The End of the Affair ~ Graham Greene

This is not a book with a feel-good factor but it did provide a lot to discuss for the Reading Group.  On the positive side it was felt to offer a ferociously written account of the first stages of an affair, with it psychotic love and the tensions of adultery, the power of making a vow (though people thought a vow to oneself would have made more sense than a vow to a God you don’t believe in), and some of the wit (e.g. when Henry declares he cannot live without her and Sarah states he can as he has changed his newspaper once).  On the negative side, the characters were unattractive (and some thought Bendrix a cynical misogynist), the condescending description of Parkis as someone clearly limited by being lower class and  the diary of Sarah clearly not a diary (though a vehicle for her voice).   The most disliked aspects of the novel was the debates about God, as they were felt to be more about Greene himself than the plot, and Sarah gaining saint-like healing powers.  However there was some irony in the radical atheist blaming God for his disfiguration.  There were also questions about whether Henry was gay (described as not the marrying kind) and how far the novel might have been autobiographical.