Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

I must preface this by saying that my husband read it when he was 18 and back then he said it was whiny and annoying, so I went into this experience with the prejudices of an 18 year old boy. The husband was THE WRONGEST and now has to listen to my DEMANDS that he RE-READ IT IMMEDIATELY and correct those MOST ERRONEOUS thoughts.

Philip is our hero extraordinaire here- an orphan with a club foot who is raised by his silly and joyless uncle the Vicar and his wife, same. We accompany Philip as he goes off to boarding school, decides to chuck becoming a Vicar because he doesn't have the constitution for believing in God, and trundles off to Paris to be an ARTISTE. In Paris, he does many ARTISTE-Y things like having ARTISTE-Y conversations with other (mostly) middle class, young ARTISTES pretending to have anything other than middle class thoughts. So there's a good bit of WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE and NO NO YOUR TASTE IN ART IS AWFUL THEREFORE YOU HAVE NO SOUL and I AM A TRUE ARTIST/PAINTER BECAUSE I DON'T LIKE STUFF WITH RELIGIOUS STUFF.

Eventually Philip gets a bit hmm, these folks are silly, and goes back to England to become a doctor. Along the way he has various and sundry adventures, including but not limited to: becoming obsessed with a hooker, experiencing poverty, befriending a Dickensian family that has Love But Not Much Else, and having lots and lots of epiphanies.

This is the best epiphany: "He thought of his desire to make a design, intricate and beautiful, out of the myriad, meaningless facts of life: had he not seen also that the simplest pattern, that in which a man was born, worked, married, had children, and died, was likewise the most perfect? It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories."

The books is largely autobiographical, so Philip's sort of Nietzsche-ish/nihilistic point of view shouldn't be surprising if you've read any of Maugham's other work. It's a world view that I find mostly silly and selfish if we're being perfectly honest, but I agree with the conclusion of aforementioned epiphany except that I don't find being happy to be a defeat. Philip wants to be some sort of epic hero, though, so having a life of fulfilling contentment is something he disdains, then later accepts as his only real option. Actually, Maugham's ruminations on/ loving criticism of the middle class was my favorite bit of this book. He is WAY more respectful of his subjects than, say, Franzen (who is, as we all know, an ass). 

I didn't think the prose itself was really anything to shake a stick at, though I never really do with Maugham. But Philip's intellectual journey is totally gripping (thatswhatshesaid) and I'm sure that I would find some of his soul-angst much more affecting if I had a heart. But, alas. I am cold.

Your tears don't affect me, boy.

Four stars out of your mom.