Book Six of the Book a Week Quest
Of Human Bondage
by W. Somerset Maugham, 1915
Of Human Bondage
by W. Somerset Maugham, 1915
I should probably change the "book a week quest" moniker, but I'm not going to. Ideally, I'll read 52 books this year, although I may not be necessarily reading one a week.
Especially when that one is over 600 pages and feels like nothing happens in it.
The only reason I even started this one is because a friend loaned it to me with a little post-it note attached that said "Good" on it. Little did I know, that said friend was a full-out fibber, having never actually completed the whole book (the movie, however, was good, I have since found out).
Now, I would normally have just stopped reading, but Maugham's writing style is very "readable." There's not a whole lot of superfluous descriptions and details, but he does have a tendency to go off on philosophical or artistic tangents. For example, he'd talk about a painting or a poem in great detail and I would just be lost. It's not that he wasn't writing well (in fact, I enjoyed reading about these paintings and poems), but it meant nothing to me having not known what these things were.
It was this easy-going writing style that kept me hooked...because Lord knows it wasn't the story. It's amazing to me that he was able to get 600+ pages out of this thing. It's the story of Philip Carey, an English boy born with a club foot who, when his mother and father die when he is young, is sent to live with his deeply religious aunt and uncle. We watch Philip as he goes through grade school, prep school, leaves school to study art in Germany and Paris, returns to London to study to be a doctor, falls in love with a nasty woman named Mildred, has Mildred leave him, has Mildred return to him, has Mildred leave him again, vows never to have anything to do with Mildred again, allows Mildred to return to him, has Mildred leave him...the cycle goes on and on.
When your main character is so blah and his love interest is such a, for lack of a better word, bitch to him, you just end up not caring about the guy since he can't stand up for himself.
I don't know...I mean, I may pick up another book by Maugham because I liked his style, but I definitely wasn't a huge fan of this one in terms of story (which, in turn, could be a problem with his writing style in not knowing where to draw the line in terms of what's interesting and what's not).
Especially when that one is over 600 pages and feels like nothing happens in it.
The only reason I even started this one is because a friend loaned it to me with a little post-it note attached that said "Good" on it. Little did I know, that said friend was a full-out fibber, having never actually completed the whole book (the movie, however, was good, I have since found out).
Now, I would normally have just stopped reading, but Maugham's writing style is very "readable." There's not a whole lot of superfluous descriptions and details, but he does have a tendency to go off on philosophical or artistic tangents. For example, he'd talk about a painting or a poem in great detail and I would just be lost. It's not that he wasn't writing well (in fact, I enjoyed reading about these paintings and poems), but it meant nothing to me having not known what these things were.
It was this easy-going writing style that kept me hooked...because Lord knows it wasn't the story. It's amazing to me that he was able to get 600+ pages out of this thing. It's the story of Philip Carey, an English boy born with a club foot who, when his mother and father die when he is young, is sent to live with his deeply religious aunt and uncle. We watch Philip as he goes through grade school, prep school, leaves school to study art in Germany and Paris, returns to London to study to be a doctor, falls in love with a nasty woman named Mildred, has Mildred leave him, has Mildred return to him, has Mildred leave him again, vows never to have anything to do with Mildred again, allows Mildred to return to him, has Mildred leave him...the cycle goes on and on.
When your main character is so blah and his love interest is such a, for lack of a better word, bitch to him, you just end up not caring about the guy since he can't stand up for himself.
I don't know...I mean, I may pick up another book by Maugham because I liked his style, but I definitely wasn't a huge fan of this one in terms of story (which, in turn, could be a problem with his writing style in not knowing where to draw the line in terms of what's interesting and what's not).
I prefer 'embelisher' or even 'bearer of (not entirely) false witness.'
ReplyDeleteThe painted veil I did finish (but it reminded me of Madame Bovary/The Awakening- so it might be more of appealing to that same set of people who like pride and prejudice).
Embelisher...heehee...
ReplyDelete...and now that you allude to The Awakening, I'm not sure The Painted Veil is for me...
THE VICAR!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteyou can have my egg on Sundays only!!!!!!!