A Domestic Masterpiece

Graham Greene usually set his novels in raw and exotic corners of the earth, the better to push his characters to the far edges of torment and self-recognition. "The End of the Affair" is his great domestic masterpiece; its sinners find the moral precipice at home, within. Written in the late 1940s and published in 1951, the novel takes place in wartime London, under the pounding of the Blitz. This was Greene's time and place, so bleakly evocative of his embattled soul. Desperation huddles against the elements of weather and war: the fog, the rain, the enforced night of the bomb-raid blackouts, the shortage of food and fuel.

Occupying this tableau, in director Neil Jordan's new movie adaptation of the novel, is a triangle of mortals: Henry Miles (Stephen Rea), a dull and clueless bureaucrat, has long since ceased to be a good husband to the adventurous Sarah (Julianne Moore), so she has begun coupling surreptitiously with their friend, world-weary novelist Maurice Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes). These three fine actors may revive interest in one of Greene's most personal works, but rereading "The End of the Affair," I was left wondering whether they aren't a bit young to carry the mature, many-layered intrigue of what's so clearly a novel of middle age.

But there's a fourth character, by Whom hangs the tale.

In the novel's threshold moment, the basement where Bendrix and Sarah are trysting is hit by a German rocket. A ceiling falls in, and Bendrix is buried in it, out cold. Sarah sees her lover's lifeless arm protruding from the rubble and believes he is dead--and, for the first time, prays. When he does stir to life, she inexplicably (at least till the end of the story) calls off the affair. She has taken up with Another.

Continued on page 2: »