“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. I say ‘one chooses’ with the inaccurate pride of a professional writer who - when he has been seriously noted at all - has been praised for his technical ability, but do I in fact of my own will choose that black wet January night on the common, in 1946, the sight of Henry Miles slanting across the wide river of rain, or did these things choose me? It is convenient, it is correct according to the rules of my craft to begin just there, but if I had believed then in a god, I could also have believed in a hand, plucking at my elbow, a suggestion, ‘speak to him: he hasn’t seen you yet.’”
~ Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
There are little triggers that nudge our memories, calling back certain thoughts or ideas, or certain scenes to the mind. This memory came to me uninvited (as intrusive as memories are): the stocking.. I remember that specific scene from a movie, a guy taking a stocking off the legs of his lover, telling her he is jealous of the stocking because it gets to stay all day with her, and he hates the shoes because they take her away from him.. and slowly bits and pieces came back to me, and the resemblance was too much to ignore. The affair vs. the relation, with one person wanting one type and the other needing the other. There and then, I knew I wanted to get the book, and I knew I wanted to give it away when I finished it..
So there it is, a book about Catholicism, conjugal love, divine love, and promises one makes to self and to God. A story about the melange of love and hate until you can no longer distinguish one from the other. A story about the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end, and that exact moment when you just know there is no more.
2 comments:
Yes..
And where do you draw the line between affairs and relationships?...... there is a line though that we all know but can't define..
An affair definitely tastes sweeter, but always manages to have an aftertaste....
And even though it leaves you wiht the ugly taste.. u still want more,,,,,, I guess you go back to change that taste, to get the sweetness..and then u get the after taste again...
Is there sthg between as a relationship and affair?
Do you know Stephanie?;)
Who is Stephanie? :)
There is a thin line I agree.. and sometimes you think you want the relationship, but turns out you only want the affair, so really, this is not just about placing the blame on the person who's in an "affair".. likewise you'd agree to the terms of the "affair" and it turns out it is not enough, you need more, you need a relation.
There must be something in between.. The affair is meant to be an escape in a way.. and a relation is reality. If there is an in-between, I would love to have it, I love in-betweens.
Again, who is Stephanie?
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