The Painted Veil
by W. Somerset Maugham
★★★★★
Kitty is a young woman who got
married for all the wrong reasons and doesn’t love her husband, Walter. She
rushed to marry after realizing her younger sister might beat her down the
aisle. Walter is a nice but boring man who takes his wife to Hong Kong in the
1920s where he works for his work as a bacteriologist. She quickly falls in
love with a dashing married man named Charlie and they embark on an affair. When
her husband discovers the relationship he gives Kitty two options: she can get
divorced and married Charlie or she can travel with him into the midst of
cholera outbreak in mainland China.
That whirlwind of events happens in
the very beginning of the book. The vapid Kitty reminds me so much of Daisy
Buchanan. She shares her selfishness and disenchantment with life. But while Daisy
never really changes, Kitty’s transformation throughout the novel provides a
poignant picture. Spending time with the nuns leads her to re-evaluate her life,
but it doesn’t change who she is as a person. The story is realistic in that
sense. She becomes more aware of who she is and what wrong with the choices she
has made, but that doesn’t make her a better person overnight.
While living in the mainland Kitty
and Walter meet Waddington, a British officer who has been living there for
quite a while. His objective point of view and direct personality give the
audience a unique view of the estranged couple. Waddington talks to Kitty about
both Walter and Charles, opening her eyes to the real nature of both men.
One of the most fascinating aspects
of the book is the exploration of love. It refuses to follow logic, which is
both its beauty and its tragedy. We so often fall in love with the person who
is the worst for us and we can’t make ourselves love someone if we feel nothing
for them. We see this over and over again through Kitty, Walter and even
Waddington. Love defies common sense, which often has tragic results.
**SPOILERS**
At first I was disappointed when
Kitty returns to Hong Kong and seems to fall into her old patterns, but by the
end I thought that whole section was beautifully handled. We needed to see
Kitty back in that environment to see whether or not Walter’s death and her
work with the French nuns changed her permanently or not. Her conversation at
the very end of the novel with her father makes it clear that she realized how
spoiled she was and that she wants to change, she also wants something better
for her own child. She’s no longer content to live a sheltered existence in a
big city being treated as someone’s property.
**SPOILERS OVER**
BOTTOM LINE: This story was just
gorgeous. Kitty’s transformation and her slowly changing view of the world were
beautifully conveyed. I know I’ll return to this one.
“I have an idea that the only thing
which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the
beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint,
the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all
these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of
art.”
“One cannot find peace in work or in
pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.”
“She could not admit but that he had
remarkable qualities, sometimes she thought that there was even in him a
strange and unattractive greatness; it was curious then that she could not love
him, but loved still a man whose worthlessness was now so clear to her.”
