then, of course, I promptly forgot about it...until I saw this Audible.com version with COLIN FIRTH reading it! What a treat!

The story is fascinating and dark and wonderful, and Colin Firth's reading of the novel is exceptional. As usual, his voice is wonderfully nuanced and emotive, and the timbre of his speaking style pairs especially well with the nature of this story. The voices he does for the different characters are not incredibly differentiated, but all of the voices seem to subtly evoke the deep emotions of each person.

Overall, it is just a fantastic listen--I highly recommend it!

When Colin Firth reads the story, I believe it is true. Though Bendrix talks of hate, it is passion and love that come through. In the beginning I was most struck by the brief emotional intimacy between Bendrix and Harry (Sarah's husband). Sarah's voice seems more distant until we get a glimpse at her diary. The experience of love that you feel in your soul and in your heart, including joy but also pain, confusion and doubt truly come out in Firth's performance.

I should have paid more attention to the negative reviewer on this one. This will be the first Audible book I've started and not finished. (I even dragged myself through Doctor Zhivago, which was depressing and seemed to make a hero out of someone in whom I found almost no heroic qualities, though admittedly I may have chosen to finish it either because it cost two credits or just so I could say I did.) For this one, I can only ditto the reviewer who says the protagonist just keeps bouncing back and forth with his whinings. And, as part of those whinings, I must add a comment: Why does he seem to think it if God's responsibility to make things work out for him when he makes foolish and immoral choices and gets his feelings hurt? It is certainly not God's responsibility to simply give him whatever he wants. The main character, not only in his concept of God as a cosmic Santa but also in every other way--at least as far as I could stomach the story--seems absurdly shallow. I know most everybody else liked this one, but I kept thinking, where's the story? and what's the point?

This review has no beginning and no end. I should probably start then with the obvious -- I love G.G.. I love his Catholic novels (now having finished the fourth of that group). Greene's strength is his ability to make his flawed characters both repellant and lovely (or said simpler: human) at the same time. He approaches his thesis through unconventional approaches. Who but Greene would illuminate man's relationship with God with an affair as the novel's structural metaphor? Greene's relationship with God and his Catholicism is complex and uneasy at times and that is what transforms his novels into Art