Summer Reading: Of Human Bondage (W. Somerset Maugham)

About halfway through Of Human Bondage I realized that, despite its massive popularity both now and when it was first published, it’s more the kind of book I would be able to Appreciate, rather than truly enjoy. Yes, it’s complex and honest and asks important questions about human nature and man’s search for happiness. It’s also exhausting.

The narrative starts out as a typical bildungsroman (think David Copperfield). We follow the narrator, Philip, through early childhood tragedy, through school, time abroad in Germany and France, as he tries to find himself. First he wants to go to Oxford. Then he wants to be an artist. Then he wants to go into medicine. He tries to fall in love, and finally succeeds, with disastrous results. Maugham doesn’t let the reader off easy - Philip’s life is not an inspirational progression from boy to Great Artist or Great Doctor or Great Lover. He never particularly comes to terms with his club foot or his unrequited love for a somewhat miserable waitress and horrible human being named Mildred.

The first half of the novel is honestly pretty fun. Philip’s exposure to different thinkers and artists and lifestyles through his Heidelberg and Paris acquaintances is fun. They have some great discussions, bounce pretensions back and forth, and it’s nice to be a fly on those Paris cafe walls.

But then, of course, there’s medical school and Mildred, and Philip’s pathetic attempts to win her cold, withered little heart. The love/hate relationship is tedious; Mildred is so obnoxious that empathy with Philip and his tortured heart is exceedingly difficult to muster. By perhaps the third time Mildred re-enters Philip’s life, I defy any reader not to groan out loud.

By the end of the book, a now early-middle-aged Philip decides life has no meaning (a thought that makes him inexplicably and delightfully happy), and that the most reasonable thing for him to do is settle down and marry a girl ten or twelve years his junior, who he doesn’t love but who loves him and will cook for him and make-a the baybehs, etc. It’s particularly frustrating that a book which so painstakingly avoids moralizing or Universal Truths, suddenly blindsides you with not only a Moral, but an annoying and unsatisfying one.

This is probably the point, I know. The central theme - Philip’s search for individual freedom - is explored and dissected and redefined time and time again. By the end, he probably hasn’t attained it. Of course, there is another interpretation; perhaps Maugham simply wanted to instill the reader with an overwhelming urge to beat Philip about the head and shoulders with a blunt object. In which case, success!

I’m glad I powered through all 600ish (!) pages, but I’m also cool with never reading Of Human Bondage again.

I know - I’m a philistine.

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This is part 2 of my Summer Reading challenge, in which I tackle a long list of exciting books and bore you with my uninformed opinions about them. Read more about it here.