W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)

“Her character was like a country which on first acquaintance seems grand, but inhospitable; but in which presently you discover smiling little villages among fruit trees in the folds of the majestic mountains, and pleasant ambling rivers that flow kindly though lush meadows. “

“I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos.”

Kitty Fane is a young English woman, show more living in Hong Kong with her husband. She feels isolated and lonely and begins to have an affair. When her husband discovers her tryst, he gives her an ultimatum-he will divorce her and she will be left with nothing or she can accompany him to an area where there is a cholera epidemic raging. She reluctantly chooses the latter, despite the deadly consequences.
Once again, I was not prepared for how good Maugham was as a writer. He deeply understands the human condition, seemingly on all levels. I also think he is one of the most modern of all the classic authors. This was written in 1925 but it resonates, like it was written yesterday. This is another terrific novel, possibly my favorite of his work. show less

I've put off reading W. Somerset Maugham for a long time, for two rather idiosyncratic (and perhaps superficial) reasons. The first was my general unease around British 'society' novels, which appear deeply grounded in the mechanics of the class system (regardless of whether, on a case-by-case basis, this proves to be a fair suspicion or not). As a British working-class lad travelling through life on often unsteady socio-economic ground – "watch[ing] your life slide out of view," as Jarvis show more Cocker once put it – I'm instinctively opposed to the casual snobbery, petty conceit and idle condescension often present in upper-middle-class and aspirant middle-class novels in my country, whether written in 1815, 1915 or the present day (say hello, Sally Rooney). I'm not a class warrior; in fact, I often shy away from kitchen-sink material too. It's just not what I look for in my reading hobby. I look for either escapism or deep literary themes, and I don't find such things in repressed class-based stories. Such a characterisation would be unfair to pin on Maugham – whose book Of Human Bondage I promise I will soon begin to discuss – but the point I'm trying to make is that the titles which can be ring-fenced under this admittedly broad banner make me feel queasy, and I tend to avoid them entirely.

The second reason I had avoided Maugham was due to an arch put-down of the author by Christopher Hitchens, reproduced in Arguably, a collection of essays which was my first real exposure to Hitch. I'm aware that it is ridiculous to put too much stock in one man's opinion, particularly on something as subjective – or, more accurately, idiosyncratic – as literary taste, but Hitchens' writing was some of the first I read in my early twenties as I started to take my literary journey more seriously. That book, Arguably, prompted me to read Orwell, Nabokov, Hilary Mantel, the King James Bible and – for my which I am particularly grateful – the Flashman novels by George MacDonald Fraser. Suffice to say, I put great stock in Hitchens' opinions (and still do), and his dismissal of Maugham, however benign, was consequently hard to shift.

Now, having finally read Maugham's most well-known novel, Of Human Bondage, I have transferred my reticence onto this review. I review everything I read and prepare for what I will write, but I dread writing reviews when, even after finishing the book, I still don't know how I feel about it. Based on past experience, I know that I will usually figure something out as I write, but I also know this is usually hard work. But mostly, the sense of dread comes from this: I always find it hard to write a review which is one of admiration, but not love.

Certainly, it is much harder for me than it is for Maugham, who writes about love, admiration, infatuation – and plenty more besides – with a sometimes cringe-inducing alacrity. Of Human Bondage follows the life of Philip Carey (almost, but not entirely, an author avatar) from orphaned infanthood all the way to his early thirties, and casts an author's cool, appraising eye over family, youth, schooling, career, money, poverty, loves, infatuations, affairs, art, and everything else a young man is bruised by as he goes about establishing himself in the world. The reason Maugham chose Of Human Bondage as a title becomes clear: everything that goes into being human is bound within the pages of this book. It is not a novel you hold, but Philip himself.

This can become formidable to try to review. Maugham's book is rather quotable, but the following passage was one I was keen to note down as I was reading:

"… on the whole the impression was neither of tragedy nor of comedy. There was no describing it. It was manifold and various; there were tears and laughter, happiness and woe; it was tedious and interesting and indifferent; it was as you saw it: it was tumultuous and passionate; it was grave; it was sad and comic; it was trivial; it was simple and complex; joy was there and despair; the love of mothers for their children, and of men for women; lust trailed itself through the rooms with leaden feet, punishing the guilty and the innocent, helpless wives and wretched children; drink seized men and women and cost its inevitable price; death sighed in these rooms; and the beginning of life, filling some poor girl with terror and shame, was diagnosed there. There was neither good nor bad there. There were just facts. It was life." (pg. 462 – my emphasis)

In this passage, Maugham writes with more concision of the nature of his book than I could ever hope to do in this review. Consequently, I toss brevity to the side and say be damned to it, because it's worth taking the above passage as a prompt to further discussion. For one thing, take those words I emphasised – particularly the word 'diagnosed' – and the fact that the statement is a summary of Philip's time working in a hospital ward. Though Maugham's autobiographical element in Of Human Bondage is perhaps overstated (I was surprised how little his homosexuality influenced his writing here, even as a subtext), his medical background seems of great importance in his approach to the story. I have already said how this is not a novel you hold, but Philip himself, and certainly Maugham saw the experience as a purge. In his Foreword, Maugham writes of how he had been "obsessed by the teeming memories of my past life… they became such a burden to me, that I made up my mind there was only one way to be free of them and that was to write them all down on paper" (pg. 2). Maugham created a human body in words and then went about his diagnosis of its failings.

Another thing to mention is that the above lengthy passage from page 462 reminded me of Charles Dickens ("it was the best of times, it was the worst of times"). I was first reminded of Tolstoy in reading Of Human Bondage – the Russian count's War and Peace was a conscious attempt to incorporate "all of life" – but the comparison ultimately dissatisfied. Tolstoy was more literary; his book had a more regal air and was more explicitly concerned with themes – the lack of which perhaps explains why it still feels odd to approach Maugham's crowd-pleasing book with a literary appraisal. In contrast, the Dickens comparison sits well. Though there are differences between the two – Maugham has a surprising (and welcome) simplicity in his sentences, whereas Dickens was famously wordy – the two were, first and foremost, storytellers. Their strengths are in characterisation (all of Maugham's characters are excellently and compassionately drawn, even if they're only there for a single scene) and in pacing (absent any plot, Maugham's book is surprisingly engrossing for the entirety of its 700 pages). Their literary reputations developed through their success in storytelling rather than any conscious thematic questing.

There is a strange feeling which develops in a reader or reviewer when trying to assess a writer of this persuasion. In one respect, it is the lamentable (but entirely understandable) prejudice that if something is entertaining, it cannot be literary. This prejudice is wrongheaded, but difficult to surmount even for an honest admirer. And, as I wrote at the start of this review, admiration is harder for me to write about than love. I had a similar struggle with Larry McMurtry; I loved his book Lonesome Dove as entertainment, but I could also discern a literary merit. But, in contrast to more overtly literary novels, McMurtry's themes were a sort of all-pervading air, and rooted obscurely (but deeply) in his characters. I struggled to articulate it, and that was when I had love for the book; for Of Human Bondage, where there is only admiration, it is even harder.

Why admiration then, and not love? It's hard to say. In no small part, it must come down to personal preference. As I suggested at the start, I keep society novels rooted in class at arm's length and, perhaps, can never fully develop a love for one. But, moving beyond this, I also think it's in the nature of books of this type – the story- and character-driven literature of the likes of Dickens, Maugham and McMurtry – to defy literary review. Their strategy is to root their astute observations of life in their characters, rather than in structure or theme, which not only makes it damned hard to pull them out again for a review, but results in the story seeming misshapen – and lesser – when the pulling-apart is done. When I say books of this type defy review, it's not meant as an easy excuse, but rather a desire to avoid making them perishable. Putting a book whose strategy is in enjoyment and the magic of characters under a critical microscope is to subject them to something they were not designed for. It diminishes them, when surely the objective of a positive review is to commend.

Certainly, I found the most identifiable theme in Of Human Bondage – the Persian rug riddle – easy to understand and yet hard to align on a literary level. Within the story, it makes perfect sense, but it's something of a surprise to me now that I can write up my impressions of the story while scarcely mentioning it. I certainly don't feel obliged to make it the anchor of my review. In the broadest sense, it reflects within the story what I have tried to unpack in review. The book tries to establish a pattern – a narrative – among all the various things that can influence and bind a human life, and it is this which the Persian rug discussion in the book reflects.

A great virtue of this approach is that even aspects of the novel which appear to be flaws begin to be seen as advantages. When certain characters frustrate the reader – even Philip, the protagonist – this can be a sign of Maugham's effective characterisation. This is human life within the pages, and certainly there are frustrating characters in all our lives. Even with Mildred – the regular (and justified) target of a reader's hatred – you recognise that she is real. When she's there on the page, you don't feel like Maugham has let the story unravel with poor characterisation, as would be the case with a bad writer and a bad character. Rather, with her you feel you have to hold your tongue and endure, just as you do in real life whenever you see a friend, male or female, mooning over some classless slut or bluffing half-wit. Sometimes you hate Philip and sometimes you root for him. You are pulled every which way – and by following this in his narrative, Maugham shows you some of the powers and limiters which are in place over a human life.

This is not to say there aren't some drawbacks to the book. While some of Philip's earlier relationships are memorable (Miss Wilkinson, Miss Price), Maugham often had the advantage of me when he reintroduced or referred to characters I had not thought about for hundreds of pages. I would become muddled as to who the likes of Hayward or Clutton were, and thought perhaps there's a good reason Dickens chose monikers like Pumblechook and Magwitch over more non-descript names. I found Mildred's abrupt exit from the story dissatisfying, and while I enjoyed the happy ending more than others seem to have done, I was slightly perplexed by its ambiguity. I lacked the sense of momentousness that I usually feel when I finish a large literary tome.

I did, however, indeed see it as a happy ending. Philip, in being bound all his life by various forces and experiences, is now free. Having recognised he is free from obligation in the circumstances presented at the end, he chooses to be bound by them anyway. He wants human bondage, rather than romantic but uncertain wanderlust. In assessing the ending, we should recall something said much earlier by Cronshaw (who is also the one to present the Persian rug riddle):

"The illusion which man has that his will is free is so deeply rooted that I am ready to accept it. I act as though I were a free agent. But when an action is performed it is clear that all the forces of the universe from all eternity conspired to cause it, and nothing I could do could have prevented it." (pg. 238)

When it is delivered on page 238, this is merely an interesting philosophical discourse between Philip and Cronshaw. But by the end of the book, it has the weight of 700 pages behind it. Philip has lived thirty years of experience and decision, and has reached a point in the final pages where he feels free. And yet, it is clear to us that everything that has happened – all the forces of the universe, perhaps – has carried them there. Having grown in maturity, and overcome the terror of unemployment and poverty, he recognises the value of domestic security and contentment over restless dream-chasing and adventure. This is a bildungsroman, and Philip has now come of age.

Maugham, it seems, is often criticised for his lack of originality, and certainly, for most of the book the author appeared to be held back in this by the limitations of the bildungsroman format. After all, no young man, however lucid, has ever had a thought that had not already been thought by millions of young men before him. The book could appear, on the surface, to be a parlour game of characters – an almost superficial crowd-pleaser. But the way the story had been framed was key. Everything Philip has experienced in life influences his decision in the final pages. Just as that decision, added to the ranks of every previous decision, will influence the next one. A human life is an ongoing story. Here, the criticisms of Maugham's supposed lack of originality lose their thrust, because whilst from the outside a life can look just the same as any other life, when you are immersed in one – an individual life – you begin to see the small, accumulative things which direct it down one path or another. Every human life is original, if only by degrees.

Having overcome my reluctance to review Of Human Bondage, I now find myself in the contrary position of being reluctant to end the review. This is, by necessity, a very long novel and, to paraphrase Maugham, I am ashamed to make it longer by writing a review of it. But it is a book you can't be short about; to understand something with such scope you need to be immersed in it at length. "He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipitous, must be crossed before the traveller through life comes to an acceptance of reality" (pg. 135). Cronshaw tells us that the meaning of life is worthless unless you discover it yourself (pg. 237), and he expands on this with his Persian rug riddle. The preceding review is my attempt to discover it myself, using – as all literature should be used – the artist and his work as a lens.

Does it mean something that Mildred is the one to destroy Philip's Persian rug with a knife? Is it symbolic of her destructive relationship with Philip? I don't know; perhaps Maugham didn't even know. He only knew it made sense that she would – that it made sense for the characters to behave in this way within the context of their lives. That is the key to his success in Of Human Bondage. It is the strange effect of a literary writer seemingly unconcerned with literary affectation or convention, and yet being entirely conventional, accepting storytelling as the end in itself. After all, we use story to understand life. In a discussion on religion, one character argues the following:

"Perhaps religion is the best school of morality. It is like one of those drugs you gentlemen use in medicine which carries another in solution: it is of no efficacy in itself, but enables the other to be absorbed. You take your morality because it is combined with religion; you lost the religion and the morality stays behind. A man is more likely to be a good man if he has learned goodness through the love of God than through a perusal of Herbert Spencer." (pg. 497)

This is a statement as good as any on which to end this review. The statement comes from Athelny, not Philip, but we should remember the book is in large part directed by the influence various characters have on our protagonist. With its analogy, the statement recalls the medical diagnosis Maugham is making of his man. The author and protagonist share "the power of self-analysis", described as a "vice, as subtle as drug-taking" (pg. 273). And it is a vice at times; the book is often frustrating and sickening in the wretchedness of its characters. But the statement also hints at the entire purpose of the novel; in telling a story, the author teaches us something about life, and we are more likely to have a good read when the teachings are carried in the story. Of Human Bondage is a long book and difficult to appraise, but I can only conclude that Maugham got the dose right. show less

Follows the life of Philip Carey from the time of his mother's death when he was very young into his early 30s, which see him settling into life as a doctor. It's a journey through Philip's early life experiences and travels, and also through his intellectual and emotional coming-of-age. Normally I'm not excited by novels that spend too much time in a character's headspace, but I love Philip to bits and enjoyed spending time with his thoughts and feelings. He makes some downright stupid show more decisions here and there, but Maugham writes his story in such a way that I didn't get too irritated with those choices and instead rooted for Philip the whole way. The plot is engaging and interesting, and the forays into Deep Thoughts are spaced well enough throughout and very well written so that I didn't get restless with them. This is my first Maugham, but I doubt it will be my last. Very much worth the 600+ pages, this. show less

Scritto molto bene, l'autore ci narra a storia dal punto di vista della "colpevole". Ma è realmente colpevole? Ci sarebbe innanzitutto da analizzare la figura della protagonista alla luce di una lettura "femminista". C'è un passo nel libro che risulta illuminante, quando la protagonista ammette di essere solo una delle tante ragazza sciocche educate ad essere solo sciocche (e in cerca di marito in quanto altrimenti le continua a campare papà). Inoltre, Kitty inizia a sentirsi bene quando show more comincia ad impegnarsi, a lavorare. Forse, se avesse avuto un impegno, un lavoro, un passatempo che non fosse ricamare cuscini, sarebbe cresciuta meno sciocca e non si sarebbe lasciata andare ad un'avventura pericolosa. Non per nulla l'inizio del cambiamento lo si ha quando la protagonista inizia a lavorare nel convento per dare una mano. Il matrimonio come tomba dei desideri femminili, ma attenzione, anche maschili (il protagonista ammette di avere sposato la fanciulla ben conscio del suo carattere frivolo ma non ha potuto farne a meno). Entrambi si struggono non ricambiati. Entrambi tacciono e nascondono i loro veri sentimenti. E non è da assolversi nemmeno il marito, per quanto lo scrittore parli soprattutto di Kitty. Walter non parla mai di sé, è apparentemente freddo, insomma contribuisce con il suo atteggiamento superiore a non far decollare il matrimonio. E per quanto sia un bravo lavoratore e una persona che copre di attenzioni la propria donna all'inizio, svela un carattere astioso, cova vendetta, non capisce di essere lui stesso causa del proprio tradimento. Maugham non credo si possa classificare come femminista, anzi, forse era pure misogino, ma rende perfettamente in questo romanzo l'idea di quello che fosse il matrimonio all'epoca: per l'uomo, mettersi in casa una donna abbastanza carina da chiudere in quattro mura e che possa dargli amore e figli; per la donna, l'unica salvezza di mantenimento decorosa. L'amore, la passione, vanno cercati altrove. E se è l'uomo a farlo, tanto tanto. La donna invece semplicemente non può. Magistrale la descrizione dell'amante messo alle strette, che non esita a sacrificare la donna che è caduta. Il finale conferma la crescita di una nuova Kitty, che ha preso coscienza di sé e delle proprie miserie e cerca di rifarsi una vita secondo nuove priorità. Resta il fatto che si è dovuta affrancare in modo doloroso da un certo tipo di educazione non sentimentale, in cui, come ben spiegava la De Beauvoir, la donna viene cresciuta esclusivamente per essere moglie, fantasticando chissà che sull'amore e sul sesso, e venendo invece spesso amaramente delusa dal proprio marito, quasi sempre molto più esperto e smaliziato sul sesso, e spesso assolutamente incurante del benessere affettivo della propria compagna. La delusione è dietro l'angolo, e con essa l'adulterio. Controcanto alla coppia in crisi, altre due coppie: quella dell'amante e della di lui moglie, serenamente affezionati nonostante tutto (prova che il matrimonio funziona se si riesce a separare affetto e sessualità), e quella dell'inglese e della ragazza manciù, che nella sua stranezza morale (razze diverse, nessun matrimonio, eppure coppia innamorata) sembra indicare la via giusta, quella del fare coppia senza altre pretese, solo perché si sta bene insieme; e l'altra risorsa a cui una donna perbene può attingere se non vuole sposarsi: il convento. Convento che a Kitty alla fine appare come rifugio e che non vorrebbe lasciare. A mio parere, è il romanzo dell'incomunicabilità. C'era una possibilità di salvarsi, ed era quella del parlarsi. Entrambi i protagonisti ne sono incapaci. Lui per rancore, lei per egoismo. Consigliato, scrittura eccezionale, ma diciamo meglio non leggerlo se cercate qualcosa che vi tiri su il morale. show less