"Him."Quote:
Originally Posted by chmpman
Well, I hated the characters, and all the decisions they made frustrated me. I came away completely exasperated and wanting to get away from these people, perhaps after having given them a good smack first. Then it occurred to me that had they behaved any differently, it wouldn't have been true to character. They had to do the things as they did, because that's just who they were. But "they" weren't really anybody; they came out of Maugham's head, and he could have made them behave differently, but he didn't. He wrote them as real people, and real people are damned frustrating. And, after all, that is the entire point of the book: freedom of choice is, in a way, Fate itself, because our personal temperaments will almost always lead us ultimately to make the same decisions. Given a thousand chances at the same choice, our decision—and, hence, destiny—will still ultimately be determined by the type of person we are and the experiences we've had. In the end, the book was almost like turning a video camera on at age 9 and turning it off again at age 30 (or whatever it was), and whatever is captured is what makes the story. I was struck by the thought that it takes immense skill to write so objectively on a subject that isn't even really there.
Anyway. Same Q.
