The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
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Book Reviews of The Painted Veil
Book Review: Poetic
Summary: 5 Stars
The book was short and very sweet. Though tragic, it was a coming of age for women caught up in superficial relationships. Why is it that we don't know what we have until we lose it?Book Review: the painted veil book
Summary: 5 Stars
I enjoyed the book very much, I saw the movie on tv first and then wanted to read the book. I got very good service from amazon also.Book Review: Excellent literature
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought the book to have a comparison with the recent movie version. Always interesting to notice the difference.Book Review: Very human view of society, class, and culture.
Summary: 4 Stars
Pity how many Amazon.com user's reviews are mostly those who are slamming the book AFTER they see a Hollywood film version of it. Doubly so for a film that is produced some 80 years after the book is published.
IF YOU ARE LOOKING TO RELIVE A MOVIE, DO NOT PICK UP THE BOOK THAT WAS WRITTEN FIRST. Seriously. See the movie again. Don't complain about the book being different from the movie. There are things like dead authors that scriptwriters cannot consult with. There are budgets. There are actors who are unable to portray the character the way that the writer intended. There are movie studios that hammer out a long listing of demands and restrictions, like length of the film and where it can be shot, etc. Don't ever expect a book to be like a movie, and vice versa. Unreal.
***Spoilers below***
Kitty Garstin is the elder daughter of a controlling woman and her put-upon, beleaguered husband. Mr. Garstin has never lived up to his wife's expectations, and neither has Kitty. She's unmarried and bordering spinsterhood (according to 1920s standards - NOT 2006 WHEN THE MOVIE WAS MADE). She meets Dr. Walter Fane, a bacteriologist and also an M.D. who is a public servant in Hong Kong. As Kitty's younger sister, Doris, is marrying a baron, and Kitty feels pressure to marry and leave her father's home.
Kitty impulsively accepts Walter's unexpected proposal of marriage, knowing fully that she does not love him. Walter immediately takes Kitty to live with him in Hong Kong, where she enters colonial society. She very soon meets the Townsends and begins an affair with Charlie, a forty-something colonial secretary. Walter discovers the affair and demands that Kitty accompany him to a remote village, Mei-fan-tu, which has been overrun with a cholera epidemic ... certain death for them both.
Kitty balks and refuses to go to Mei-fan-tu, and Walter agrees to divorce Kitty quietly only if Charlie will divorce his wife AND immediately marry Kitty. He does this knowing that Charlie will not leave his wife for Kitty, which Kitty soon discovers. Since Kitty cannot procure a divorce and remarriage with Charlie, she leaves Hong Kong with Walter, who shows her no kindness.
The majority of the novel is Kitty's personal growth in Mei-fan-tu. She discovers that her husband is selfless and adored by the nuns who run the hospital he does his research and treats the cholera patients at. The other characters here, particularly British civil servant Waddington and the French Mother Superior, are well-written and assist Kitty in growing from a petulant, selfish young girl to a humbled, generous woman. She works with the Chinese orphans and from a distance understands the extent of the cholera epidemic swirling around her. Quite unexpectedly, she discovers that she is pregnant. She tells Walter, who has barely warmed to her, and he asks if the child is his. She knows that it is not, and in fact it is Charlie Townsend's, but doesn't lie to Walter to gain his love and trust back.
Walter eventually catches cholera and his death is quick; Kitty barely has time to prepare for it. She is shocked at how little she grieves for him, and tries to continue the life she has built in Mei-fan-tu ... her friendly, platonic relationship with Waddington, her friendships with the nuns, and the work that she does with the orphans. She soon discovers that pregnant or not, she soon realises that her place is not in Mei-fan-tu. The nuns ask her not to return to work as it is too dangerous, and packs up what little she has in Mei-fan-tu and returns to her home in Hong Kong.
Upon her return to Hong Kong, she is unexpectedly met by Charlie Townsend's wife, Dorothy. Dorothy admits that she thought that Kitty was quite vulgar when they lived in Hong Kong at the same time, and felt horrible about it. She begs Kitty to stay with her and Charlie as it was too overwhelming for Kitty to return to her home. Kitty reluctantly agrees and avoids Charlie, but eventually Charlie worms his way into Kitty's room and takes advantage of her weak emotional state. Until Charlie approaches her, Kitty has never really grieved for Walter, but breaks down into heaving sobs ... and Charlie pounces on her sexually. It is a consensual sexual act as Kitty is reminded of the passion between them, but hates herself afterward and leaves the Townsend's home immediately to return to her parents' home.
En route to England, she finds that her mother has died, but not without some coarse words from her via post before she dies. She arrives home to find that her father has finally been awarded the Chief Justice position in the Bahamas, ironically after Mrs. Garstin had pushed him into such a role for their entire marriage - she never lived to see it. Mr. Garstin is finally free of the women in his life and looking forward to starting out again on his own. Kitty begs him to take her with him, and he reluctantly agrees. The book ends with an odd kiss to Kitty from her father ("on the lips, almost like a lover"), and her declaring that she would raise her unborn daughter (she is sure it was a girl) to be independent and not befall the same marital/extra-marital fate that Kitty had.
Overall, it is beautifully written. The chapters are very short and quite descriptive, so it's easy to paint a picture in your mind. Maugham's writing style is very easy to follow; not too dense or too simplistic. The story is tragic yet very human, and Kitty is easy to identify with. Very well done, and I highly recommend it.
Unless, that is, you've seen the movie first.
Book Review: "As If a Woman Ever Loved a Man for his Virtue..."
Summary: 4 Stars
I discovered W. Somerset Maugham's novel after the release of the adaptation starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts. Though it is a beautifully performed and filmed movie, I found that it was quite different in essentials from the book. Whilst the film heightens the love story between an estranged husband and wife, the book is much more interested in the spiritual awakening of Kitty and her relationship with the world.
Kitty Garstin is a beautiful but shallow woman, who marries bacteriologist Walter Fane in order to escape spinsterhood and her controlling mother. She travels with him to Hong Kong, only to find that she's bored and unsatisfied with the marriage despite her husband's adoration for her, and soon enough she's fallen into an affair with the charismatic and exciting Charles Townsend. But when Walter finds out, Kitty discovers that he has more pride than she gave him credit for. He delivers an ultimatum: if she cannot get Charles to divorce his wife, then Kitty has to accompany him to a new posting in the midst of a cholera epidemic.
Sure enough, Charles is proven to be something of a cad, and a rather shell-shocked Kitty finds herself shipped into midland China. Yet it is there that she begins to discover that there's more to life than her cosseted and luxurious lifestyle. In the midst of death and disease, Kitty gradually learns more about herself and her place in the world, the people who surround her and the way in which she affects them.
Unlike the film, the book is told entirely from Kitty's point of view and remains a character-study of a young woman's emotional growth throughout. Walter remains a distant figure who exists only in relation to Kitty, and the historical context of China remains unexplored. Unlike the film, Kitty never comes to love Walter, and there's no insight on Chinese culture whatsoever, only that Kitty doesn't understand it and is interested in it insofar that it is alien to her, opening up the possibility that she's incomplete.
The title is taken from a Percy Shelley's sonnet, which begins with "lift not the painted veil which those who live call Life," a quote that is open to wide interpretation as to how it relates to the text. Kitty herself remains close to both life and death throughout the story, both by living in the midst of an epidemic and her later pregnancy, and there always seems to be a "veil" between herself and the things that she desires. It's clear that she's searching for something, though not even she knows what it is, and the book doesn't necessarily end on a clear and decisive note. She's not the same woman she was at the beginning of the book, but it's clear that she's still young, and still has much growing to do.
Maugham writes in delicate prose and though he doesn't offer much description in the way of the setting or time period, his portrayal of Kitty's though-process manages to be realistic and sympathetic even as she's being utterly selfish. Anyone looking for a historical novel or a romance will be disappointed, for "The Painted Veil" is a character study first and foremost. Though it is not the best of its genre, it is still a memorable and beautifully written novel.