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Flo's Reviews > Of Human Bondage
Of Human Bondage
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by
David Copperfield written by a classic author with a modern touch. It's painful to see how underrated W. Somerset Maugham is. Give him 50 pages, and like Tolstoy or Maupassant, he will surprise you with his knowledge about the human soul. He is so nuanced that I see even his villains as heroes.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
June 28, 2023
– Shelved
June 28, 2023
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Finished Reading
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He wasn’t underrated while he lived but he has definitely been lost over the years. This is a great book and so glad you liked it. We need to revive him and start reading him again!
Kushagri wrote: "I agree, Maugham is so underrated! He is one of my favourite authors and Of Human Bondage is one of my favourite books of all-time! He’s a brilliantly keen observer of subtle human tendencies and h..."This is my favourite read this year. Nice to encounter other Maugham enthusiasts.
Cherisa wrote: "He wasn’t underrated while he lived but he has definitely been lost over the years. This is a great book and so glad you liked it. We need to revive him and start reading him again!"One good movie adaptation will do the trick.
Well said. Maugham's my favourite writer. I can think of no other writer who can set up an atmospheric and involving scenario and create a cast of fascinating characters so quickly and immediately have you within his world. Patrick Hamilton is the only other writer who comes to mind.
I don’t think Somerset Maugham is underrate, not by me in any case!
I agree that Maugham is underrated ....the stories , Cakes and Ale and the Razor's edge are my favorites. I think as a slightly clenched narrator/onlooker into "genteel" society Maugham is much better than F Scott Fitzgerald, for instance. The transformation of the young idealist who wrote Liza of Lambeth into the wrinkled Jade of the Villa Mauresque is a harsh tale.
Of Human Bondage deals with a bourgeois branch of masochistic sexuality, related to Freud's Vienna and to Unrath in the Blue Angel, which is a little bit passé, although Patrick McGrath, who is a good novelist , revisited this ground in "Spider". Would also recommend Asylum, a book which all McGrath's upbringing and reflection prepared hi to write, ad which went surprisingly unheralded despite it's fascinating treatment of a rare subect: a woman who untrammels herself of motherhood and ALL expectations, next to whom even Frieda Lawrence looks bourgeois and compliant.
Good review!