I haven’t read this for years; it is quite a difficult book and one’s memory of it is slightly overwritten by the film.
Bendrick’s anger with God is quite strident and striking; towards the end, after Sarah’s death he is just obsessive in his anger and this gets a bit overpowering. I found the beginning quite difficult as well; it is stretching belief that the cuckholded husband asks his friend, who was fucking his wife to try to find out who she has been seeing. This aside, the central theme, Sarah trading her love for Bendrick for his life in a plea bargain with God is powerfully done and no doubt weight for a Catholic.
A case of reading a book by an author one likes but not being in quite the right mood for it, perhaps.
Comments