Book Review: The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
I was pleasantly surprised
This was published in 1944. I don’t normally read books from that era — I dislike the depiction of women — but this one was recommended by one of my sons, so I figured I’d give it a read. I was pleasantly surprised.
This novel feels like the opposite of what novels are today. There was very little ‘showing’ except to demonstrate that living in high society isn’t for everyone, nor is living moment to moment in search of God. Otherwise, the entire book was ‘telling’. The narrator (the author himself, I believe) tells the story of Larry Darrell’s search for meaning after fighting in the first world war. An opposite to Larry is Elliott Templeton, a snobbish man with a generous heart who worms his way into high society. Where Elliott can’t imagine living without being seen and invited to important dinners, luncheons, and events, Larry can’t imagine a life so constrained by rules.
The narrator tells the story as if the highlights to his life are the interactions of these characters, plus a few more others thrown in for good measure. I believe readers today might not appreciate this format. Rather, they’d expect the narrator to be a major character, not someone simply observing the lives of other characters and offering little to no opinion about the happenings. Writers today are…
