The Razor's Edge (Vintage International)

Some critics over the years have claimed that Somerset Maugham lacks imagination and that his style is far from elegant. I can agree that his style is plain, but if indeed he is not imaginative, his powers of observation and description are nothing short of astounding. After reading the whole book, I can’t say with absolute certainty if it is just a novel, a memoir, or a fictionalized account of the author’s own experiences and encounters during the interwar period. There are no uninteresting people in this book. The author shows understanding and compassion towards even the characters he least identifies with. There is something attractive (and sometimes redeeming) in each of them. The story takes place mainly in Paris, with extended scenes in Illinois, the French Riviera, and London. There is also a description of a journey one of the characters takes through Europe and all the way to Southern India. Most of the characters are American, and Maugham makes a disclaimer in his introduction, saying that only people raised in a particular culture can understand that culture. As a result, he insists these people are Americans as viewed by an Englishman. I don’t think this was necessary. Though I am not an American myself, I saw nothing artificial or unrealistic about the characters compared to those we meet in American novels. People are people, and, with his compassionate look, Maugham makes us identify with everyone in turn, from the spiritual seeker to the lost soul, the ambitious snob, the limited but honest businessman, the vain housewife, the kept mistress, and everyone in between. In fact, to look inside such a diverse group of people and find something likable or forgivable in each one demands a powerful exercise of the imagination. It is clear Maugham found – or put – something of himself in every character in the book. No mean feat, and so much for the claim about his allegedly poor imagination. What about his style? It’s true that at no point during my reading did I stop and think, “I wish I could write like that.” But this means his style is unobtrusive and does not stand in the way of the narrative. On the contrary: I couldn’t stop reading and visualizing everything all the time—Paris in the roaring twenties, Prohibition Chicago, and even Southern India. In short, I can't agree with the critics: Maugham for me is a major writer and this book is undoubtedly one of his best. There’s something else: he is not sloppy, as too many writers are. There’s a relatively long section in the book about Indian philosophy, and it is clear he did his research to present these complex thoughts to the best of his ability. As far as I’m concerned, he succeeded: I’m planning to read about Indian philosophy soon (but only after I read some more books by Maugham). Much more important than everything I wrote above: this is a great book, a joy to read, and it transports us to other times and places. And, as usual with Maugham, it is tremendously mind-opening as well. Enjoy!

Always a pleasure to read Maugham’ s stories. This one dragged a little too long for me. Based on a true story, there are too many details and not an actual “point” to the plot rather than describing life’s twists and turns of Larry’s life and his circle of acquaintances. Of course, majestically written.

An excellent book that through its six main characters, well described in their characteristics, ways of thinking and acting and their interrelations with society, treats the different aspects of life. In addition, the author becomes one of them; Is the rapporteur of the facts and, in turn, friend of this whole circle. With his comments, reinforces the points of view that he liked to highlight. It uses simple and direct language, intersperses many quotations of famous authors that allow the reader to understand even more the events. It presents correctly the spiritual struggle of Larry to get his personal development independent of everything material to which he could easily have access; For what is important is its inner realization, its peace of spirit that could allow him, to help his close nucleus of friends and related. It is also an agile narrative of the historical facts of the early twentieth century, economic, social, artistic and philosophical that help to understand the great changes that occurred; It is important to emphasize that when the narrator considered appropriate, he advances the recount of some facts, for better clarity. It is a magnificent description of what happens in the day to day of their lives and their very different personalities. It describes masterfully the consequences of human relationships and interactions. A highly recommended work; Has humor, philosophy, history, pain ... There is an excellent 1946 film of the same name, based on the book, directed by Edmund Golding and starring Tyrone Power and Anne Baxter, which are well worth seeing ... I recommend to read the book first. ------------------ In Spanish Un excelente libro que a través de sus seis personajes principales, muy bien descritos en sus características, modos de pensar y actuar y sus inter relaciones con la sociedad, trata los distintos aspectos de la vida. Además, el autor se convierte en uno de ellos; es el relator de los hechos y, a su vez amigo de todo este circulo. Con sus comentarios, refuerza los puntos de vista que quiere resaltar en ellos. Usa un lenguaje sencillo y directo, intercala muchas citas de autores de la época que permiten al lector comprender aún mas los hechos que suceden. Presenta con acierto la lucha espiritual de Larry por conseguir su desarrollo personal independiente de todo lo material a lo que fácilmente hubiera podido tener acceso; para el lo importante es su realización interna, su paz que le permita ayudar a su núcleo cercano de amigos y relacionados. Es también una ágil narración de los hechos históricos de principios del siglo XX, en lo económico, en lo social, en lo artístico y en lo filosófico que ayudan a comprender los grandes cambios que ocurrieron; es de resaltar que cuando lo considera apropiado, adelanta el recuento de algunos hechos, para mejor claridad. Es una magnífica descripción de lo que sucede en el día a día de sus vidas y sus muy diferentes personalidades. Describe con maestría las consecuencias de las relaciones e interacciones humanas. Una obra muy recomendable; tiene humor, filosofía, historia, dolor... Hay una excelente película de 1946 con el mismo nombre, basada en el libro, dirigida por Edmund Golding y protagonizada por Tyrone Power y Anne Baxter que bien vale la pena ver...ojalá después de haber leído el libro.

I have just finished re-reading "The Razor's Edge." This must be my third time around with this novel, over a span of many years. Yet it continues to fascinate me; sometimes I think I'm still playing "catch-up" with Maugham. The same goes for "The Summing Up" and his short stories --- they are so good that they invite re-reading after a decade or so has gone by. "The Razor's Edge" is a pretty simple story, which might be titled "My Encounters with Larry." Maugham apologizes for this at the outset, and even goes so far as to write in something like "the real first person," where the characters address him as "Maugham." The character who attracts the lion's share of attention is a young American named Larry, who was badly shocked during World War I and afterward set out on a search to discover the meaning of life with a private income of $3,000 per year. Put that way, it sounds completely corny --- but, then again, aren't many of us searching for the meaning of life? We may not have $3,000 a year (quite a bit back then, at least enough to live on) and we may not have the iron backbone of Larry, who is not just "dabbling" and "posing," but is quite capable of spending the entire day reading through William James' "Principles of Psychology." But how can you tell a tale like this without making it utterly boring? Maugham's answer to this problem works splendidly. He surrounds his central character with a cast of extremely vivid characters, none of whom are concerned with searching for the meaning of life --- because they all believe they already KNOW the meaning of life, and are avidly pursuing it. The amiable snob Templeton devotes his entire life to social climbing, and believes that, after death, he will "move in the best circles" in Heaven! After all, Heaven has gradations as well: Seraphim, Cherubim, Archangels and the rest. The main female character, Isabel, has a hopeless lifelong crush on Larry, but her "meaning of life" is almost exactly defined as "upper-middle-class American prosperity," and she eventually marries Gray Maturin, who is quite sure that the meaning of life is "work, money, and a beautiful wife." These characters and more are thrown into the world of the 1920's, and they all find their lives drastically altered by the character-revealing stock market crash and Depression. As these characters endlessly pursue their own small ends, Larry continues steadfastly working on the eternal questions of God's existence and the meaning of life. The book is superbly well-written. I had an excellent teacher at UCLA who told his class that "Maugham may not be an 'A' writer, but almost everyone admits that he is the very best of the 'B' writers." That judgment may have been an understatement. Whatever else you may say about Somerset Maugham, he wrote well and was a tremendous storyteller. I am personally convinced that his short stories are overdue for a major revival. In the meantime, if you have any interest in those Big Questions, I can recommend this book to you without reservation. The resolution is not philosophically or theologically simple --- not by any means. But it coheres --- it holds together. And that is no task for a "grade-B" writer. A terrific book!!

This book started off pretty well; I was jazzed during the first part as the narrator sets the reader up for a profound experience. However, as I moved through it became evident that this wasn't quite the exceptional novel I thought it might be. By the latter portions of the book, it had become more of a lackluster experience to read The Razor's Edge than an enlightening one. Somewhere during the course of the novel, the experience goes from post-war philosophy to The Days of Our Lives in Paris, and this unexpected course is where this experience went sour. I think one part of the problem is the author's "technique" of injecting himself in the plot as the narrator. Rather than focusing on the main crux and point of the novel, Larry's search for truth and self-identity, the plot revolves around various character's reaction to the narrator. Therefore, the focus of the novel is very meandering and wandering, and it gives as much focus to Larry as it does to other, lesser, characters. There are points at which the narrator seems on the verge of revealing profound moments of Larry's experiences, but then these are contrasted with disengaging episodes with ultra snob Elliot Templeton and his high society, Isabel's materialism and possessiveness, or full-page depictions of what someone was wearing at dinner. Oftentimes, there just isn't a focus, and it is difficult to pinpoint what the narrator really even cares about. I also found it a little odd how each character was willing to pour out their souls to the narrator on a whim. Maugham doesn't do any favors to female characters, which is disappointing, as he makes them materialistic, obsessive, promiscuous, vindictive, or snobbish (or, in Isabel's case, four out of five). You can't help but really despise Isabel, especially when Sophie comes into the novel later on. Although most of the conflicts and resolutions come in the second half, by then the book seemed to have become a giant soap opera. This book sets you up for one thing, only to totally become something else. Despite my complaining, I did find The Razor's Edge profound and engaging at points. There are some aspects of the novel very reminiscent of The Lost Generation, with characters having to find themselves and happiness amid a sense of post-war disillusionment. Some characters struggle with finding a perfect marriage or partner, others struggle with finding oneself, and others struggle with drinking. There is a sense that the narrator wants to depict each character's plight and reveal how they struggle. A particularly engaging moment is when the narrator meets with Larry and he describes his adventures of working in the mines and then on a farm with a comrade. I think these experiences reveal a larger aspect of finding a greater purpose. Unfortunately, as a whole, these points of self-discovery are not fully explored. There is a 1946 film based on this book, starring Gene Tierney (as Isabel) and Tyrone Powers (as Larry). I actually thought the film more enjoyable than the book.

War to Peace to War, Roaring Twenties to Depression to Renewal. An age of excess, desperation, and finally, very cautious optimism. A period not at all unlike the present one in America, with its own surfeit of professed financial wizards, conspicuous consumption, class stratification, plain old hardworking Middle Americans feeling squeezed, and those who warn against losing one's soul in the everyday pursuit of trying to "succeed." Through a series of exquisitely crafted personality profiles, Somerset Maugham takes a very insightful look at the American Character - its relentless optimism, can-do spirit, its restlessness and prevailing absorption in the material. He presents us with an extraordinarily interesting spectrum of individuals, plumbs their motivations, is sympathetic to most of them and is especially hopeful about one of them. Maugham's alter ego has seen too much of the world to outright condemn or to proselytize; it's his verbal repartee that sends the messages that he wants to impart. But there's no mistaking the fact that Maugham is making some serious judgments about those he encounters, and by extension, the limits of his admiration for America, if not his fascination of it. And all the while, he does so in a most elegant and entertaining style. Maugham clearly cherishes the unbridled optimism of Americans, which even during their darkest hours, persists (as it does yet today). Employing a full spectrum of individual portraits, he explains for what causes Americans are willing to compromise or sell their souls, the particular fusion that many have adopted between materialism and spiritualism, and, in the case of Larry Darryl, to what degree idealism may be able to make a difference. Dabbling with, but ultimately departing from isolated spiritual retreats in Europe and India, Maugham's anti-status, anti-materialist hero manifests an open-mindedness, a willingness to respect others, and a burning desire for knowledge, but not knowledge as an end to itself. He speaks of creating "ripples in the pond" that maybe, just maybe, will have some kind of positive influence on another human being, and he refuses to adhere to asceticism for the sake of some self-imposed purity. He understands that no man is an island, yet he carves out the spiritual space that he needs to maintain a clear sense of purpose, all the better to touch others in any way he can. Like Larry Darryl, the real-life Maugham visited an ashram, stared into the eyes of a guru (fainted), but did not wall himself off. He didn't end up driving a cab, but he certainly returned to the world as the West has defined it. Perhaps, in his own peculiar way, through this book, he found a way to encourage others to be of more open heart, less judgmental, and more aware of the significant impact that we Americans can have on others if we tap into our innate idealism and use it more constructively. Less can truly be more in changing the world, just as less is more with the ending of "The Razor's Edge."

This is strictly a review of the Kindle edition of W. Somerset Maugham's 1943 novel, The Razor's Edge, which I read when I was in High School, after seeing the Hollywood version, starring Tyrone Power, when Tyrone Power was still making movies. I knew immediately that it was first published during WW II because our family copy was printed in a fashion which used as little paper as possible, to preserve that resource for the war effort. This is not great fiction, but it is good fiction, well worth reading as a description of American expatriots between the wars, in Paris. A nice counterpoint to Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (Power stars in the film of that one too). This is a very good Kindle edition, which appears to have been converted to electronic from by the publisher, Random House. That may explain the high price. It is unusual to see the Kindle edition be more expensive than the paperback. Even for new books, it is usually the other way around. I bought this edition because I wanted to use a quote from in in a paper I was writing, and this edition had the hard copy page numbers (Official Academia, in the form of The Chicago Manual of Style, has not yet come to terms with electronic editions which do not have page numbers.) As usual, I had a quote which I thought was from this novel, and wanted to search this to cite it in my work. As luck would have it, either I simply did not remember the context well enough to find it, or, it was a line in the film which was not in the book, or it was in a different book / film entirely. But, I enjoyed the search, rereading large chunks of the novel. If you are price conscious, I suggest you get the Vintage paperback. If you must have the Kindle version, this one has no blemishes I could find.

When I was 20, some several decades ago, I heard that one of my favorite actors, Bill Murray, was putting together a movie based on a book called The Razor's Edge. I had no idea what it was about, but wanting to read the book before seeing the movie, I picked it up and read it. What happened was the first in a chain of events that has led me down paths that have made me who I am now. At 45, I once again read this book and am equally moved and thrilled to realize that life, like a skater's languid figure eight, has come back again to a place it once was. Like that same person with barely two decades of life under his belt: single, without care, drifting in life without purpose, career calling, or direction, my purpose is as uncertain as it was so long ago. So, now what? Well, that remains to be seen. The Razor's Edge is a book that I wish everyone would read at some time in their life, if only to encounter Larry Darrell, one of the most remarkable people in literature and a man to whom each of us should pledge to aspire, if only for a little while. How much better would life be if we were to simply eschew material goods for spiritual discovery or see the grace and glory in doing things for others for the sheer joy of helping out and being the best that we can be? Is there a more important issue to ponder in our lives than what our purpose is and who is the truest and most worthwhile person we can be? This classic novel, easy to read and yet remarkable thoughtful and full of deep human understanding, gives us Larry and lets us judge not only his actions, but our own in contrast. The Razor's Edge is nothing short of my field book for life, a reminder of what I know to be true, right, and decent, and the talisman to keep me on the path towards hope, enlightenment, and being the man I was intended to be. Towards the end of the book, Larry explains, "It's strange how many people suffer from (fear). I don't mean fear of closed spaces and fear of heights, but fear of death and, what's worse, fear of life." I have come to understand that the battle with fear is a part of life. This book, like all of the cherished lessons and experiences in life, is a crucial ally in that on-going engagement.

This is a masterpiece and so is the movie made on the book! Please read! I love how Maugham places himself in his books, and this is one is a gem.

C'est l'un des meilleurs romans du 20e siècle. Si vous ne l'avez pas lu, vous devez le faire.

Excelente novela de un excelente escritor, al que los críticos ningunean pero de cuyas obras se han hecho varias películas. Por algo será.

This work of fiction by Somerset Maugham, I think it is an ignored classic. The themes covered in the book are relevant today as they were when it was written in the forties. This is because, although not a spiritual book, it really drills down to what it is to be a human being. I think some readers may not like the ending, because it does not have a statement saying "The End". The ending is really up to reader. For it may stimulate the reader to reflect on our individual existence and how we conduct ourselves on the journey. This is not a self help book. But It is definitely a book that I would recommend to anyone who wants to reflect on who we think we are, our place in the universe & different perceptions on what is really of value in this life.

Sein bestes Buch.