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A review by kevin_shepherd
The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
5.0
“Lift not the painted veil which those who live call life.” ~Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1824
Novels like The Painted Veil and Wuthering Heights are about as close to the “romance” genre as I get. I can’t say these books are uplifting, on the contrary, both are downright depressing. So why are both so readable? Maybe dysfunctional relationships make better copy? Are they more cerebral? Or are they just train wrecks from which I cannot look away?
I do admire the way Somerset Maugham writes women. Authors like Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) and Stuart Woods (Desperate Measures) seem to struggle with it but Maugham makes it look easy. Kitty Garstin, Maugham’s protagonist, is dimensional and blemished and real. I didn’t like her, at least not at first, but I felt I knew her. She is a character that will stick with me for a long, long time.
“Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.”
Novels like The Painted Veil and Wuthering Heights are about as close to the “romance” genre as I get. I can’t say these books are uplifting, on the contrary, both are downright depressing. So why are both so readable? Maybe dysfunctional relationships make better copy? Are they more cerebral? Or are they just train wrecks from which I cannot look away?
I do admire the way Somerset Maugham writes women. Authors like Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) and Stuart Woods (Desperate Measures) seem to struggle with it but Maugham makes it look easy. Kitty Garstin, Maugham’s protagonist, is dimensional and blemished and real. I didn’t like her, at least not at first, but I felt I knew her. She is a character that will stick with me for a long, long time.
“Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.”