I stayed up til past one last night, reading Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. Since this is my personal pick for my book club, I am naturally more inclined to spend the time and effort to read this book thoroughly. So far, because this book is over 600 pages long, the members of my book club are struggling a bit, but I have confidence that we shall overcome.
Funny coincidence. I was in the lab on the weekend and ran into my ever so diligent coworker. Before I was heading off, I decided to introduce Maugham to him, because good things ought to be shared. As soon as I mentioned his name and showed him the book, he grinned and zipped out of his bag, The Razor's Edge, also another book by Maugham, and one of the first books I had read by him. We ended up, of course, having quite a lively discussion of Maugham.
So why do I like Of Human Bondage? I guess because I can relate quite intensely to Phillip, the introverted but voracious reader born with a club foot. I am quite aware of course that I carry with myself my own cross and symbolic club foot. In any case, Maugham is not only an astute observer of the human condition, he's also so so good at putting into words some of the more nebulous feelings and sentiments that lesser minds like myself have encountered, but nonetheless was unable to package into verbal maxim.
My personal nightmare, as I've mentioned before, is to have the sum of my life put together in a succinct paragraph or two, and that the paragraph happens to be mainly filled with negatives and that it also happens to be quite dead on the mark. That fate befalls perhaps 98% of all characters in Of Human Bondage.
Topics that were covered in OHB include passion, lust, pretentiousness, self-delusions, disillusionment, contempt for artsy-fartsy denizens, waste of life, true love, healthy love, unhealthy obsessions, self-anaylses, critical assessments of others, etc etc. The list goes on and on.
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