W. Somerset Maugham: Of Human Bondage (1915)

Edition: Heinemann, 1937
Review number: 660

Maugham's autobiographical novel (at least, autobiographical to a greater extent than the rest of his fiction) was in his mind for a long time, a rejected version being one of the first things he wrote. It is long, detailed and realistic, and covers about thirty years of the life of Philip Carey, from the date when the death of his mother left him an orphan to a short while after his qualification as a doctor. The title is a reference to the crosses he has to bear in this time, principally a deformity (a clubfoot) of which he is extremely conscious, but also including being brought up by an unsympathetic uncle, an inability to choose a career, and a disastrous love affair.

Philip is a well written character, guaranteed to gain the sympathy of the reader. He is believable both as boy and as man. He follows on from the long line of nineteenth century novel heroes, but with two important differences. He is a much less bland character than most of them, and he is crippled physically. In English fiction, crippled characters are relatively rare, and crippled main characters are even more so. Tiny Tim, from Dickens' Christmas Carol, must be easily the best known, but he is more a device to extort pity from the reader than a character in real terms. Characters socially or psychologically crippled by their backgrounds are relatively commonplace - Bigger Thomas from Native Son an example of the first, and Alexander Portnoy from Portnoy's Complaint one of the second - but a physically deformed main character is extremely rare even in more recent literature.

Maugham handles this extremely well. We are only reminded of the clubfoot when Philip thinks of it - when the older boys at school make fun of him, for example - but it is clear that his deformity has had a major effect on his character. He is diffident, sensitive, and lonely; it is difficult for him to fit in with those around him. He looses his early strong Christian belief after being told that if he prays with faith God can do anything for him, and then spending a summer holiday praying for his foot to be healed before he returns to school, only for nothing to happen. This is a major formative event in his life, for it leads to his rebellion against the path his uncle and aunt have mapped out for him, sending him to a cathedral school from where he was expected to go to Oxford and eventually be ordained into the Church of England.

Of Human Bondage is not just about Philip's disability, however. It is about his hopes and aspirations. In many ways, these are vague and never become more definite, and are the impulses behind his restlessness as a young man rather than pushing him in a specific direction. What he wants is to escape the drabness and duty of his childhood, to do something different. This is why he leaves school early to spend a year in Germany, why he proves disastrous as a clerk at an accountants' office, where his uncle places him, why he goes to Paris to study art, and why, in the end, he studies medicine - it is not only the profession of his own father, but it is the only one which will accept him as a student several years older than is usual (what would today be called a mature student).

Of Human Bondage is a realistic novel, an excellent (and classic) account of a young man coming to terms with who he is and what he can and cannot do, in defiance of the world around him. Without knowing more about Maugham's life, I cannot tell how autobiographical it is, but it is written so that it rings true as a story.