Gabrielle (Reading Rampage)'s Reviews > The Razor's Edge

In Asian countries, the custom of “home leaving” is not as common as it used to be, but it is ingrained in the culture deeply enough that it’s not yet considered weird. Home-leaving essentially means literally leaving your home, but also your secular life, in order to go on a spiritual journey, maybe even go live in a monastery and take vows and be ordained. There is no equivalency to this custom in Western civilization: usually, people who leave everything behind to go look for the meaning of life are considered to be a little crazy (or cashing in on the trendiness of mindfulness and enlightenment). As a culture, we’ve actually gotten a bit cynical about it, and with reason. But that quest can certainly be genuine, and the cultural bias against it probably intimidates a lot of people who could greatly benefit from giving it all up for a while and trying to see beyond the world they were raised in.

This simple yet astonishingly layered novel by Mr. Maugham is about a man who goes on such a quest, maybe one of the first “white dude goes to India to look for the meaning of life” story in English literature. I didn’t know anything about the plot before I picked it up, and I’m going to try and not give anything away in this review because I am sure that experiencing this novel with as few expectations as possible is the best way to experience it.

Larry is a smart and sensitive but directionless young man. After a traumatizing experience in service during WWI, he comes back to the United States incapable of fitting into the societal mold his guardian and fiancée try to force him in. He can’t go back to school or get a job. He doesn’t quite fit in with his old crowd either, they seem preoccupied by things that make no sense to him, like marriage, money, social status – and none of them understand why he won’t try to cash in on the wonderful potential he has to be an early 20th century American success. Larry’s aimlessness eventually leads him to leave his lovely fiancée Isabel behind as he goes off to Europe, and eventually Asia to quench what we recognize today as a spiritual need that his society cannot satisfy. Dejected, Isabel marries Gray, an old friend she has affection but no passion for, and it will be years before she crosses Larry’s path again. Their story is told to us directly by Maugham, who in a very post-modern manner, makes himself a part of his narrative: he meets Larry and Isabel through his friend, the charming but inveterate snob Elliot Templeton, and crosses paths with them many times through years and travels, and they catch him up on their lives with each encounter. This makes the book feel like a quiet and introspective study of human emotions through the lens of friendly gossip, peppered liberally with Maugham’s amazing wit and delightful prose.

While I was reading “The Razor’s Edge”, I caught myself thinking that this is a book for grown-ups. Not because it has dirty stuff in it, though the characters talk quite frankly about sex, for a novel published in the 40s, but because I don’t think the events it describes could be empathized with by teenagers. Heartbreaking and life-changing decisions such as the ones made by Larry, Isabel, Gray and Sophie are the kind that gives adulthood its true meaning. Leaving someone you are still in love with, understanding that the weight of your responsibility is greater than your personal satisfactions, dreading irrelevancy in other people’s lives, grieving until your own welfare doesn’t matter... That is some grown-up stuff.

I was very interested in Larry’s musings about religion, God and the meaning of life, as well as our place in it. His perspective and interrogations echo my own thoughts on those subjects, and it was fascinating to read those words, written more than 70 years ago because they felt very fresh, very modern and very relevant. I do believe that it is important to think critically about your own culture and to be constantly curious until you can find something that makes sense to you.

Maugham’s work never ceases to amaze me, and each of his novels that I have read has taken me to an unexpected and deeply affecting place. I am starting to think that no one does characters just like he did, because seldom to I encounter characters that are so human, so flawed, so tragically real – and who’s struggle cracks my heart like an egg. But most importantly, his characters are beautifully layered confections – that may or may not be real people, and the beauty of the way they are written is that you can’t help but feel deep compassion for them: they may not be great people, but you never get a sense that he looks down on them, that their immoral actions are held against them or judged. Sophie’s terrible downward spiral and relapse are described with shocking frankness, but the reaction Maugham teases out of the reader is not disgust, but sadness and an urge to grab the poor woman and give her a hug and a helping hand.

This was a wonderful read, subtle, funny and bittersweet. I absolutely loved it.