Life in its vicarious shades. Review on Of Human Bondage - Somerset Maugham

The one constant desire of mine which keeps haunting me every now and then is to come clean in front of the world, ah now you might be wondering what have I done behind the scene to say something like this. Well don’t get scandalized as yet, all I want to do is to chronicle the story of my life and make it into a novella or something for the wide audiences to read and know me more. Some amazingly gifted writers have perfected this genre of writing over the years and to try and emulate them is hara-kiri of sorts, but then what is the fun of a life untold. There is something about autobiographies, something gripping and profoundly interesting, isn’t it?

I am sure you might be wondering what has gotten in me to suddenly start talking about autobiographies and their ilk. Well the topic of my review today is a book, which has autobiographical shades to it or is semi-autobiographical in nature. The book in question is Of Human Bondage by the peerless Somerset W Maugham. The book is considered as one of the finest written by a writer who wrote tirelessly for 61 long years, now that’s a long long time indeed. Maugham is regarded as one of the finest writers of the modern era who had the gift to make the simple look so elegant and to make a story out of common day-to-day things. He had the ability to see a story in the drabbest of things possible and more then that he had the ability to turn prose into reality, something critics called ‘neo-realism’.

Of Human Bondage (OHB) is the story of Phillip Carey, an orphan cripple and his struggles to cope up with the vagaries of life in an orthodox Christian family. Phillip travels to Germany, Paris and London in quest of his life and his identity as he finds failure; boredom, ridicule and rejection follow him wherever he goes. The book moves from city to city, from Phillip’s infatuations and flings with one lady to the other, from his dabbling in one profession to the other, until he finally settles down in life with Sally as his life mate and the profession of a doctor. Phillip struggles to shun aside his Christian roots, the ridicule and ignominy he faces courtesy his clubfoot and the pains of being a loveless orphan as his unending zeal for life drives him forward.

OHB for many is the story of Maugham himself, who was orphaned at a young age and was subsequently brought up by his uncle, whom he loathed with all his heart, suffered from stammering and had ill luck in his love life. We see vignettes of Maugham himself in the character of Phillip and that’s what makes the book all the more moving and compelling. What is extraordinary is that for someone as prolific as Maugham his best work would be his own story when he had traveled far and wide in search of stories and when he wrote for an ageless amount of time. OHB is personal, its real, its fascinating and its so gripping, after a point in time you get engrossed in the book and you start praying and hoping that at least for once in life Phillip finds someone whom he can love with all his heart and be happy with.

OHB is philosophical at times for it is a take on life itself, it’s a tale of human bondage as the title suggests. It’s a story about how you feel love, bondage, compassion, hatred, anxiety, apathy for people with whom you come in touch, people who have a say in your life or people who matter the most in your life. While reading the book I felt at times to be like Phillip, a vagabond of sorts, a non conformist, a rebel in his own rights, who did not live to dictum, who wanted to enjoy life and take it as it came, someone who did not plan or fret about the future, for whom the only thing that mattered was today and the fun which it promised and brought. While on second thoughts I thought damn what a life does Phillip have, I would never want to be like him, for he has no luck in life, no charm in it, can not find anyone who loves him, does not have a friend who supports him, life has been so harsh with him. That’s the beauty of the novel for it makes you think on one track and then when you are racing ahead on that path it jolts you to rethink what you are doing.

All through the book Phillip is continuously struggling to break free from his roots, to find a meaning for his life, to pursue pleasure and happiness, to make his life worthwhile. These are the qualities that make the story so true to life, it seems like a story of each one of us. Our own bouts of desperation at facing failures, our own shame when he are faced with criticism and ridicule, our own exasperation and pains when someone we love reject us as a no-good, our own quest for life as he grapple with questions of self identity, idealism, patterns and meanings in life have all come so true and real through the life of Phillip Carey. Phillip’s clueless and sometimes incomplete life is a reflection of our lives, his struggles to find patterns and philosophies to abide by and follow is something which we also face each day of our own lives, his failures with Norah and Mildred is so real for we have all fallen in love at some point in time and we have all faced rejection and have been used or abused in some form or other by people we loved with all our hearts.

After having struggled all through the years in his quest for freedom and his own set of idealism, Phillip finally shuns it all for his quest of happiness. He rejects a life, which adheres to patterns all his life only to finally settle down with Sally following the simplest pattern of life ‘ to marry, have kids and lead a simple content life’. There is a slice of Phillip in every one of us, you me us, all have been Phillips in different shades and hues all our lives and that’s why the novel ascends a notch higher then the other autobiographies. For this one is our own story, the imperfections and complications of the life each one of us leads. OHB has to be read for the love of life and for the vagaries and travails of life. OHB is a must read for each one of us for it teaches us the true meaning of life.

Questions

Have you ever been faced with a situation where your entire belief system was questioned and challenged by something that happened to you? How did you react to the situation?

What is it about autobiographies that endear them to us? Is it because we see ourselves in them or because in them we see that extraordinary men have also been weak and faced rejections?

Which book has moved you the most to question your way of life and your own identity and why?

For those who have read the book, do you relate with Phillip? If yes then it what ways and if not then do you think Phillip has been a loser in life? Who really loved Phillip, Norah, Mildred or Sally?