Someone in my book group chose The Razor’s Edge (1944) by W. Somerset Maugham after hearing it recommended on a YouTube video – making it my second Maugham of the year, after reading Theatre for the 1937 Club. It wasn’t one I was familiar with, and the paperback that arrived did little to encourage me – isn’t this the drabbest thing you’ve seen? Maybe it faded over time… Anyway, here’s a short and unenthusiastic review of the novel.
The novel is supposedly narrated by Maugham himself, in a conceit that doesn’t quite pay off, and concerns three main characters. The first is an American immigrant in France – a dyed-in-the-wool snob:
During the years that followed our acquaintance became fairly intimate without ever developing into friendship. I doubt whether it was possible for Elliott Templeton to be a friend. He took no interest in people apart from their social position.
Next is Elliott’s niece Isabel – an intelligent but avaricious woman, whom Maugham cannot mention without talking about how wonderful her legs are. Third of the trio (and weirdly the one that the novel’s Wikipedia page thinks is the only main character) is Larry. He is engaged to Isabel, and declares that his intentino is to ‘loaf’. When pressed on his plans, that is all they are: he doesn’t need excess money or company. He will simply exist.
Having set the ball rolling with these three, the narrator meets them at various times and in various places. Occasionally they feel the need to update the narrator with what he’s missed in the meantime, meaning that many long, long chapters are relayed to him. One of the things I hate in storytelling is when one character says, “Let me tell you about the past…” and then goes on to remember every single word of dialogue uttered many months earlier. On and on and on, all of it deadened because it’s happened and we, the reader, weren’t there. I complained about that fatal flaw in the first 80 pages or so of Theatre – in The Razor’s Edge it’s even worse, and even more monopolising the narrative. If only somebody had told him to show not tell.
It’s particularly a shame, because when the reader is present for scenes, they are much more vital and interesting. Some are even funny. Isabel’s unfortunate choice of husband leads to some fascinating, well-drawn scenes some years into marriage, while there is a protracted scene about Elliott being shunned from a socialite’s party that felt vibrant, funny, and moving. When he wants to, Maugham can do it. Why did he bog so much of the novel down in dullness and conversations we can’t possibly care about?
The Razor’s Edge wastes the talent of an author who didn’t know how to wield it. If he’d told it all as it happens, in the moment, it could have been an engaging book with brilliant characters. As it is, the brilliant characters have to fight their way through total tedium.