Heavy. Hard-hitting. Reflective.
I'm currently reading Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. 87 pages into the book I can easily say that it's one of the most well-written novels I've read, along with Catcher In The Rye and Her by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. And it's pretty heavy, too. Actually, VERY heavy. I was reading it on the train to and from school today, and honestly there were times when I went sniff-sniff at the amazing lines from the text.
Graham Greene is a fucking genius. The way he interspersed the question of God's existence with an illicit yet true romantic love plus the occasional quibbles on the craft of novel writing (since Bendrix, the protagonist, is also a writer) is way beyond me. The music lover in me tells me that it reminds me of the Metallica song "The God that Failed" because it's exactly what Bendrix feels in most of the book. The God that failed to heal. Don't get me wrong: I love God more than anything or anyone in this world, but this book really touches on the question of His existence more vividly than even the discourses of Gabriel Marcel.
I see a lot of myself and my feelings and realizations in Bendrix. I think of his own notions of romantic love and how he feels that those notions are the only neaningful ones, and no other notions, even the love for a Divine who is invisible yet all-knowing, can compare. Time and time again I've liked girls who were taken, and for a time I thought the streak would never end. I thought of their lovers the way Bendrix thought of Henry; dull, boring, couldn't do jack shit. However, the Bendrix trait which I can closely relate to the most is the fact that he THINKS he's a strong, steadfast person whose desire and hatred consume him in the heat of the moment he feels them, a person who can feel sympathy one minute and resentment the next. But in Sarah's presence, all that strong will, all that pent-up desire and hatred are quickly snuffed out. "I have never known a woman before or since so able to alter a whole mood by simply speaking on the telephone," Bendrix writes. Sarah brings equilibrium to his state of mind. Her presence alone makes him vulnerable and detached from everything else, yet it's also because of her that he harbors the extremes towards Henry.
For all its beauty, this was the book I feared reading. Feared in a sense that I can already anticipate the slap in the face once I reach the denouement, my own life story and everything about the idea of romantic love I've screwed up flashing before my eyes through the lines of the text, that "putangina wag mo nang ipaalala" moment. I've only felt that way once after reading a novel, and that was Catcher in the Rye.
If anything, it did more to challenge my notions of romantic love rather than my spirituality as a hardline believer in liberation theology. Thank you Lord.
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And, on a lighter note:
My latest celebrity crush, Sonya Aurora Madan, lead vocalist of indie Brit-Rock band Echobelly.
Pwede pakasal tayo?
Graham Greene is a fucking genius. The way he interspersed the question of God's existence with an illicit yet true romantic love plus the occasional quibbles on the craft of novel writing (since Bendrix, the protagonist, is also a writer) is way beyond me. The music lover in me tells me that it reminds me of the Metallica song "The God that Failed" because it's exactly what Bendrix feels in most of the book. The God that failed to heal. Don't get me wrong: I love God more than anything or anyone in this world, but this book really touches on the question of His existence more vividly than even the discourses of Gabriel Marcel.
I see a lot of myself and my feelings and realizations in Bendrix. I think of his own notions of romantic love and how he feels that those notions are the only neaningful ones, and no other notions, even the love for a Divine who is invisible yet all-knowing, can compare. Time and time again I've liked girls who were taken, and for a time I thought the streak would never end. I thought of their lovers the way Bendrix thought of Henry; dull, boring, couldn't do jack shit. However, the Bendrix trait which I can closely relate to the most is the fact that he THINKS he's a strong, steadfast person whose desire and hatred consume him in the heat of the moment he feels them, a person who can feel sympathy one minute and resentment the next. But in Sarah's presence, all that strong will, all that pent-up desire and hatred are quickly snuffed out. "I have never known a woman before or since so able to alter a whole mood by simply speaking on the telephone," Bendrix writes. Sarah brings equilibrium to his state of mind. Her presence alone makes him vulnerable and detached from everything else, yet it's also because of her that he harbors the extremes towards Henry.
For all its beauty, this was the book I feared reading. Feared in a sense that I can already anticipate the slap in the face once I reach the denouement, my own life story and everything about the idea of romantic love I've screwed up flashing before my eyes through the lines of the text, that "putangina wag mo nang ipaalala" moment. I've only felt that way once after reading a novel, and that was Catcher in the Rye.
If anything, it did more to challenge my notions of romantic love rather than my spirituality as a hardline believer in liberation theology. Thank you Lord.
------------------
And, on a lighter note:
My latest celebrity crush, Sonya Aurora Madan, lead vocalist of indie Brit-Rock band Echobelly.
Pwede pakasal tayo?