When I was thirteen or thereabouts, my dad, fed up with my Agatha Christie and Barbara Cartland binge-reading phase, pointed me in the direction of four fat compilations of W. Somerset Maugham’s short stories.
I reluctantly went in expecting some stuffy writing, but I ended up loving the stories. Maugham has a way of conveying a whole lot of story and emotion in just a few pages, and I don’t think I have read a better writer in the short story format since then.
However, I never really got around to his longer books, and now, after reading The Painted Veil, I aim to fix that gap!
About The Painted Veil
Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, The Painted Veil is the story of the beautiful, but love-starved Kitty Fane.
When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to the heart of a cholera epidemic. Stripped of the British society of her youth and the small but effective society she fought so hard to attain in Hong Kong, she is compelled by her awakening conscience to reassess her life and learn how to love.
~ Synopsis from goodreads
My Review
If I had to describe this book in one word, it would be lush. Atmospheric, detailed, interior, but surprisingly fast-paced. I read it in like 2 days, and at no point did I have any inkling of how it would end. Though the characters are all familiar types from the Maugham oeuvre, they all ended up doing something unexpected.
Kitty is the protagonist of this novel, and we are pretty much in her head all the way through the book. In the beginning, she is shallow, pretty, cynical, attracting all the wrong men. But her story arc took a very unexpected turn, an almost feminist turn? That was unexpected, and if this book were by an anonymous writer, I would have assumed the author to be a woman. I was that surprised by Maugham’s insights into women. He writes stupid, silly women very well, and practical, plain women very well, but that Kitty turned out to be intelligent and capable of growth, learning, and self-realization was a pleasant surprise for me. Her search for spiritual fulfillment and meaning of life was also very touching.
However, by the end of the book, an incident suggests that her self-development and growth may be temporary, and that it would be quite easy for her to fall back into her old ways. This cynicism, and the fact that there is no clear closure between Kitty and Walter, marred my enjoyment a bit. I would have also liked a little more clarity into Walter’s character. It makes sense that he remains obscure, as he is viewed only through Kitty’s lens, and she finds him incomprehensible. I hope the movie starring Naomi Watts and Ed Norton will be a more balanced character study.
Coming soon – a book vs movie post. I think there will be a lot to unpack in this one.
