Of Human Bondage - Classic Illustrated Edition

It's difficult to approach this wonderful book afresh, as there have been several film versions -- none of them really satisfying -- and to tell the truth this wasn't the first time I've read it. This was my third read over a period of 50 years, and each time was like a new experience. This is a long novel -- no getting away from that -- and there are moments when the reader might wonder why Mr. Maugham didn't condense his story somewhat. But novels were long in those days (1916), and this is in the tradition of a lengthy Dickens novel like David Copperfield. There are similarities, too, with Dickens in theme and treatment: a boy orphaned at a young age, brought up by relatives inexperienced in the rearing of a shy, sensitive child, the constant struggle with poverty, the finding of one's place in the world. So yes, this is a long book but it has a magical forward thrust -- Maugham was a master storyteller -- and except for a couple of doldrums it moves right along up to its somewhat unconvincing finish. What stood out for me this time around is how shockingly self-absorbed the hero, Philip Carey, really is! Painfully shy, he is flawed in many ways, but extremely bright. The reader often wants to just slap some sense into him, wishing he would learn from his mistakes and get over himself, as we say nowadays. This is maddening, but it makes Philip a fascinating character study. He doesn't learn from his mistakes, and like many young people is completely ruled by his emotions, complicated in this case by his pride and class snobbery. In other words, he is his own worst enemy. It's interesting, and crucial to the tension of the plot, that the reader is more aware than Philip is where his self-destructive behavior will lead him. We fear for him and mourn with him when misfortune comes. Oddly, for such a long book, the character who becomes his nemesis has to wait until the volume is half over before she makes her appearance. The central and most famous sections of the story deal with his disastrous involvement with Mildred Rogers, a selfish, ignorant virago of a woman who instinctively recognizes in Philip an unconscious masochism and uses it to manipulate him, like a puppet on a string. Her cruelty is almost beyond belief at times, and the reader learns to both dread and look forward to her appearances, like a terrible accident we're compelled to watch. And it should be said that these are the most exciting scenes in this powerful novel. The protagonist's attraction to her is a mystery even to himself, but it is undeniable. A kind of bondage. But there are other women in Philip's life and invariably he treats them quite badly. His men friends don't fare much better. He doesn't seem to have a sense of what makes people tick. He is simply oblivious to the suffering of a fellow art student who is in love with him, although her tragic end does provoke some pricks of conscience. On the other hand, despite many setbacks Philip eventually becomes an excellent doctor, sympathetic and liked by his patients. These contradictions in our hero's character are part of why he is such an enduring character in literature. For me, the most moving parts of his story are when he is forced by dire circumstance to accept help from the people who care for him. He seems surprised that they would want to, so precarious is his self-esteem. This makes Philip Carey very modern in some ways. He has to touch bottom several times before the way forward becomes clear. This is one of the great books of the twentieth century, and one of the most entertaining.

Anyone who's ever taken themselves too seriously will recognize a kindred soul in Philip Carey of W. Somerset Maughum's Of Human Bondage. We meet him when he's still a child and very recently orphaned, going from a relatively privileged life with his mother to a much sparser one with his aunt and uncle, the latter of whom is a pastor in a small town in the British countryside. Scared a bit by his that uncle, he escapes into books and becomes a voracious reader. The next year, he's sent to boarding school, where his disability (he has a clubfoot, which gives him a limp), combined with his shyness and sensitivity, makes for a generally unhappy experience. He becomes passionately religious and plans on a career in the clergy, but when his prayers for a cure for his foot are unanswered, he loses both his faith and his direction in life. He goes to Germany briefly, comes back to England and tries being an accountant, which doesn't take, then to France to study art, then back to England again, where he decides to settle down and study medicine, which was his father's career. But all his indecision has driven down his available resources so he'll need to live very modestly until he's a doctor and can start earning a living...and then he meets Mildred. Despite Philip's self-pity, he's had a few relationships with women at this point, and is actually in a good one, when he meets the waitress his friend has a crush on. Philip becomes obsessed with her, despite her obvious disinterest in him and lack of social skills. His situation eventually becomes desperate, but with some kindness and a bit of luck, it resolves itself. I refuse to stop reading a book before I finish it. This does backfire on me sometimes, but other times it pays off to stick with a book, and this was one of those instances. About halfway through it, I was sick of Philip and his moping and the garbage way he treated women and his refusal to understand that as wonderful as self-discovery is, there's no money in it. The whole book is his story of growing up, and he was so grating that I wasn't at all invested in him or rooting for him to succeed. But then he starts to mature, puts his head down and works, uses his own hard-earned life lessons and experiences to be a good doctor to the people he sees. And by the end of it, when he does find some measure of happiness and chooses to do the harder, better thing, I couldn't have been happier for him if he were an actual person and a friend at that. I've always been a character-over-plot type of reader, and this book is all the former...the only major outside event is the Boer War, which happens late in the book and while it does have an impact on Philip, it's pretty far removed from the central themes of the coming-of-age story. In some ways, it suffers for its fixation on Philip...like I said above, he can be a hard character to really sympathize with, particularly early on. But the payoff in the back half is real, and seeing him grow as a person is really rewarding. This is a good book, a very good one even, but it may not be the right book for every reader. If you're looking for a dynamic plot, or lack the patience for/interest in a long-term character study, this probably isn't going to be something you enjoy. If you've read what I've written and are intrigued, though, I highly suggest you get ahold of it...it'll be a rewarding experience!

I finished Of Human Bondage within the past hour, and though I came here looking for information on various editions, I read a few of the reviews as well, prompting me to put down a few comments. Maugham and his contemporaries were writing in a world altogether different from their recent predecessors: though set in the later-19th century, waning years of the Victorian era, the book was published in 1915. It's part of 20th-century literature, and though pre-dating the horrors of the first World War, it's got a 20th century outlook. When it's grim, it is a kind of darkness that feels quite in the middle of Dickens and the "lost generation". When it's attractive, and it is often enough, it seems to be a little more old-fashioned, but not romantic or picturesque. Philosophically it's existentialist - that is to say, the protagonist, Phillip, evolves through the story of his first 30 years from a young man convinced of the "rightness" of the Church of England, to an atheist, and on until he embraces a philosophic outlook that he's come to pretty much on his own. There is wonderful writing here, plenty worth re-reading immediately before moving on, beautiful things and artfully hideous things. The length of the story, the "one man's life in 122 chapters" completeness of it, can remind a reader of a Tom Jones or even a Dickensian "boy-to-man" tale. The incidents and settings can prompt similar comparisons. At various points I found myself thinking of Orson Welles' observation, "Happy endings depend on stopping the story before it's over." Sad endings, too. Change and alteration by surroundings, events and self are part of the existentialist notion, and the ending is actually always a kind of receding destination. By the way, though psychology was in the writer's vernacular in 1915, Maugham steers clear, it seems, in favor of philosophy and religion. The settings here grow in interest, I think - the boyhood years, especially in school, are by now such well-trod territory that they hold less attraction. The German and Paris years are entertaining, the Hospital years pretty fascinating. The secondary characters all bring something to the color and the development of the story - the development of the man, too. " ... he seemed to see that the inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the life of one who conquered reals and explored unknown lands."

Mr. Maugham's magnum opus unquestionably lived up to the hype. For many years I had started this book, only to be dissuaded by its overwhelming somberness and what seemed to be a bleak outlook on life. But that's just how it starts out!! The rest of the novel is as dynamic and filled with as much depth and soul as "Great Expectations" or Joyce's "Portrait." A bildungsroman like no other. The story follows the hapless Phillip Carey, as he makes his way through adolescence and young adulthood. He learns from an early age that life is brimming with tragedy: orphanned and club-footed, he is taken in by his vicar uncle and later attends a religious boarding school. These formative years, in which he experiences constant disappointment, have an irrevocable impact on his spirituality and worldview; God no longer exists for him and he's forced to search for another meaning to life. He travels through Europe, jumping from one occupation to another, ever indecisive about his calling. The novel carries through all his ups and downs, from the stimulation of Paris to the stagnation of London, from painter to healer. He experiences one existential crisis after another, as he goes through all his trials and tribulations. An especially bitter one for him is his dalliance with the femme fatale who becomes an object of obsession for him. Mildred is an odious human being, embodying just about every negative quality imaginable, and she manipulates poor Phillip every chance she gets. Never has unrequited love been quite so embraced by anyone other than Phillip. But it is only through her pettiness and selfishness that Phillip can realize who he is. As we see in the course of the novel, the world is a rich tapestry, and we must discover its meaning for ourselves. Phillip eventually realizes what this is, and it is this realization that allows him to endure the pain and emotional turmoil of it. It is truly an ordeal at times. But he learns to embrace another possibility, one pregnant with hope, a counterpoint to tragedy and misfortune. Besides Phillip and Mildred, the novel is rife with Dickensian characters, from the lovable Thorpe Athelny to the histrionic Miss Wilkinson to the poetic Cronshaw and the diffuse Hayward. Maugham's heart was always in the nineteenth century, as Gore Vidal notes. The influence of that era's literature and art is unmistakeable in every facet of his writing and the characters, in particular. They are a heart-warming cast that play off of Phillip's idiosyncracies and enrich all of his life experiences. This novel has my unreserved praise. Here is the bildungsroman at its finest, a novel that rightfully deserves its place in the canon. It exceeded all my expectations and left me craving more. What every book should be.

I regret to admit that I came to read this great novel rather late considering the recommendation of numerous people along the way. W. Somerset Maugham represents one of the finest writers of the 20th Century to be overlooked by Americans probably because he was British and fell out of fad for countless "best-selling" authors.(Mailer, Heller, Updike etc.) Maugham's narrative gifts, command of time and locale cast an unforgettable spell upon this reader. Having seen the Leslie Howard/Bette Davis film based on this work and finding it so wanting, perhaps badly cut for Jazz Age audiences, I invested the time which paid off tenfold. "Of Human Bondage" contains compelling coming-of-age struggles of an orphaned, club-footed boy who experiences life near-penniless to eventually cast aside his childish ideals and rigid upbringing to achieve the full blessings of life. Beyond that precis, it is, of course, a wonderful study of character. Idealism,(the artist/aesthete)brushes against Puritanism/snobbery for control of Philip as he moves from the strictures of London to the liberties of Paris to embrace impressionism while enrolled in an art institute(metaphor for tempting social pressures). All the things an artist feels about his craft,as an amateur, student or gifted gets revealed. Inside this framework, Philip begins his struggle for love which represents new ground. I have never read a novel explaining so well the complexities of dating so well.It shows how alone man is in his quest for love with all the encouragement of peers and within the bohemian, amoral Parisian haunts tempted daily by objectified and idealized female forms. Like Eve, Philip is deceived by his imagination and human longing into unhappy encounters for quite awhile, while unavoidably sacrificing one worthy female companion(while learning from her). For most of this wonderful story, you feel the pangs of lust and torment within this perceptive man until you are taken by surprise and elated, uplifted(as in "Razor's Edge") by his action. Being partly autobiographical, whether genetics or events make the man it is wonderfully clear to Maugham that character can be destiny. Another realistic point to the story is in Philip's career move, so well-thought out, as if consulting Richard Bolles as Philip takes secondary jobs to succeed. His attitude, against all odds and setbacks, is worthy high emulation today.

Great title, but seems to have been an afterthought rather than a compelling reason for the story. Others have attributed it to Spinoza, further diminishing its relevance to the theme of the novel. The story offered some hope of enlightenment in the passages in which Philip reasoned out his atheism. A glancing reference to Darwin's revelations was promising, but, mistaking strength for fitness, Maugham missed the point of evolutionary adaptation and failed to recognize its foundation for all that followed in Philip's life. The struggle of the intelligencia to resolve the social roles of science and the humanities was articulated well in the Paris "art student" accounts, but exhibited brilliance only in Cronshaw's interpretation of Philip's condition and his own disappointment in understanding himself. The cooperative social imperative that humans require in order to exist outside the narrow band of equatorial latitudes in which they evolved among the simians has been misunderstood since the advent of agriculture, and Maugham, too, has understated its relevance in European social and political evolution. Overall, the story is cast in an unrelenting tedium of pessimism and despair that can only be relieved by examining the works of a modern human ecologist such as Paul Shepard. Maugham's strength in character description and delineation was powerful and essential to the story, but likely to be tedious to modern readers. His tendency to exploit imperfections in appearance or circumstance dampen the reader's enthusiasm for continuing, but the stout-hearted will be just curious enough about Philip's future to persist. It is no wonder that Holden Caulfield turned out as he did after reading "Of Human Bondage".

Of Human Bondage sits just below the midway mark (#66) in the Modern Library Editorial Board's list of the Top 100 Novels published in the 20th century. Readers who voted their favorites in the rather more democratic contest promoted by Modern Library liked it better (#37). Should Modern Library decide at this century's end to attempt another such summing up that incorporates 200 years of Greatest Novels, I predict that Of Human Bondage will not be on it. And if it is, I won't, thank goodness, be around to see it. As Gore Vidal remarks in his introduction to the Modern Library edition of the novel, the best thing about Of Human Bondage is that it made a pretty good movie---more than once, too. The role of the vulgar Mildred, the subject of Philip's often inexplicable obsession, is made for the screen. Vidal also had no patience for the novel's stilted dialogue, never mind Philip Carey's rambling expostulations on life, love, and art. I agree with Vidal, and if I must read about Art and Life, give me the far superior A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. What is interesting about the novel is the way it calls up a certain time and place: late Victorian England stretching into the Edwardian era. It is all flaring gaslights, class prejudice, sclerotic religious institutions, and, but a step away from Philip's genteel aspirations, the direst poverty. One senses a society gone rotten; it's the same dim landscape in which Conrad's anarchists lurk in The Secret Agent. By the time Of Human Bondage was published, in 1915, the scouring effects of the Great War were well under way. I did enjoy the account of Philip's medical training. As he ministers to various citizens of London's underclass, he moves in a society whose only safety nets are its overstretched charitable institutions. People regularly die from poor food and water, grinding manual labor, and a lack of proper housing and medical care; this, a mere 100 years ago, is taken to be the natural order of things. For a time Philip falls into this world himself but makes a fortunate escape when his uncle dies and leaves him enough cash to effect an escape. Perhaps it's the Dickensian setting when the novel moves to London that attracted Theodore Dreiser to the novel. (Dreiser's plot-summary review is included in this edition.) It certainly wasn't the protagonist's Dickensian empathy, since Philip mostly holds his nose (figuratively as well as literally) in the slum scenes. Dreiser can be as clunky a novelist as Maugham, but his novels---Sister Carrie in particular-- have a lot more heart. M. Feldman

Maugham proves that one doesn't need to write complex or flowery prose to evoke poignant emotions and admiration for the author's brilliance. Although he's evidently extremely knowledgeable in a host of subjects, Maugham's chief genius as I perceived it is in his ability to acutely describe how an individual (in this case a sensitive young man named Philip Carey) emotes and reacts to the influence of other people in his life. How do I know that Maugham's portrayal of emotion is accurate? Because I've been there as most of you have. Growing up we've all had our insecurities (or still do): things about us that we were overly sensitive about and wish we could extinguish. For me one of these was my childhood asthma that gave me a tough time in middle school and early high school because it sometimes inconveniently hampered my athletic performance and made me stand out as abnormal. For you it's something else, unless you're one of the tiny minority that sailed through your formative years with *all* associated events and people bolstering your self esteem. For Philip Carey it's his clubfoot (deformed foot) that is his physical and psychlogical burden. It makes him limp ungracefully and hinders his participation in athletics but doesn't cause him any pain. Carey also becomes acutely conscious of any reference to it by other people. Of Human Bondage is partly a story of how Philip is cursed by his clubfoot to become an overly sensitive young man but eventually matures and largely conquers the impact of this birth defect on his self image. One turning point near the end of Philip's maturation process is when he realizes that everyone has a failing whether they're aware of it or not. He's almost thankful that his was just a relatively minor physical failing and feels sorry for those who remain unaware of deficiencies in their personalities that are glaringly obvious to himself. Of Human Bondage is a rather sizable fictional account of Philip's life up to about age 30, but I flew through it in next to no time. You probably will too. I'm not sure how absorbed women would get in this book since it's the story of a man's life, but I highly recommend it to everyone! It's simply one of the greatest classics of the 20th century and will undoubtedly be enjoyed for centuries to come.

A classic. One everyone should read.

Great book!

It seems dated even when it was written, in comparison to many other writers. If you can persevere, it does bear the effort.

As it is a quite thick book, still I am in the middle of reading. But the story is so nice! This is very much worth reading.

This is a very great novel and a major masterpiece, deservedly considered as Maugham's Opus Magnum. It must however be stated here that a large part of it describes hardships, tribulations and bad decisions which themselves bring more hardships and tribulations. That makes this book extremely interesting but by moments almost too painful to read. For anybody feeling a little bit down and/or going through a difficult time in life it would probably be a wise thing to postpone the lecture. Going through this major novel requires strategic reserves of positive energy and also some mental fortitude. I don't want to provide spoilers so let it just be said that this is the story of life of a certain Phillip Carey, beginning when he is nine years old. I will not say more here. This is in large parts an autobiographical novel but Carey is not exactly Maugham – there are similarities but also important differences but I cannot go into details as I don't want reveal too much. This is a very well written, very powerful and wise book, a very mature work of a 41 years old man who already lived and learned a lot. Tasting every single sentence is a pleasure but of a peculiar kind, because turbulences, tribulations and tragedies in Phillip Carey's life (quite a lot of his own making) make it a VERY HARD CANDY! The part of the book between pages 350 and 500 hits so hard, that I couldn't take more than five pages per morning and five in the evening. This explains why I needed more than five weeks in all to finish this book - unusually slow for me. Still, making this tough trip was worth the effort. Reading "Of human bondage" is a powerful intellectual experience, extremely rewarding too, as Maugham was really a fine observer of human nature. I cannot agree with all the observations made by the author about life and humans in general but most of them are pretty clever, by moments very wise. This is a long book with a lot of people appearing on its pages. The gallery of characters is well filled and the specimens are frequently of most curious nature, with most of them, even the most likeable, deeply flawed. It is an interesting thing that there is virtually no masculine characters which would be really impressive – on another hand there are some truly remarkable women (but just so to be clear, possibly the worst and the most pathetically pitiful character in the book is also a woman). One can only speculate how Maugham's own troubled intimate life influenced this vision of things. One thing I learned which really surprised me was that Maugham clearly was an unhappy man. When writing this largely autobiographical novel he was already successful, financially comfortable and also quite famous, but happy he was not. The fact that although being homosexual he at the time of writing this novel tried his luck in a relationship with a woman (a child was even born in 1915) may or may not be linked to this. On another hand this feeling of writer's deep unhappiness might be just my personal impression. This aura of sadness and unhappiness which I perceived doesn't change the fact that my ultimate feeling when closing the book was a rather pleasant one as the ending is, in its own very special way, powerful, like the perfectly tuned final low key sound closing a grandiose, tumultuous and thundering symphony. Final thing. I always liked Maugham's short stories and I also read "Liza of Lambeth" and "Catalina" a long time ago, but this novel always scared me a little bit – this is the reason why I waited to be in the second half of my life before attacking it. I am not saying younger people shouldn't touch it, to the contrary – on another hand, if you already lived half of your life, this book is certainly A MUST, because everybody should read "Of human bondage" at least once in a lifetime. Buy it, read it, love it! ENJOY!