Jasmine's Reviews > Of Human Bondage

I am sure you will agree with me that there are books one is better off reading when one is older and more experienced. On the other hand, there are also books one should have read 20 years earlier. For me personally, ‘Of Human Bondage’ belongs to the latter category. It had been gathering dust on my father’s bookshelf for years (in German translation) and I never thought about it. To tell you the truth, this book crossed my path again because of ‘The Goldfinch’, an impressive Pulitzer-winning Bildungsroman and one of my favorite books. I was looking for another Bildungsroman when I came across ‘Of Human Bondage’ again.

‘Of Human Bondage’ by Somerset W. Maugham is a classical Bildungsroman – a coming of age story, published almost 100 years ago. While reading it, I continually had to remind myself that the book is actually 100 years old. A lot of Philip’s thoughts seemed so very modern to me that I often forgot when Maugham actually wrote them. This is the story of Philip Carey, who loses his parents in early childhood. As a reader, we witness his life from early childhood until his thirties. Even though it is a third person omniscient narrative, the reader is very deeply involved in Philip’s thoughts. I read a large part of the book over the Easter holidays and was so deeply immersed in the story that Philip became almost real for me. This happens to me very rarely with a book. It is that childlike state when you forget everything around you and reality and fiction merge into one.

Of course, as in every good Bildungsroman Philip spends most of the book struggling with life’s challenges. More than once I wanted to take him under my motherly wing as he attempted to deal with religious beliefs, hindrances and, especially, relationships with women. Philip is an aesthete and a lover of literature. His love for books, literature and art comes across throughout the book and adds to the quality of storytelling:“And then beautiful things grow rich with the emotion that they have aroused in succeeding generations. That is why old things are more beautiful than modern. The “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is more lovely now than when it was written, because for a hundred years lovers have read it and the sick at heart take comfort in its lines.”(p.281)

Maugham’s rich descriptions of paintings and art in general are especially evident when his protagonist reflects on El Greco’s paintings. El Greco’s artwork used to make me feel rather uncomfortable and I was not a fan of his gloomy brushstrokes, but through Philip’s reflections Maugham opened my eyes.

“El Greco was the painter of the soul; and these gentlemen, wan and wasted, not by exhaustion but by restraint, with their tortured minds, seem to walk unaware of the beauty of the world; for their eyes look only in their hearts, and they are dazzled by the glory of the unseen. No painter has shown more pitilessly that the world is but a place of passage. The souls of the men he painted speak their strange longings through their eyes; their senses are miraculously acute, not for sounds and odours and colour, but for the very subtle sensations of the soul. The noble walks with the monkish heart within him, and his eyes see things which saints in their cells see too, and he is unastounded. His lips are not lips that smile.” (p.397)


El Greco,1595: Study of a Man

The reader accompanies Philip on his stays in Heidelberg, London and especially Paris where he enrolls in art school, convinced of his abilities as a painter. I particularly enjoyed this part of the book, when Maugham gives the reader a fascinating insight into the bohemian lifestyle of the Belle Époque. Paris and its smell, colors, people and lifestyles come alive before the reader’s eyes.

‘Of Human Bondage’ is said to be Maugham’s semi-biographical novel and I would recommend every reader to look up the writer’s life before or while reading the book. With this in mind, I was especially astonished by Philip’s relationships with women. Philip is in pursuit of beauty, but not when it comes to women. Women are either anemic, have narrow pale lips, greenish skin (!) and are flat-chested like a boy, or they are large and unsophisticated. Not very attractive, I would say. By comparison, Griffith, one of Philip’s fellow students, is described as a “tall fellow, with a quantity of curly red hair and blue eyes, a white skin, and a very red mouth”and Maugham writes that "There was a peculiar charm in his manner, a mingling of gravity and kindliness which was infinitely attractive”. Maybe I am biased, knowing that Maugham’s sexual preference was for men rather than women, but I wonder if the reader of 90 years ago picked up these hints.

That said, Philip’s relationship with Mildred (best known for its film adaption with Bette Davies in 1934), a vulgar, unworldly teashop girl he encounters during his medicine studies in London, tops everything. It is almost unbearable to read how he submits to her, how he let himself be humiliated by her. "He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other.”(p.308). Every time Mildred appeared in the story, my stomach literally twisted in knots. I must admit that even though these scenes are an important part of the plot and constitute the main storyline in the aforementioned film adaptation, I found it very hard to endure them. However, they are an essential part of Philip’s personal development.

Philip is a complex character. Born with a clubfoot, he always felt self-conscious. He is shy and overly sensitive. He blushes a lot (I counted 30 times). Nevertheless, he endures humiliation with a stoic steadiness. In the meantime he is often condescending. He is aware of his intellectual superiority to Mildred. As a connoisseur of literature and art, he even feels superior to his peers at Medical School.

Notwithstanding his flaws, I like Philip very much. In real life as well as in literature I have a soft spot for people who are in pursuit of beautiful things, who love literature and art. Philip is a keen observer of human behavior, both that of his entourage and his own. His train of thought, his self-exploration and subsequent conclusions on religion, philosophy and the meaning of life come easily and straightforwardly to the reader. In my opinion this is Maugham’s forte: the examination of ideas in moral terms and his portrayal of the meaning of life and religion through Philip’s eyes. The writing style is rather simple; nothing remains of the flowery or verbose prose of the Victorians (which I love by the way!). Nonetheless, the writing is powerful; it has stayed with me long after I have finished the book.

As I have already said, I wish I had read ‘Of Human Bondage’ 20 years earlier. It is certainly a book to encourage younger people to find their place in life. But even 20 years ‘too late’, the book has the power to evoke a variety of strong emotions. Why is this? Maugham provides an answer through Philip: "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 part of me...” (p.292)

‘Of Human Bondage’ did this to me.