ByFaith invited writers to select a novel to review that our readers might consider for their summer reading lists. 

I can’t remember the exact circumstances around my first reading of Graham Greene’s “The End of the Affair” (1951), but I remember that when I read it, it changed me. I had read one of his other great literary works, “The Heart of the Matter” (1948), for a class in college and was struck by his use of Catholicism, existential angst, love, and seemingly impossible human choices. 

Although I had heard that “The End of the Affair” continued these themes, what I didn’t realize was that I was about to read a novel that would plunge me into the human heart and remind me of the importance of the gospel. 

Greene’s novel about an affair is not a love story, we are told in the first couple paragraphs, but a hate-story. It is the story of Maurice Bendrix, a British novelist who decides to have an affair with a lonely and bored housewife, Sarah Miles, who is married to a dull and emotionally- and physically-uninvolved husband, Henry. 

This affair takes place during World War II as Britain is being bombed. One night, during a tryst, an air raid takes place. Bendrix walks downstairs and is crushed under a door and appears lifeless. At that moment, Sarah prays that he would be alive even if it means giving him up and turning to God instead. A few minutes later, Maurice walks into her room, bloodied but alive. And the end of the affair begins.

Bendrix, however, does not know why Sarah breaks off the affair. He assumes he has been left for another lover. And in a sense, he has. After hiring a private detective, Bendrix gets ahold of her diary, and in what is probably the most moving section of the novel, we learn about Sarah’s wrestling with her human, fleshly desire to return to Bendrix and her spiritual longing to turn to God and learn to find fulfillment in him. 

This was not Sarah’s first affair. She had had many before Bendrix, and all along she was searching for something to fill what she calls the “desert.” She was looking for something to fill her and affirm her existence. Denying God, she had turned to men, using her great beauty as a trick to get attention, but she always felt like a fake doing this. Now she faces a life without a man she actually loved, Bendrix.

So she sets out to disprove the existence of God. She finds a man named Smythe speaking in the square about atheism, and she asks him for help. But rather than convince her of the absence of God, so that she can ignore her vow, Smythe ends up persuading her of his existence. For example, Smythe tries to “explain” love in materialist terms as a psychological and biological reality. But to someone who has been in love, this answer will never satisfy. 

Sarah wonders, “isn’t there something over?” In other words, isn’t there something beyond the materialist account of love, something like the love of God? 

Eventually, Sarah breaks down and accepts God’s love in her diary and even prays that God will give Bendrix peace, but her final diary entry is a moment of doubt where she prays to be back with Bendrix. When he reads this final entry, he takes it as a sign that he is meant to be with her and immediately calls her up. He’s confident that whatever fledgling faith she might have, he can overcome it with his human love. 

Although she refuses to see him and tells him that she is sick, Bendrix ends up following her in the rain to a church where he confronts her. Bendrix is convinced that he has won her over from God. But eight days later, Henry called him to say that Sarah had died. 

The rest of the novel continues this twist. Bendrix and Henry become closer as they put together the final arrangements for Sarah’s funeral. Henry receives word from a Catholic priest that Sarah was seeking to become Catholic and would have liked a Catholic burial. But Bendrix insists that this is nonsense and that she should be cremated. 

Several apparent miracles take place related to Sarah, and Bendrix learns that Sarah had in fact been baptized as a Catholic. Yet he stubbornly refuses to admit to himself or others that God had worked in her life. The novel ends with Bendrix praying, “O God, You’ve done enough, You’ve robbed me of enough, I’m too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone for ever.” 

There is a wealth of beauty and truths to be found in this novel for Christians, even for Presbyterians. Greene, who himself was unfaithful to his wife, humanly depicts the temptation to stray, the ways you can justify sin, and the psychological reasons people feel the need to receive affirmation from others through affairs. Then he shows the emptiness of it all before God, the utter vanity and desperation of pursuing other humans to receive validation when what we really need to fill the “desert” is Christ. 

What I also appreciate is that in Henry and Sarah’s marriage, there is real human brokenness. Henry is a neglectful husband, which he admits later in the novel. For Sarah, to be a faithful spouse in this marriage means, in part, living with someone who is disinterested in sex. That is a heavy burden to carry, but it’s a real burden that real couples deal with. 

And the question is, do you remain faithful? Greene’s answer is that Sarah is called to devote herself to faithfully loving God and staying with her husband, not pursuing her fleshly passions. In other words, love of God requires real sacrifice. But it’s always worth it. The real tragedy is that Greene didn’t seem to take his own advice. 

Another spiritual truth in the novel is that sometimes what appears as hatred of God can be a stepping stone to the love of God. I know that sounds strange, but even Bendrix’ final words have hidden within them the hope that Sarah’s prayers will come true and he will find the peace of God. 

He prays to be left alone, but within that prayer is the acknowledgement of God’s existence. All that’s left is to be taught to love that God. And Greene gives us a hint that like Sarah was taught to love through Bendrix, Bendrix will be taught to love through caring for Henry. Granted, it’s only a hint. But hope remains that as Bendrix lives with Henry and helps him mourn Sarah, he will see something of the love of God and his own need for a Savior. 

“The End of the Affair” is a beautiful novel, one that reminds us of the seduction of sin and the loveliness of the gospel. Its true beauty lies in its humanity, in the way Greene depicts characters at their worst, but also points them to their neediness in Christ. 

Greene understood that the way of Christ means making choices and sacrifices, turning from sins, turning from fleshly passions, and relying on Christ. And that’s a reality we all should be reminded of. 

Alan Noble is a professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University and a ruling elder at City Presbyterian Church.