Kushagri's Reviews > Of Human Bondage

This book was emotionally exhausting at certain times, but I wouldn’t have missed it for a hundred others. The writing was sublime.
Philip Carey was built through these pages and felt as near and authentic to you as a friend. The characterization was brilliant. I lack adjectives to describe this work, and I feel that any more words may still not do justice to this exquisite piece of profoundly human and realistic literature. However, I will say that not everyone will have an affinity for this kind of work. But, for people who admire character-driven stories and are keen on literary fiction, this work is not to be missed.


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 every day a source of bitter disappointment

He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipitous, must be crossed before the traveller through life comes to an acceptance of reality. It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been, instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life. The strange thing is that each one who has gone through that bitter disillusionment adds to it in his turn, unconsciously, by the power within him which is stronger than himself.


I cannot put into words how much some quotes touched my heart. Many of the lines in this book touch upon some truths of life that we all feel and understand but still desire to be put into words. It is just a boon to have those words in the form of such poetic prose which flows through one’s mind as one’s thoughts.

Now, I will be taking a deep dive into Maugham’s works!