Of Human Bondage
By W. Somerset Maugham
Vintage, 9780593687680, August 2024, 688pp.
The Short of It:
Happiness is an elusive thing.
The Rest of It:
If you’ve been following along then you know that I chose Of Human Bondage for an October read-along. It’s a book that has long been on my radar but it never seemed like the right time to read it. While I was in the hospital after brain surgery, I began to think about all the books that I haven’t gotten to, so once I was well enough, I promised myself to get to it. Boy, am I glad I did.
Philip is orphaned at a fairly young age. He is sent to live with his Uncle and Aunt, the Uncle is a Vicar so religion plays a huge role in the first half of the book. There, for only a short while really, he comes off as difficult and can be mean-spirited to his Aunt who truly seems to only want the best for him. So off Philip goes to a prep school.
There, he meets an interesting cast of characters, both classmates and professors but he is relentlessly bullied for the club foot he was born with. Not able to play sports, not able to wear regular shoes, as soon as anyone becomes cross with him the insults fly out of their mouths, always targeting his foot. This often leaves Philip isolated and alone.
The book chronicles Philip’s poor choices. He has many grand ideas but they often come to him on a whim and are poorly executed. Money, poverty really becomes a struggle as does his desire to be important and to be happy but what does that even mean?
Philip wants to go into religion, then business, then art and the bits of him in Paris are quite good. He does all of this to avoid the inevitable, him going to med school, like his father did. Surprisingly, he ends up seeing value in medicine and perhaps learns a thing or two while pursuing that.
The story sounds rather basic but it’s made much more complicated by certain characters. Mildred for one. She is a horrible, shrew of a person and Philip’s obsession. No matter what she does, and she does plenty, he cannot for the life of him figure out a way to live without her.
She is a villain if there ever was one. In the first movie version of this book she was played by Bette Davis. Accurate casting if I do say so.
The book feels very “Dickensian” and Philip reminded me a lot of Holden from Catcher in the Rye. As long as this book is, nearly 700 pages, I never once felt it a chore to read. I enjoyed picking it up. I had to know how Philip ended up. Did he ever obtain that elusive happiness? Read it and find out! It will be on my faves list at the end of the year. I usually don’t place classics on that list but I did enjoy it quite a bit. Such a character study.
Here are the weekly read-along recaps:
Of Human Bondage – Week 1
Of Human Bondage – Week 2
Of Human Bondage – Week 3
Of Human Bondage – Week 4
Of Human Bondage – Week 5
Source: Purchased
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