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Title: The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham, Sophie Ward ISBN: 0-7540-0684-0 Publisher: Chivers Audio Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 6 List Price(USD): $54.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.88 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: "As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue."
Comment: "The Painted Veil" by W. Somerset Maugham is the story of a young British woman, Kitty Fane. Kitty is one of two daughters--the older, prettier one. Kitty's father is an unambitious solicitor, and her mother--Mrs Garstin--is a "a hard, cruel, managing, ambitious, parsimonious, and stupid woman." Mrs Garstin pins all of her thwarted and frustrated ambitions on the hope that Kitty will marry well. Kitty, who has a rather inflated idea of herself, spurns all suitors until her younger sister's engagement. Under the threat of being "left on the shelf," Kitty accepts a marriage proposal from a very serious, intent, intelligent, young bacteriologist, Walter Fane. Kitty isn't really interested in Walter as a person or as a husband--he isn't her type at all, and a year or so previously, she wouldn't have considered him good enough. But gentle Walter "loved her so passionately that he was prepared to accept any humiliation if sometimes she would let him love her." Due to social pressures combined with the fact that Walter is leaving for Hong Kong, Kitty agrees to a swift wedding and sails off to her new life.
In Hong Kong, Kitty very quickly succumbs to the oily attentions of an older, polished, married British official. Kitty isn't a bad person, but she is empty-headed and shallow, and she underestimates her husband's reaction to discovering her affair. Kitty doesn't really know Walter, and she certainly doesn't understand him. Walter's role--in Kitty's mind--is exactly that of her father--the role of a doormat who pays for things. Walter is devastated by the discovery of Kitty's affair and immediately volunteers as the doctor in a Cholera epidemic at Mei-tan-fu, but even this seemingly spontaneous and suicidal act is well-planned by Walter. In forcing Kitty to accompany him, Walter exposes Kitty's lover for the vain, self-centered womanizer he really is, and Kitty is forced to examine her life and the choices she has made. In the middle of a Cholera epidemic--living in the house of a dead missionary, Kitty faces her shallow and selfish existence.
I love W. Somerset Maugham--he labeled himself as a second rate writer. I think this is an unfortunate and undeserved categorization, for as a writer he is a master with the creation of unforgettable characters and quite unmerciless when it comes to revealing the absolute unpleasantness of human motivation. As a writer, Maugham is fading from view, and that is a dreadful shame. This lesser-known Maugham novel is exquisite--displacedhuman
Rating: 5
Summary: The Great Lost Hong Kong Novel!
Comment: I agree with the many reviewers here who enjoy this as a gripping literary read. But it is also the first of three fine novels about Hong Kong - along with Timothy Mo's The Monkey King and Paul Theroux's Kowloon Tong, this book for me contained insights into certain Hong Kong personalities I encountered during my residence there in the 90's. In the case of the Painted Veil, a novel from the 1920's (!), certain actions and attitudes of western expatriates were still visible in my day (before and after the end of British rule). A little bit of playing at being "gentlemen" by people who could not afford the pose back home. This book, like Mo's and Theroux's, caused no end of upset in certain quarters of Hong Kong when released. Though it was not banned in China, like Kowloon Tong, in Hong Kong "writs were served!" (Parts of Hong Kong can react a little bit like a small town when its described by someone who's left it for better things - the other parts read these books with pleasure.) The detached reader need not worry about any of this - it's a great read. Enjoy.
Rating: 4
Summary: Of marriage and freedom
Comment: The kernel of this novel dates back to 1895 when Maugham was twenty years old and stayed in Florence to learn Italian. He came across a story in which a "husband suspecting his wife of adultery and afraid on account of her family to put her to death, took her down to his castle in the Maremma the noxious vapours of which he was confident would do the trick; but she took so long to die that he grew impatient and had her thrown out of the window." It is around this core (which is not exactly the plot line of the novel, don't worry) that Maugham developed the story of Kitty Fane, a woman who is vain, superficial and in need of appreciation. It is a story that plays in Hong Kong and China in the 1920s. Maugham knew both places from his extensive travels in the South East but, characteristically for him, he does not spill much ink on descriptions of the landscape or the natives, which is a pity. He is much more interested in his fictitious characters.
As always, Maugham is a master of drawing characters who possess all the self-importance, weakness, and suffering that underlie human existence. His characterizations are so sardonically true that he was sued two times over the book by people in Hong Kong, and had to change the name of Hong Kong into Tching-Yen, and the name of one of the characters from Lane (innocent enough, one would think) to Fane.
I was wondering why this rather obscure novel by Maugham has received nothing but glowing five-star reviews by almost exclusively female readers. The reason is that this novel is about marriage and the restraints that marriage imposes upon passion. Also, it is a classic story of a woman's spiritual awakening. Two themes that appeal to female readers to such an extent that they tolerate Maugham's biting sarcasm and his rather unromantic view of life (he is quoted as saying that "habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous"). If there is an author who is not touchy-feely, it is W. Somerset Maugham. Marriage, he soberly concludes, is a matter of convenience. Passion, on the other hand, is a matter of inconvenience: it lurks untamed behind "the painted veil which those who live call life". What is left? Faith? Maybe, I think Maugham would say, but most people are not humble enough to be truly religious ("no egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul" is another quote by the master).
"The Painted Veil" is well worth reading. However, it suffers a bit from Maugham's self-assured way of portraying people and constructing a plot. It is a well-told story, but it is not a first rate novel. I think the problem is that Maugham's characters in this book are too one-dimensional which works well in a comedy of manners, but not in a book that wants to discuss matters like love, passion, marriage, life and spiritual growth in a serious way.
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Title: Of Human Bondage (Bantam Classic) by W. Somerset Maugham ISBN: 055321392X Publisher: Bantam Classics Pub. Date: 01 June, 1991 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: Moon and Sixpence (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by W. Somerset Maugham ISBN: 0140185976 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1977 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Cakes and Ale (Vintage International) by W. Somerset Maugham ISBN: 0375725024 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 05 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham, Somerset Maugham ISBN: 0375724621 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 04 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Look at Me by Jennifer Egan ISBN: 0385721358 Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 08 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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