LOVE that movie.... Or, actually, these two IN that movie.... 

Just Finished Reading: The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (FP: 1951) [160pp] 

It was over. No explanation, no warning, nothing. It was like a door being slammed or a bomb dropping, which actually made much more sense. It was after his house was nearly hit by the buzz-bomb. From that day she refused to see him again, wouldn’t come to the phone when he called. Was she finally regretting their affair? Had Henry found out (he didn’t think so) or had she told him? Or had she simply become tired of him? They were certainly arguing more. Was it as simple as that? Or had Sarah found someone else, someone younger, someone more fun, less self-obsessed? The idea tortured him until they ran into each other by accident two whole years later. When they parted, he decided to follow her. It was stupid, he knew. At any moment she could turn around and there would be a scene, or worse she could just ignore him. Ironically it was Henry, the man, the friend, who he had been deceiving for years that thought she might be having an affair. They even discussed hiring a private detective to uncover her secrets. Bendrix (hardly anyone called him Maurice, not even Sarah) relished the idea and agreed to arrange things. Convinced he was about to uncover his rival at last it came as quite a surprise, as a shock even, to discover exactly what Sarah was really doing. The discovery of the reason Sarah left him on that fateful day was almost incidental. Was there a way back for them, or was everything lost?  

To be honest this is not exactly my normal sort of read. But after enjoying two previous books by the author – both very different from each other and from this outing – I thought I’d give it a try. It was, at the very least, an intriguing read. Initially I rather liked the main character of Maurice Bendrix. If he wasn’t exactly an avatar for the author (who I honestly know almost zero about) I’m guessing he must be pretty close! I also couldn’t help but think that the author must have either had an affair (or certainly actively considered it) or knew someone very well who did. The roller-coaster ride of emotions was very real especially when Bendrix confessed to both hating Sarah and desperately wanting her back. I don’t think he actually hated her though, he certainly hated the fact that she had left him and hated how that made him feel, but the hate he clothed himself with was, more than anything, a defence mechanism against his feeling of loss. If he didn’t hate her, and freely acknowledged just how much he loved her – even after her inexplicable disappearance from his life – it would’ve crushed him. Hate was easier on his psyche than love. 

For the first part of the book, I didn’t like Sarah very much at all. I’m not sure if this was designed by the author or if my personal history was getting in the way of the narrative. I had a ‘complicated’ relationship in my late 30’s so found myself appreciating the position of Bendrix far more than Sarah, most especially as Bendrix suspected her of serial adultery – both before and after their own particular affair. After Bendrix and we (as readers) had access to Sarah’s diary later in the narrative my view of Sarah changed. I still didn’t like her to the extent that I liked Bendrix but I certainly understood her a lot more and appreciated what she was going through and her ultimate motivation(s) for ending the relationship. 

Beyond the ‘complicated’ love story itself one of the things that has stayed with me since reading this slim volume was how all of the main characters – Bendrix, Sarah, Henry and Richard (a kind of secular ‘therapist’) - as well as the private detective sub-character Alfred Parkis – were looking for meaning in what at that time (in the final year of World War 2 and a few years following on) must have been a very confusing era. Living not only through a world war and the consequential existential crisis, but seeing the first use of nuclear weapons and everything that would follow from that event, plus increasing knowledge of the Holocaust, the terminal decline of the British Empire and the first stirrings of the Cold War must have raised some very fundamental questions in the minds of all thinking peoples. Adapting to the new age, the new reality, must have been difficult so it's not surprising that people struggled to come to terms with things. 

This is my 3rd Graham Greene novel and I’m looking forward to reading more by him. So far, they’ve all been very different and each, in their own way, something special. This might not appeal to everyone but I, for one, found it quite affecting. Definitely recommended.

[Oh, SIDE NOTE - The cover photograph is by Bert Hardy who I checked out later. He's excellent. Some of his work will be upcoming...] 

Happy Back to the Future Day....!!!

"Total deaths increased by 15 percent, making 2020 the deadliest year in recorded US history. The figure that will haunt America is that the US accounts for about 20 percent of all the Covid fatalities in the world, despite having only 4 percent of the population."

Lawrence Wright, The Plague Year - America in the Time of Covid.

Happy Birthday: Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman CBE FRSL (born 19 October 1946) is an English writer. His books include the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, a fictionalised biography of Jesus. In 2008, The Times named Pullman one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945". In a 2004 BBC poll, he was named the eleventh most influential person in British culture. He was knighted in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to literature.

Northern Lights, the first volume in His Dark Materials, won the 1995 Carnegie Medal of the Library Association as the year's outstanding English-language children's book. For the Carnegie's 70th anniversary, it was named in the top ten by a panel tasked with compiling a shortlist for a public vote for an all-time favourite. It won that public vote and was named all-time "Carnegie of Carnegies" in June 2007. It was filmed under the book's US title, The Golden Compass. In 2003, His Dark Materials trilogy ranked third in the BBC's The Big Read, a poll of 200 top novels voted by the British public.

[I LOVED Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and devoured them on my first reading. I've read them all twice again since then. I enjoyed the movie version - especially after picturing Nicole Kidman as Mrs Coulter whilst reading the first book and being delighted when she was picked for the role - but struggled with the BBC adaptation. I might read the trilogy again at some point in the future.]  

Just Finished Reading: Pale Rider – The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World by Laura Spinney (FP: 2017) [295pp] 

At first, they thought it was just the Flu, something ordinary, something familiar no matter how annoying. Anyway, there was a war on so a few sniffles, a few sick men was neither here nor there. There was no way in hell that they could quarantine a port or stop the troop ships sailing to France. The fate of the West was at stake. Even when the sick began to overwhelm the medics and soldiers, young, fit, men began to die in ever greater numbers the trains still picked up the apparently heathy from the training camps and crammed them into transports. As the outbreak spread across war-torn Europe it hit the Germans HARD. After 4 years of war and the effects of the British naval blockade both the soldiers and civilians were using up their last reserves of just about everything.  

When the war finally ended and soldiers began returning home – including millions of prisoners of war long held in unhealthy camps – the ‘Spanish’ flu (so-called because of its early reports in uncensored Spanish newspapers) spread across the world. The mortality rate varied widely but was generally agreed upon as roughly 2% overall. This doesn’t seem very much, but 2% was around 50-100 million dead across the globe. The rather large range estimate reflects the lack of records, the fact that the number of dead in Russia (which was going through the start of its Civil War at the time) might never be known, the number of Indian dead (likewise) may never be known because of lax record keeping in that British ‘protectorate’ and China was in a state of political and civil upheaval and this, probably, is where the majority of the deaths occurred. The flu killed more than the Great War and possibly killed more than the Second World War that followed it. At the top of the estimate figures it is even conceivable that the Spanish flu killed more people than BOTH World Wars combined. The death toll was far from being evenly distributed. Whilst New York suffered 0.5% deaths Rio suffered three times as many at 1.6%. Zamora in Spain doubled that at 3% whilst Gujarat in India doubled that again at 6%. Worst was to come in isolated communities such as Bristol Bay in Alaska that suffered 40% mortality. 

Interestingly, the Spanish flu had numerous similarities to the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Governments played down its impact (in this case so as not to ‘undermine the war effort’), argued about the cause and exactly where it came from. This was especially problematic at the time because viruses were essentially theoretical in 1918. Some cities in the US or countries elsewhere instituted basic public health measures like social distancing, masks, the closing of schools and stopping of public gatherings. Other places did not, or only did so half-heartedly. Once the war was over several US cities allowed parades and paid the price in the increased backlog at mortuaries. I did find it especially interesting that there were many reports of long-term impacts of the disease even after people had recovered. Examples of heart damage, fatigue and psychological problems possibly cause by brain damage exploded in the medical records of the time. Loss of smell, temporary loss of colour vision and much else was experienced. So-called ‘Long Covid’ no longer seems in the least as ‘exaggerated’ as some have suggested. 

No longer ‘forgotten’ after our recent experience of global pandemic, the Spanish flu had a significant global impact that is all too often overlooked in the shadow of the Great War. It must have been quite terrifying at the time (again compared to Covid) and I think we can learn quite a bit from the virus itself and how the world coped (and didn’t) with the disease. This was definitely one of the Science/History highlights of the year for me. Not only is it very well written but the author explores far more that the outbreak itself looking at its short-term and long-term impacts of humanity and human history. Fascinating and highly recommended – if you can handle the flashbacks to 2020!