A novel by W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage is generally considered to be his masterpiece. While I have also read and greatly enjoyed Cakes and Ale, reading this book was a very moving experience with many emotional touch points that I will remember for a long time to come.
Strongly autobiographical in nature, the story follows the chief protagonist Philip Carey starting from the age of nine, and takes us through an entire life’s worth of experiences from home to school to work to relationships to some inevitable goodbyes.
First of all, I love a story set in early 1900s England! - especially when it is this well written, where it takes you right out of whatever dull world you are in, and slowly sets you down in a big old armchair beside a wooden desk with an antique mirror, surrounded by old and musty bound books, and across from the fireplace where your boots have been kept for warming, as you get to meet amazing characters and hear their fantastic tales!
For me, the greatest feature of this novel was the myriad of deep topics it dealt with and the great thought processes they ignited. “The new-born child does not realize that his body is more a part of himself than surrounding objects, and will play with his toes without any feeling that they belong to him more than the rattle by his side; and it is only by degrees, through pain, that he understands the fact of the body.” “If you keep His laws I don’t think He can care a packet of pins whether you believe in Him or not.” “The only reason that one paints is that one can’t help it… One paints for oneself otherwise one would commit suicide.” “Before I do anything I feel that I have choice, and that influences what I do; but afterwards, when the thing is done, I believe that it was inevitable from all eternity.” “Life had no meaning… Man, no more significant than other forms of life, had come not as the climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the environment… Life was insignificant and death without consequence… Failure was unimportant and success amounted to nothing.”
These were some of the more memorable ideas that burst into my mind and startled me into deep thought. Perhaps the most impressionable one was when Philip discovered the joys of reading and, “Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of everyday a source of bitter disappointment.”
I also loved the fact that as we go through Philip’s life and experiences we meet such a wealth of characters and see such perfectly drawn character sketches. Character sketches are done, not based on tedious adjectives, but rather just hints at common practises. Just to take the example of the Vicar’s household, when the vicar catches a cold, the fire is lit - but not when Mrs. Carey falls sick; the vicar gets an egg at breakfast, and gives just the top bit to the hungry Philip who would “rather have a whole egg to himself”; “due to economy” the vicar goes on holidays alone, his wife does not accompany him.
Not only was each character very unique, they also came to life in a most amazing way… I felt I have known a Cronshaw, I felt I have met a Mildred, and I felt I have had a family of Athelnys in the neighbourhood… But above all, eerily, I feel that in many ways I am a Philip, whose every behaviour and action was, till the end, a violent emotional reaction to the way he was treated. From wanting to be ordained to not believing in God, from being friends with the languid Hayward to being friends with the sensible Weeks, from Germany to Oxford, from London to Paris and back to London… with the heart of an artist, the brain of a doctor, and the insecure job of a shop walker, Philip’s life was a saga of endless emotional upheaval, one given evenly to disappointments and discoveries.
Perhaps most disturbing was his relationship with women - disturbing for the bizarre base they were built upon. And this was the one point of this novel that I could not fully enjoy or even understand. From Miss Wilkinson to Miss Price, from Mildred to Norah, Philip was always in a relationship with women he confessed were too ugly to even consider a relationship with. What I also found disconcerting - and this might just be a reflection of the times - was the fact that almost all the women seemed to be rather weak. Philip treated them deplorably yet they continued to throw themselves at him, with one even committing suicide. Philip’s on-again / off-again relation with Mildred - whose name, face and common station in life he openly looked down upon - took up a large portion of this story, and occasionally left me questioning, even annoyed! Perhaps, Philip’s club foot, which made him a misfit everywhere in life, dictated all his relationships as well.
When I turned the last page of the book, there was such a feeling of having witnessed - and lived - an entire life; from early childhood and foster parents, to the first school and a first best friend, from a first love to a first break-up, from a first job to a first visit to Paris… with the culmination in a marriage proposal, I came to the end of a wonderful journey, one that started so long ago with waking up a sleepy 9-year old boy and dragging him out of bed so his dying mother could hug him properly one last time.
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