I have just finished reading Of Human Bondage by W.S Maugham.
I am speechless. There is nothing to say about the book that hasn't already been said a million times before. But, I must say something. I must express how the book fairly exploded into my consciousness and left me gasping at times, indescribably bored at times, and sometimes feeling like I had the meaning of life within my reach.
First of all, I must admit that I identified completely with Philip Carey. His shyness, his reluctance at intruding in other people's lives, his pride, his reserved nature that is usually taken for superciliousness - while reading the book, I was taken aback quite a few times by how alike Carey and I are. The way we think are practically the same, except that I would never have his unthinking generosity.
However, a few things about the book irritated me. His masochistic affair with Mildred, for example. Surely, he couldn't possibly behave like that? It's not in his character at all. Another peeve is the climax. One gets the feeling that the author was getting tired of the book and, wanting to finish it off, had taken the first possible ending he thought of. There is no way that Philip, exposed as he was to greatness - through books, paintings, sculpture and his own reflections on life - would have settled down to a normal life, with its drudgery and its anxieties. He would have wanted to make his life count, somehow or the other. That is why he took up art. And that is why he dropped it too, knowing that he would be no better than second-rate, no matter how hard he tried.
There are several poignant moments in the book - for example, Philip's fellow art student who commited suicide because of poverty. What is poignant is not the suicide itself, but the fact that she had been a worse than mediocre artist, with no skill in sketching, no eye for colours, no vision. Another example is one of the women Philip comes upon on his rounds as a doctor on call - she dies at eighteen, leaving a new-born child and her husband of few months behind her.
Such poignancy is scattered throughout the book. But what catches one's attention are not these moments, but Philip's reflections on life. These are myriad. Of a naturally introspective nature, Philip feels that he will be able to grasp the meaning of life if he thinks enough about it. His habit leads to a hunger for books on philosophy and theology, his loss of religion, the birth of cynicism in his nature, and, finally and irrevocably, his understanding of what his friend Cronshaw calls "the meaning of life". This last event does not change his life; it merely changes his outlook. It enables him to survive a period of poverty and face the bitterness of life with equanimity.
But, as I mentioned earlier, the ending leaves one cold. I actually threw the book away in disgust, because the climax did not suit the rest of the book at all. The book is supposed to be semi-autobiographical and perhaps I was looking forward to relishing Philip's growth into a writer and, perhaps, it was the realization that Maugham intended him to be a normal, staid country doctor that disgusted me. I like to think that that was not what Maugham intended. Perhaps, realizing that if he continued moulding Philip along his own lines, the book would grow too long to be fashionable, Maugham decided to end things differently. After all, it's undeniable that the book ends quite abruptly. The reader is left wanting more of Philip. At least, I was.
Of Human Bondage is considered one of Maugham's masterpieces. I don't know if I quite agree. Bits of the book are quite preachy and, therefore, quite boring. And yet, some of the reflective bits, especially the ones on posterity and the futility of life, got me thinking quite deeply. They made me yearn to do something that would make my name live on through the ages, like Maugham or Dickens or Shakespeare or all the thousands of writers of eras past whose names and thoughts and ideas live on through their writings.
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