Cheryl's Reviews > Of Human Bondage

When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes a part of me.

Sometimes you're needlepoint-focused, and at other times, everything is a blur. Sometimes everything around you seems tainted and ugly, and yet you see the beauty in something as simple as wet leaves falling from a tree and attaching themselves in colorful lines to each board of your backyard deck. And you wonder at the truthfulness of the idea that life is

neither beautiful nor ugly, but just to be accepted in the same spirit as one accepts the changes of the seasons.

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Sometimes you don't know what changes life will bring, but you do know that those pivotal moments depend upon your reaction to these changes. So when the moment occurs, do you rest assured that happiness matters as little as pain and do you "stand above the accidents of your existence?" Do you, like Philip, continue to grow, continue to avoid the shackles that hinder, as you start to believe that the rain falls alike upon "the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing is there a why and a wherefore"?

When I think of this book, I equate it to the multifaceted The Brothers Karamozov, since it is also a book that explores the complications of life and thought, traverses the intricacies of morality, stimulates intellectual curiosity, and asks questions of love and choice, all through one nuanced protagonist. This book now sits on my classics pedestal, next to the books that have helped me grow spiritually and intellectually by illuminating the meaning of life, like The Count of Monte Cristo; it attaches itself to my personal experiences, gifting me with highlighted passages that are snippets of my meandering thoughts as I try to discover the meaning of life like Philip does, and in so doing, it also reminds me of the search for lost time in Proust's Swann's Way.

From the moment the child Philip lay in his dying mother's arms while she hugged him and caressed his club foot, I knew I'd be enamored by him. Following the immediacy of this chronicle of his growth from adolescence to adult, it was impossible to dislike him, for he is that character who is his own worst critic. Phillip knows when he is wrong, childish, too sensitive, arrogant, lazy, restless, or depressed. Through his journey from artist to accountant and then medicine, he tackles the inextricable confusion of career and realizes when his life's trajectory will depend upon his choices to focus and proceed, even despite the limitations placed upon him by his disability. His commute through conscience and belief is intriguing as it parallels the difficult decisions he makes at various stages of his life. Although I was disappointed to follow his disastrous relationship with Mildred and watch while he scorned the love of Norah, I was also relieved by his final epiphany on love and life. (view spoiler)[And when he was faced to endure the madness of going from a life of prestige to one of stark poverty, I applauded his courage even as he watched his dreams lapse temporarily. (hide spoiler)]

He saw what looked like the truth as by flashes of lightning on a dark, stormy night you might see a mountain range. He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to chance, but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion; 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 realms and explored unknown lands.

Sometimes when those moments of uncertainty cloud judgment, a moment to consider the meaninglessness of life, just as we consider its meaningfulness, could be all that matters. Maybe we equate happiness to pain and consider how the continual search for one without the other could prove fruitless. And just as we pause to consider the desolation of life and we sometimes fall into the pit of its gloom, perhaps simultaneously, we also consider its exquisite capacity for beauty and we savor its complexities.