The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham

[Irrish]

First off, I wanted to introduce myself...been reading posts for awhile and have always enjoyed myself as a guest; so I figured I'd make it offical :). Glad to be aboard.

Anyways, I'm currently reading Maugham's The Razor's Edge and have found myself quite parallel too Larry's character. Although I'm only 110 pages in, I'm sure I'll find him not as appealing as I have so far. Though I did want to discuss the book (hopefully I can finish it fairly soon).

I enjoy reading all your comments (as usual). Thanks!

-Irrish

[subterranean]

Hi, Irrish. I haven't read "The Razor's Edge" nor his masterpiece "On Human Bondage". However I once read that he and his works often compared with Chekov (being both as writer and physician) and Guy de Maupassant (plot characteristic).

Welcome on board :wave:

[Darlin]

Like Sub I haven't read the Razor's Edge but welcome, Irrish. :wave:

[starrwriter]

I'm currently reading Maugham's The Razor's Edge and have found myself quite parallel too Larry's character. Although I'm only 110 pages in, I'm sure I'll find him not as appealing as I have so far. Though I did want to discuss the book (hopefully I can finish it fairly soon).
Welcome and thanks for mentioning "The Razor's Edge." It was the first serious literature I ever read (at the age of 15) and I was so impressed I changed my reading habits. Looking forward to discussing the novel with you after you finish.

[LuggageFan]

I was at the Barnes & Noble earlier, and browsing the literature, I happened upon a copy of Razor's Edge. Remembering a prior thread here about the book, I picked it up and just read the first paragraph.

I'm really not as much into classics as I am schlocky thrillers and crappy stuf, but on this, I am not kidding - I can tell just from that paragraph that I would love that book. The writing is eloquent and just a joy to read.

[Emil Miller]

I was at the Barnes & Noble earlier, and browsing the literature, I happened upon a copy of Razor's Edge. Remembering a prior thread here about the book, I picked it up and just read the first paragraph.

I'm really not as much into classics as I am schlocky thrillers and crappy stuf, but on this, I am not kidding - I can tell just from that paragraph that I would love that book. The writing is eloquent and just a joy to read.

It's one of Maugham's best. If you have, as you say, been reading rubbish then welcome to the world of real writing.

[dfloyd]

I have read the book multiple times, listened to the unabridged cd several times, and viewed the movie at least thee times. The movie, made in 1945 I believe, is one of those movies every bit as good as the book. It is excellently cast with Tyrone Power as Larry, Herbert Marshall as Maugham himself, Clifton Webb as Elliot who has his underwear embroidered with his self appointed coronet, and the beautiful Gene Tierney whom Larry rejects to pursue his own way in life. Somwhere in there is John Payne, the husband of Gene Tierney. Don't even think about seeing the one with Bill Murray. That one is better off forgotten.

[country doctor]

the doc was a big fan of 'of human bondage'...just an excellent book...picked up 'the razor's edge' last year at a library book sale for a dollar and finally cracked into it this weekend...in these two books maugham has surely impressed the doc w/ his writing...as an aside, like the line that he has in this book when talking to larry in the library along the lines that if you don't have any talent you can always become a writer...wonder if he felt this way about his own abilities?

that typed, the doc has always seen that his work has gotten short shrift when compiling the annals of great literature...maybe not justifiably so from what the doc's read so far...

[dfloyd]

After finishing Razor's Edge, try The Moon and Sixpence and Cakes and Ale, the fictional life of Paul Gauguin and Thomas Hardy, respectively.

Maugham's short stories are volumnious. I have them all in four volumes and have read them all.

His masterpiece, Of Human Bondage, should of course be read. It is long but enjoyable. I have waded through it twice.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Recently completed "The Moon and Sixpence" and found it to be a wonderful read. I was considering following up with either the "Razors Edge" or "Of Human Bondage", but a little bird suggested I consider "The Narrow Corner" as an alternative.
.

[country doctor]

After finishing Razor's Edge, try The Moon and Sixpence and Cakes and Ale, the fictional life of Paul Gauguin and Thomas Hardy, respectively.

Maugham's short stories are volumnious. I have them all in four volumes and have read them all.

His masterpiece, Of Human Bondage, should of course be read. It is long but enjoyable. I have waded through it twice.

the doc will store those titles in the memory bank...so many books, and so little time you know...

seems that you're also giving his shorter works the thumbs up...will be on the lookout for anything by him at the book sales...

as far as 'the razor's edge'? about 1/3 through and enjoying it immensely...fast read...

the doc's older and he doesn't have 8 to 10 hours to devote to reading like larry does right now, but he's in tune w/ the drift of where larry's headed...

instead of loafing and reading, the doc likes to read and exercise...about three hours a day of reading is what the doc is able to get to this summer...but he can't blame larry for searching out knowledge instead of selling bonds...gotta agree w/ the priorities...

ROAR!

[dfloyd]

the four volume collected short stories of Maugham published by the Foilio Society. Each volume is not too large, but the stories are great. I particularly like Rain and The Hairless Mexican.

[Emil Miller]

Recently completed "The Moon and Sixpence" and found it to be a wonderful read. I was considering following up with either the "Razors Edge" or "Of Human Bondage", but a little bird suggested I consider "The Narrow Corner" as an alternative.
.

Well don't forget the Razor's Edge Gillatt. If you think, as many obviously do, that The Sun Also Rises epitomises Americans in post WW1 France, The Razor's Edge is, to my mind, a sharper observation because it is looking from the outside into the scenario and really shows how different they were from the indigenous population. Anyone who isn't touched by the fate of Sophie MacDonald isn't human. A marvellous read by any standard.

[country doctor]

After finishing Razor's Edge, try The Moon and Sixpence and Cakes and Ale, the fictional life of Paul Gauguin and Thomas Hardy, respectively.

Maugham's short stories are volumnious. I have them all in four volumes and have read them all.

His masterpiece, Of Human Bondage, should of course be read. It is long but enjoyable. I have waded through it twice.

the doc scored at his latest library book sales...was able to pick up a hard copy of 'the moon and sixpence' and another hard copy of 'of human bondage' along w/ some short stories and if the doc remembers correctly a play and maybe an essay or something...it was an old book...

the doc has read 'of human bondage' already...and someday he'll read it again, but it was for the other works mainly that he made the purchase...

[Emil Miller]

the doc scored at his latest library book sales...was able to pick up a hard copy of 'the moon and sixpence' and another hard copy of 'of human bondage' along w/ some short stories and if the doc remembers correctly a play and maybe an essay or something...it was an old book...

the doc has read 'of human bondage' already...and someday he'll read it again, but it was for the other works mainly that he made the purchase...

If you haven't read them already you are to be envied because they are prime works by the best storyteller of the 20th century and I've read the works of plenty of others. Every American of a literary inclination should read The Razor's Edge.

[country doctor]

After finishing Razor's Edge, try The Moon and Sixpence and Cakes and Ale, the fictional life of Paul Gauguin and Thomas Hardy, respectively.

Maugham's short stories are volumnious. I have them all in four volumes and have read them all.

His masterpiece, Of Human Bondage, should of course be read. It is long but enjoyable. I have waded through it twice.

the doc was able to read a few of his short stories, essays and 'summing up' this summer...now he's reading the 2010 bio...

the doc's gonna be searching for those short story volumes (and anything else he's written), on his book sale haunts...

ROAR!

[dfloyd]

Clifton Webb's performance as Elliott is to be admired. Also, Herbert Marshal as Maugham. I like th way Maugham weaves real life into his stories. The artist Larry lives with for a time is Marie Laurencin, who was a quite popular French artist of the 20s and 30s.

[country doctor]

elliot is quite the character...

the doc wants to get his hands on some more of those short stories though...

there's a book sale at the neighboring town's library november 3...hopefully something will be there...

[tonywalt]

I will begin reading the above book this week, if anyone else is reading it or would like to read it, then let's chat/discuss. Maugham's writing, and this book in particular, have a philosophical message in the text that is very enlightening.

[cafolini]

A God that can be understood is no God. Who can explain the Infinite in words? ~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge, 1943

[Emil Miller]

I will begin reading the above book this week, if anyone else is reading it or would like to read it, then let's chat/discuss. Maugham's writing, and this book in particular, have a philosophical message in the text that is very enlightening.

I never cease to champion this book as being one of Maugham's finest but I've read it so often that I don't need to read it again. There's a lot of personal philosophy in his books as he spent a year at the University of Heidelberg studying the subject and held an interest in it throughout his long and adventurous life. The Razor's Edge is Maugham's take on the philosophy of Hinduism, and the book's title is an extract from a Hindu text. Setting aside the philosophical aspect, the story is told in Maugham's intelligently constructed style with character's that are totally believable despite the fact that they are mostly American rather than his own countrymen who usually make up the dramatis personae of his other novels.
The story moves effortlessly between post-war USA in 1919, then France and India and ends on an ironic note that perfectly sums up Maugham's view that nothing matters very much on what, after all, is merely a speck of dust floating among countless others in space.

[WyattGwyon]

I will begin reading the above book this week, if anyone else is reading it or would like to read it, then let's chat/discuss. Maugham's writing, and this book in particular, have a philosophical message in the text that is very enlightening.

I'll try to look it over again. I discovered Maugham recently because the local library where I am currently living (out in the wilderness of the Adirondacks) has a very small, odd, and perhaps antiquated collection. Lots of Maugham, no Cormac McCarthy or Nabokov or David Foster Wallace or Gaddis or . . . well, you get the idea.

[tonywalt]

I never cease to champion this book as being one of Maugham's finest but I've read it so often that I don't need to read it again. There's a lot of personal philosophy in his books as he spent a year at the University of Heidelberg studying the subject and held an interest in it throughout his long and adventurous life. The Razor's Edge is Maugham's take on the philosophy of Hinduism, and the book's title is an extract from a Hindu text. Setting aside the philosophical aspect, the story is told in Maugham's intelligently constructed style with character's that are totally believable despite the fact that they are mostly American rather than his own countrymen who usually make up the dramatis personae of his other novels.
The story moves effortlessly between post-war USA in 1919, then France and India and ends on an ironic note that perfectly sums up Maugham's view that nothing matters very much on what, after all, is merely a speck of dust floating among countless others in space.

Emil, I agree with you on this book. I do not read much fiction, but if I had realised the book so well written and with a simple but impacting philosophy, I would have read it years ago.

[Emil Miller]

Emil, I agree with you on this book. I do not read much fiction, but if I had realised the book so well written and with a simple but impacting philosophy, I would have read it years ago.

I've discussed this book with a number of people and haven't found one that wasn't taken with it. One of the greatest travellers in modern literature, he knew what he was writing about and was actually living in the USA during the 1940s when he wrote it, his home in the south of France having been overrun by the Germans.
I don't know how far you have got with the book but there are scenes that are so vivid that they stay in the memory long after it's finished. Such is the power of Maugham's description, I never go to Paris without thinking of them and wishing I'd known the city during that time. The characters are drawn with great skill, which shows Maugham's own declared interest in human nature, and the scenes in the south of France are those he lived with when he wasn't travelling to the Far East and elsewhere in search of material for his books.
It surprises me that although this is an American website, relatively few of its US members have read a book that describes them so accurately.

[aliengirl]

I've just finished 'The Razor's Edge' which I picked up randomly in the library. This is the first time I've read anything by Maugham and being one of those who like a 'success story' I was not disappointed. :nod: Full of interesting yet believable characters and philosophy of Vedanta, it turned out to be a very engaging read. As I'm already acquainted with Hinduism and also the teachings of Ramakrishna, I sailed through the part where Larry narrates his experience in India without getting bored (before which the reader is warned that it can be skipped).

@ Tony - As you have just began reading it, I'll not spoil your fun by alluding to various incidents in the novel. I'll be happy to join the discussion when you're ready for it.

[tonywalt]

I've just finished 'The Razor's Edge' which I picked up randomly in the library. This is the first time I've read anything by Maugham and being one of those who like a 'success story' I was not disappointed. :nod: Full of interesting yet believable characters and philosophy of Vedanta, it turned out to be a very engaging read. As I'm already acquainted with Hinduism and also the teachings of Ramakrishna, I sailed through the part where Larry narrates his experience in India without getting bored (before which the reader is warned that it can be skipped).

@ Tony - As you have just began reading it, I'll not spoil your fun by alluding to various incidents in the novel. I'll be happy to join the discussion when you're ready for it.

AG - no problem. I am 70 percent thru the book, almost finished:driving:

[Emil Miller]

AG - no problem. I am 70 percent thru the book, almost finished:driving:

Don't forget to come back and let us know what you thought of it.

[Kafka's Crow]

What a revelation! I had always thought of Maugham as an over-anthologized British author from that era, a later-day Saki or something but how wrong could I be. I would rate this book up there with The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot and The Magic Mountain, highest and the best (in my humble opinion) of philosophical novels. Are there any other books like this out there who unashamedly ask us about the purpose of life? I liked this speech by the omniscient Dostoevskian narrator very much:


"I only wanted to suggest to you that self-sacrifice
is a passion so overwhelming that beside it even lust and
hunger are trifling. It whirls its victim to destruction in
the highest affirmation of his personality. The object
doesn't matter; it may be worth while or it may be worthless.
No wine is so intoxicating, no love so shattering, no vice so
compelling. When he sacrifices himself man, for a moment, is
greater than God, for how can God, infinite and omnipotent,
sacrifice himself? At best he can only sacrifice his only
begotten son."
"Oh, Christ, how you bore me," said Isabel.
I paid no attention.
"How can you suppose that common sense or prudence
will have any effect on Larry when he's in the grip of a
passion like that? You don't know what he's been seeking
all these years. I don't know either, I only suspect. All
these years of labour, all these experiences he garnered
weigh nothing in the balance now they're set against his
desire—oh, it's more than a desire, his urgent, clamorous
need to save the soul of a wanton woman whom he'd
known as an innocent child. I think you're right, I think
he's undertaking a hopeless job; with his acute sensibility
he'll suffer the tortures of the damned; his life's work,
whatever it may be, will remain undone. The ignoble
Paris killed Achilles by shooting an arrow in his heel. Larry
lacks just that touch of ruthlessness that even the saint
must have to win his halo."

[Scheherazade]

I've discussed this book with a number of people and haven't found one that wasn't taken with it. Now you have!

I have just finished reading this book and I am quite disappointed. I did not care much about the characters, the story itself and Maugham's obsession with good looks and fashion.

Felt as if I was re-reading Gatsby in some ways - only that Razor lacks its charms.

[Emil Miller]

Now you have!

I have just finished reading this book and I am quite disappointed. I did not care much about the characters, the story itself and Maugham's obsession with good looks and fashion.

Felt as if I was re-reading Gatsby in some ways - only that Razor lacks its charms.

This is the first time I have heard anyone mention Maugham's 'obsession' with good looks and fashion. I don't recall it myself but there you are.
While literature is naturally subjective, for someone to dislike both The Razor's Edge and The Great Gatsby is interesting to say the least.

[Scheherazade]

In Razor, he mentions at different places that as long as someone looked good, he wouldn't mind having their company... That their good looks would excuse their other failings while he could not stand being in the company of someone with a "disagreeable" nose, say.

I will try to locate the passages, if you like, when I am able to get my copy again.

Also, I did not mean to suggest that I did not like Gatsby. On the contrary, it is one of my favourite books; however, Razor, seeming to tell a story of a similar group, fails to charm, in my opinion.

[WyattGwyon]

I have just finished reading this book and I am quite disappointed. I did not care much about the characters, the story itself and Maugham's obsession with good looks and fashion.


Yes! And the dental obsession especially. You can feel his narrators staring; "Hey buddy, my eyes are up here! Are you ogling my bosom?" . . . "My teeth? Seriously?" Makes me think of Graham Chapman with two-foot incisors.

[cafolini]

Veeeeeeeeeeeeeery interesting. LOL

[Emil Miller]

In Razor, he mentions at different places that as long as someone looked good, he wouldn't mind having their company... That their good looks would excuse their other failings while he could not stand being in the company of someone with a "disagreeable" nose, say.

I will try to locate the passages, if you like, when I am able to get my copy again.

Also, I did not mean to suggest that I did not like Gatsby. On the contrary, it is one of my favourite books; however, Razor, seeming to tell a story of a similar group, fails to charm, in my opinion.

Well I'm glad that Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece is appreciated but saying that you didn't like The Razor's Edge equates, to my mind, with an adult saying that they like Harry Potter :lol:

[Scheherazade]

Or it is possible to suggest that anyone who enjoys The Razor's Edge is bound to like Harry Potter as well. Maybe you should give it a try, Emil.

From Razor:

One of the defects of my character is that I can never grow used to the plainness of people; however sweet a disposition a friend of mine may have, years of intimacy can never reconcile me to his bad teeth or lopsided nose: on the other hand, I never cease to delight in his comeliness and after twenty years of familiarity, I am still able to take pleasure in a well-shaped brow or the delicate line of a cheekbone. The book is full of references to clothing and how people looked good (or not).

[Emil Miller]

Or it is possible to suggest that anyone who enjoys The Razor's Edge is bound to like Harry Potter as well. Maybe you should give it a try, Emil.

From Razor:
The book is full of references to clothing and how people looked good (or not).

This is a device Maugham used in a number of his works in which he played the narrator who, while remaining on the outside of the events related, gives himself countenance by making abstract references to the characters or observations on life in general which go beyond personal appearance.

As for my reading Harry Potter, I think I will wait until I'm in my second childhood, although I doubt that I would have bothered with it first time round.

[country doctor]

BUCKLE UP!

well maugham short story fans, the doc finally found what all of you told him he should be looking for this summer...at a library used book sale he scored w/ a book of 65 maugham short stories for two bucks!

and after finishin' up w/ his other summer readin' projects he was able to crack it open yesterday...the first story was, indeed, 'rain'...the story that was mentioned earlier...good story...now working on story number two and it's got the doc's attention as well...this is gonna be very enjoyable to work through in the weeks ahead...

ROAR!

[cafolini]

BUCKLE UP!

well maugham short story fans, the doc finally found what all of you told him he should be looking for this summer...at a library used book sale he scored w/ a book of 65 maugham short stories for two bucks!

and after finishin' up w/ his other summer readin' projects he was able to crack it open yesterday...the first story was, indeed, 'rain'...the story that was mentioned earlier...good story...now working on story number two and it's got the doc's attention as well...this is gonna be very enjoyable to work through in the weeks ahead...

ROAR!

Good buy, Doc. Probably one of the best two dollars you'll ever spend. Maugham is an extraordinary ride into scientific eternity. God be with you.

[mal4mac]

Here's Hitchens, with help from Burgess and Wodehouse, doing a destruction job on Maugham:

'Here is the opening sentence of Anthony Burgess's Earthly Powers (1980)—incidentally, one of the most underrated English novels of the past century: "It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me."

One knows at once who is the object of this pastiche. One knows it before "Geoffrey," described tersely as "my Ganymede or male lover as well as my secretary," is further described as responding to the intrusion by "pulling on his overtight summer slacks." Yet one is tempted to continue quoting, about the Mediterranean villa and the goings-on there ("I lay a little while, naked, mottled, sallow, emaciated, smoking a cigarette that should have been postcoital but was not"). This is quite simply because the parody is so much better than anything that W. Somerset Maugham ever wrote himself. Poor old "Willie" was more given to openings like this: "I have never begun a novel with more misgiving. If I call it a novel it is only because I don't know what else to call it."

Thus the deadly kickoff to The Razor's Edge, a story that furthermore turns out to be narrated by someone named Maugham. There was a time when many readers thought this kind of thing to be profound, and quite the cat's meow when it came to the delineation of searing human emotion. Even at that time, however, one shrewd writer—and also near-perfect pasticheur—saw through it without too much difficulty. "How about old S. Maugham, do you think?" P. G. Wodehouse wrote to Evelyn Waugh.

I've been re-reading a lot of his stuff, and I'm wondering a bit about him. I mean, surely one simply can't do that stuff about the district officer hearing there's a white man dying in a Chinese slum and it turns out that it's gay lighthearted Jack Almond, who disappeared and no-one knew what had become of [him] and he went right under, poor chap, because a woman in England had let him down.

Well, it turned out that one simply could do that stuff, and go on doing it...'

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2004/05/hitchens.htm

[Diar624]

one of my fave books, he is truly one of my fave authors; i've read all his fiction in print: his style is so easy and unpretentious and he is a storyteller, which is what all fiction writers should be, without hitting you with dogma and ideology.

[Emil Miller]

Here's Hitchens, with help from Burgess and Wodehouse, doing a destruction job on Maugham:

:lol: People have been trying to do a destruction job on Maugham practically from the moment he started to be published over a hundred years ago and yet he is still in print and readily available from libraries and bookshops, which must give even the most self-important of his detractors pause for thought.
Maugham admitted that he wasn't in the front rank of writers because he was a storyteller first and a man of letters second. I doubt very much that any of his critics could write a novel as amusing and with such telling observation of another writer (Thomas Hardy) than Maugham's Cakes and Ale.
Moreover, his experiences in practically every corner of the globe gave him an insight into human nature seldom matched by any other writer and it's amusing to read his critics carping when they haven't produced anything like the body of work that Maugham did over a career spanning almost sixty years.
I wouldn't attempt to defend Maugham as a man, because he was a nasty piece of work. When I visited the Villa Mauresque during the 1970s I spoke to some of his neighbours who were too embarrassed to talk about the things that went on during Maugham's lifetime, but if literature is about telling an engaging story that also increases our knowledge of the world, then Maugham will more than fit the bill for most people's purposes.

[Seasider]

I recently read "The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham" by Selina Hastings.Always been a fan of Maugham and really interested on how his early experiences produced the man he became. I think he would have been less of a cynic and a snob if he had been able to be more truthful about his feelings and desires. I recommend it.

[country doctor]

BUCKLE UP!

emil's words about maugham's self-assessment are correct...but he might have short-changed himself a bit as time goes by for his rank as a writer...as for his life as a semi-closeted gay man...well...it had to be difficult...

the short stories w/ the south pacific locale have been excellent, general literature chatters...and the doc has many more stories to go...

ROAR!

[Emil Miller]

:lol: People have been trying to do a destruction job on Maugham practically from the moment he started to be published over a hundred years ago and yet he is still in print and readily available from libraries and bookshops, which must give even the most self-important of his detractors pause for thought.

http://youtu.be/A2p_ymaM8KA

[country doctor]

BUCKLE UP!

well maugham short story fans, the doc finally found what all of you told him he should be looking for this summer...at a library used book sale he scored w/ a book of 65 maugham short stories for two bucks!

and after finishin' up w/ his other summer readin' projects he was able to crack it open yesterday...the first story was, indeed, 'rain'...the story that was mentioned earlier...good story...now working on story number two and it's got the doc's attention as well...this is gonna be very enjoyable to work through in the weeks ahead...

ROAR!

BUCKLE UP!

well, general lit chatters...the doc's circa 80 percent through these 65 stories and they've been a literary treat...tryin' to read one a nite...two when they're real short which is pretty rare...most run about 20-25 pages...

and they're all entertaining in their own way, general lit chatters...no real slogging through any of 'em...and it wouldn't be much of a slog anyways when it's a short story...but empire and bridge playin' are two of the constants...and the spy stories were excellent...

one story he'll mention though right now...'mr. harrington's washing'...this is one of the spy stories...it's got it all in this one, general lit chatters...plot...sub-plot...suspense...and what the doc really enjoyed was the character drawing of mr. harrington, an american of english descent...very realistic depiction in the doc's opinion of such an american...

put the 65 short stories on your christmas wish-list and you'll have a happy 2014, general lit chatters...

the doc'll vouch for that...

ROAR!