The story is simple, familiar, and sounds almost like a Lifetime telemovie: girl met boy, boy fell in love and proposed, girl said yes because she was in a panic being single in her mid-20s, both went to Hong Kong, boy was a sensitive introvert that unfortunately bored girl, girl had an affair with a fatuous but “charming” man, boy found out, was heartbroken and for revenge or escape (or both) took girl to a cholera-ravaged remote village in mainland China, girl discovered more about herself, boy, and life in general, girl found out she was pregnant (and the father might not be boy), boy died of cholera, girl returned to Hong Kong, did some soul-searching, had one last one-afternoon-stand with her former lover, discovered how repulsive he really was, then back home to UK, transformed into sort of a feminist (at least for her era).
Yes, the above is a facetious summary. I didn’t mean to make fun or light of the story, but rather, tried to illustrate what an amazing writer Maugham was. He possessed the rare gift of spinning a most riveting, memorable, poignant, and thought-provoking tale with a rather trite plot. As in his other works, the characters are so real you feel as if they were your closest friends that constantly confided in you, or people that you had taken great interest in observing and wondering about. Even though they are not perfect, you care about them, and because you become so emotionally involved, the story becomes almost “personal”, even if you have nothing in common with any of the characters and have never been in a similar situation. This is a story about love, change, growth, faith, redemption, and ultimately, life. Uncannily perceptive and abundantly eloquent, Maugham was adept at portraying flawed characters and the complicated struggles in their innermost heart and soul. Kitty was shallow and flighty but sometimes she had the most profound reflections. Walter, oh poor Walter! He was “unlovable” because he didn’t have “charm”, “boring” because he didn’t enjoy the things that Kitty liked, and “inscrutable” because he was “secretive” about his past and wasn’t readily open and communicative. He is definitely not my “type”, and yet, I have such a soft spot for him! I completely understand his yearning for love and affection; I feel he got nothing but pain from the marriage because of the unrequited love; I strongly suspect that he might have committed suicide (consciously or subconsciously) because of his broken heart, his inability to forgive and move on, and his despair over the hopelessness of their situation. Waddington is a very interesting character. Being the shrewd observer with kindliness and understanding of human nature, he reminds me of the narrator in The Razor’s Edge, and I wonder if he was based on Maugham himself. The tragedy of the story is that Walter and Kitty were an utter mismatch, of personalities and lifestyles, and as Kitty herself pointed out:
“I think you do me an injustice… It’s not fair to blame me because I was silly and frivolous and vulgar. I was brought up like that. All the girls I know are like that… It’s like reproaching someone who has no ear for music because he’s bored at a symphony concert. Is it fair to blame me because you ascribed to me qualities I hadn’t got? I never tried to deceive you by pretending I was anything I wasn’t. I was just pretty and gay. You don’t ask for a pearl necklace or a sable coat at a booth in a fair; you ask for a tin trumpet and a toy balloon.”
“Because he had dressed a doll in gorgeous robes and set her in a sanctuary to worship her, and then discover that the doll was filled with sawdust he could neither forgive himself nor her. His soul was lacerated. It was all make-believe that he had lived on, and when the truth shattered it he thought reality itself was shattered. It was true enough, he would not forgive her because he could not forgive himself.”
I can’t write this review without mentioning the movie. The book excels in the details: the descriptions of people and the environment and Kitty’s thoughts, ironically, make the story even more vivid, and unsurprisingly, more substantial, than the movie. The movie however, made some critical and in my view, wonderful changes. In the movie Kitty grew and changed, and so did Walter. He became less distant and more “expansive.” They rediscovered (or simply, just discovered) respect and passion for each other as events unfolded, which makes his death all the more tragic. How cruel is God, or Fate, to make you find something only to lose it immediately forever? After reading this book, I can’t think of anyone else but Norton playing Walter. The longing, vulnerability and agony were palpable. I also preferred the ending of the movie over that of the book. In the movie, when Kitty asked Walter to forgive her, he responded “there is nothing to forgive.” And when Kitty ran into Charlie some years later, she had already transformed into a self-possessed woman. Of course, the ending of the book is more believable, although having been brainwashed by Hollywood romances, I love it better that Walter finally let go of his grudge and Kitty found her way. It’s just a much more soothing (let alone “pleasing” to the sentimentality of the audience) ending that gives you a sense of closure. On the other hand, I do appreciate the sense of “full circle” in the book where Kitty realized how ungrateful and callous she had been towards his father and asked for his forgiveness.
Regarding love, what’s love anyway? As Walter put it:
“I knew that you’d only married me for convenience. I loved you so much, I didn’t care… I was thankful to be allowed to love you and I was enraptured when now and then I thought you were pleased with me or when I noticed in your eyes a gleam of good-humored affection… What most husbands expect as a right I was prepared to receive as a favor.”
So… he loved her despite that she was “silly, frivolous, empty-headed, ignorant, scandal-mongering, and stupid”, that her “aims and ideals were vulgar and commonplace”, that she was “second-rate”, that she was “afraid of intelligence”? What exactly did he see in her then if she was so seriously flawed? Her “raging beauty” it must have been. Which begs the question: what’s the difference between his love for Kitty and her love for Charlie? Both were shallow and based on looks and empty charm rather than intelligence or character. Charlie didn’t love Kitty – his “love” was nothing but self-gratification – he loved only himself. Kitty thought she “loved” Charlie, but it struck me as mere infatuation. Walter’s love for Kitty was also tainted by his desperation and possessiveness.
My favorite parts:
“… the painted veil which those who live call Life.”
“no one had ever asked her to marry him in a manner which was so abrupt and yet strangely tragic.”
“It was strange when you couldn’t help being conscious of the devastating passion which was in his heart.”
“but if nobody spoke unless he had something to say, Kitty reflected, with a smile, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.”
“She thought that she heard him give a faint sigh and she shot a rapid glance at him. A sudden thought struck her and it took her breathe away. She only just refrained from giving a cry. Was it what they called a broken heart that he suffered from?”
“She wondered whether his sarcastic manner, with its contemptuous tolerance for so many persons and things she admired, was merely a facade to conceal a profound weakness.”
“Well, you know, women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are.”
“I’m afraid you’ve thought me a bigger fool than I am.”
“it’s rather hard to take quite literally the things a man says when he’s in love with you.”
“One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one’s life with her.”
“Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome… It’s a relief then to deal with a man who isn’t quite so delightful but a little more sincere.”
“You and I are the only people here who walk quite quietly and peaceably on solid ground. The nuns talk in heaven and your husband — darkness.”
“He gazed at her reflectively, that malicious, ironical look in his bright eyes, but mingled with it, a shadow, like a tree standing at a river’s edge and its reflection in the water, was an expression of singular kindliness. It brought sudden tears to Kitty’s eyes.”
“Yes. It (Death) makes everything else seem so horribly trivial. He doesn’t look human. When you look at him you can hardly persuade yourself that he’s ever been alive. It’s hard to think that not so very many years ago he was just a little boy tearing down the hill and flying a kite.”
“I can at all events say that I never drink except to excess.”
“She knew that she would never see again in his eyes the look of affection which she had once been so used to that she found it merely exasperating. She knew how immense was his capacity for loving; in some odd way he was pouring it out on these wretched sick who had only him to look to.. She did not feel jealousy, but a sense of emptiness; it was as though a support that she had grown so accustomed to as not to realize its presence were suddenly withdrawn from her so that she swayed this way and that like a thing that was top-heavy.”
“Nothing for myself. I only want you to be a little less unhappy.”
“You know, my dear child, that one cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul.”
“It seemed to Kitty that they were all, the human race, like the drops of water in that river and they flowed on, each so close to the other and yet so far apart, a nameless flood, to the sea. When all things lasted so short a time and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men, attaching an absurd importance to trivial objects, should make themselves and one another so unhappy.”
“But it’s loving that’s the important thing, not being loved. One’s not even grateful to the people who love one; if one doesn’t love them, they only bore one.”
“they were like two little drops in a river that flowed silently towards the unknown; two little drops that to themselves had so much individuality and to the onlooker were but an indistinguishable part of the river.”
“There was just a shadow of a tremor in his voice; it was dreadful that cold self-control of his which made the smallest token of emotion so shattering.”
“And she had an urgent need for sympathy… she felt weak, frightened a little, alone, and very far from any friends.”
“She knew by now his extreme sensitiveness, for which his acid irony was a protection, and how quickly he could close his heart if his feelings were hurt.”
“How silly men were! Their part in procreation was so unimportant; it was the woman who carried the child through long months of uneasiness and bore it with pain, and yet a man because of his momentary connection made such preposterous claims.”
“As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtues.”
“I saw it in your eyes. It’s strange, it must be like loving a phantom or a dream. Men are incalculable; I thought you were like everybody else and now I feel that I don’t know the first thing about you.”
“I’m looking for something and I don’t quite know what it is. But I know that it’s very important for me to know it, and if I did it would make all the difference.”
“Tao. Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whisky and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads to nowhither.”
“Thou shalt have it only, the answer seemed to come to me, when thou hast ceased to desire it.”
“There is only one way to win hearts and that is to make oneself like unto those of whom one would be loved.”
“It was a pity that with his great qualities, his unselfishness and honor, his intelligence and sensibility, he should be so unlovable.”
“It seemed to her strangely that his soul was a fluttering moth and its wings were heavy with hatred.”
“The dog it was that died.”
“I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos.”
“the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.”
“She had known that they were all bored by him, but i thad never occurred to her that he was eqaully bored by them.”
“The bitter irony of fate! After all her efforts, intrigues, and humiliations, Mrs. Garstin had died without knowing that her ambition, however modified by past disappointments, was at last achieved.”
“the death of his wife had filled him with relief and now this chance to break entirely with the past had offered him freedom. He had seen a new life spread before him and at least after all these years rest and the mirage of happiness. She saw dim;y all the suffering that had preyed on his heart for thirty years.”
“My heart sinks when I think how we’ve battened on you all our lives and have given you nothing in return. Not even a little affection.”
“I’m not going to bring a child into the world, and love her, and bring her up, just so that some man may want to sleep with her so much that he’s willing to provide her with board and lodging for the rest of her life… I want her to be fearless and frank. I want her to be a person, independent of others becasue she is possessed of herself, and I want her to take life like a free man and make a better job of it than I have.”
