4.0
Of Human Bondage
ByPublisher Description
In 1915, W. Somerset Maugham released a book titled "Of Human Bondage." It follows Philip Carey's growth as his sadomasochistic fixation takes over his life. Although he declared, "This is a novel, not an autobiography; though much in it is autobiographical, more is pure imagination," the novel is widely regarded as Maugham's finest and to be heavily autobiographical. The title of Maugham's book, which he had first intended to entitle Beauty from Ashes, was ultimately chosen from a passage in Spinoza's Ethics. Of Human Bondage was selected No. 66 by The Modern Library among the top 100 English-language books of the 20th century. In the novel, Philip Carey develops into an impressionable young man with a ravenous hunger for knowledge and adventure from a tormented orphan with a clubfoot. At the age of 18, his cravings lead him to Paris to try his hand at art before returning to London to pursue a career in medicine. But even so, nothing can quench his persistent thirst for knowledge. Then he experiences an obsessional love affair and starts a catastrophic relationship that will alter his life for the worst. He gives up looking for happiness and chooses to accept his lot.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesOf Human Bondage Reviews
4.0
“I love this novel. He’s such an asshole and yet so well fleshed out as a character. The most popular review of this boils it down to two important elements: he has a club foot and his girlfriend is a bitch. However, it forgets perhaps the biggest part, HE IS FUCKING BRITISH. This is the most British novel ever I would have thought Farage and Reform stole some passages for their Party Constitution. Once a perfect little baby, now a jerk, Philip Carey is the ideal “manning fireworks” story. Everything he does is terrible or great yet also benign and grandiose. Idk how to put this book to anyone who has not read it? It’s almost a picaresque novel but in the same way that burnt spaghetti and margarine is technically pasta from the dining hall. The best way I can describe this is as rewarding. The actual process of reading can be hard but it really rewarding in the end. It all ends, a tired approach to original sin over 600 pages of British drooling and someone who would be an incel in today’s society. The writing itself is the standout. Despite the nationalistic undertones, it flows well and perfectly striking in the balance of outside world and internal dialogue. I love it!!!!!
So good I added a quote to the Instagram bio, hopefully, “It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late. It does not improve the temper” doesn’t freak people out. If you can’t handle me at my instagram bio I guess.
Fav passage: “Philip thought that in throwing over the desire for
happiness he was casting aside the last of his illusions. His life had
seemed horrible when it was measured by its happiness, but now he seemed
to gather strength as he realised that it might be measured by something
else. Happiness mattered as little as pain. They came in, both of them, as
all the other details of his life came in, to the elaboration of the
design. He seemed for an instant to stand above the accidents of his
existence, and he felt that they could not affect him again as they had
done before. Whatever happened to him now would be one more motive to add
to the complexity of the pattern, and when the end approached he would
rejoice in its completion. It would be a work of art, and it would be none
the less beautiful because he alone knew of its existence, and with his
death it would at once cease to be.””
“have you ever felt like an author had stolen your thoughts and feelings and put them in a story? because i felt that way through this entire book. phillip with his conscientious and existential struggles, his paradoxes and dilemmas, that are too real and near to my own was everything to me. i saw a lot of myself in him. still do. suicidal ideation on account of life’s bestiality, intrusive thought that it is the scarcity of money ultimately that forces one to end one’s existence, fear that at heart life is nothing but a base and trivial occurrence governed merely by unfortunate events of common place nature – i felt everything he felt. i felt his sense of confusion, of being misplaced, of not knowing where he belonged. maugham forced me to acknowledge that my entire life has been lived in the waiting. waiting on the bell to ring so i can go home, waiting to leave for vacation, waiting for college admission letters, waiting for an employer to get back to me after an interview, waiting to see my cat: in short, waiting to live. because implicitly, any act of waiting is an act of not living. i developed the same desire to discover, to know, to understand, to make amends, to fail, to grow, to wilt, to fight and above all to live. this book is so special to me because it gave me a sense of belonging. it made me realise that just as i feel, somebody before me has felt. i was troubled by life’s questions at the time so maugham with his magnificent effort at unraveling the mystique of life was just what i needed. plus i've always loved reading books that make you feel like shit. i find a book, read it, get totally sucked into it, become too emotionally attached and so then by the time i finish it, i feel like somebody has just told me that tomorrow i’ll be lying naked and dead in the streets with a penis tattoo on my cheek because that’s how i roll”
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