Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham

 Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham

Acclaimed masterpiece

This is the second time that I am rating this novel.
I just finished reading it for the second time.

Somerset Maugham is one of my favorite writers and at times it felt like there is no other author that I like more.
With the exception of Marcel Proust…perhaps.

Having said that, I must state that I seem to prefer his short stories... the novels are marvelous, but not on second taking.
Of Human Bondage is a well-established work and it is surely wonderful, but I just did not have so many peak experiences on the last encounter.
Instead of concentrating on the worthwhile meaningful aspects, I just lost too much time rejecting Mildred.
-          Why is Philip Carey losing time, wasting effort and feelings over her?
That is a useless question and the answer is clear, albeit it annoyed me to see how the hero- Philip Carey is entangled with such a lesser person as Mildred.
On the other hand, Mildred herself would have benefited from more understanding, seeing as she is uneducated and not taken with Philip.
Philip Carey has a club foot, becomes an orphan at a very early age and then studies to become a doctor.
All of these aspects are part of the life of the exceptional writer, who has written a book that in nature is autobiographical.
The club foot is characteristic only for the fictional character, but critics have found a similarity with something else.
Somerset Maugham was homosexual and that was a complicated disadvantage, if not even a handicap in his age.
Handicap in the sense that it was illegal, he had to hide it, pretty much like his personage is trying to conceal his deformed foot.

Another aspect that has cast a shadow over my merriment is the long torture that Philip Carey has to go through in order to survive.
He has to suffer from hunger, dejection, betrayal and abuse at the hands of his lover and a friend that cheat on him.
It was depressing for long chapters.
-          I know, suffering is present in great literature
-          It may even be the main staple of Dostoyevsky’s work…to name just one classic
Suffering that absolves, purifies and transcends, ending by transmuting the characters and giving them a tragic aura and a sort of superior air, a better understanding of the world and a Post Traumatic Growth.
Indeed, it can be argued that in the case of Philip we have PTG instead of the probably more common PTSD
-          Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a condition that many suffer from
-          After a trauma or many traumas in the case of Philip Carey people tend to crash, experience disorders
Without going into details, at some point there is a better prospect, albeit I see the finale as complex and open.
-          Is it better to give up on goals, like travelling around the world?
-          Strong family ties offer the best chance at happiness
-          But getting involved with someone simple, way below your level of understanding, culture and education offer grim prospects…if you ask me
Then again, there is the psychology classic: Stumbling Upon happiness by the Harvard Professor Daniel Gilbert.
Humans have a tendency to believe in –
-          A California Dream- if I move to California I’ll be happy
-          Except that once there, we get used with the sun, ocean, palm trees and all and start complaining about smog, drought- they had one for years, which has just ended last winter.
It might be the same with Philip Carey:
-          He kept saying- I’ll be happy when…
-          But like the most of the rest of us, if he ended up doing this, he would become habituated and  not like it that much…or at all

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