Vit Babenco's Reviews > Of Human Bondage

Of Human Bondage is written in a charming language so it is a great pleasure to read every sentence in the book.

Life seemed an inextricable confusion. Men hurried hither and thither, urged by forces they knew not; and the purpose of it all escaped them; they seemed to hurry just for hurrying’s sake.

The riches of the novel are in its characters – there are many of all sorts and Somerset Maugham portrays his personages with the scrupulous psychological precision.

Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of everyday a source of bitter disappointment.

Somerset Maugham leads his hero from early childhood to mellow adulthood and he guides his protagonist through all the vicissitudes of life: ups and downs, welfare and penury, qualms and assuredness, love and loathing and further on…

Philip did not surrender himself willingly to the passion that consumed him. He knew that all things human are transitory and therefore that it must cease one day or another. He looked forward to that day with eager longing. Love was like a parasite in his heart, nourishing a hateful existence on his life’s blood; it absorbed his existence so intensely that he could take pleasure in nothing else… This love was a torment, and he resented bitterly the subjugation in which it held him; he was a prisoner and he longed for freedom.

Love is capable to bring heavenly delights but unrequited love may easily turn into a pernicious torture…