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.
I was supposed to read this novel (many, many years ago!) for Gr. 10 English. Until I read your review above, I was still feeling guilty for never having finished the book. Thank you, Simon! You have freed me from those feelings!
Enjoyed the review, as always! I read this one many, many years ago, during a Maugham phase of my early youth. I did enjoy it, although I don’t remember why (perhaps fortunately, plot details have disappeared). I tested the Maugham waters about five years ago, reading/reviewing Cakes & Ale. I did enjoy it in a mild kind of way (despite a rather extensive use of flashbacks to move the plot along) but wasn’t tempted read anything else. Maugham IS an interesting writer; as you note, he can really tell a story when he wants to but there’s just something missing!
I enjoyed Cakes and Ale too, there’s a lot to be said for a book that satirises literary circles, but who would dare do it today?
This was one of a handful of hardcover novels that my parents had on the shelves from early in (or before) their marriage, and so I eventually read it.
For me, its biggest problems are that it seems (to me) to be an uneasy amalgamation of several sorts of book: a brittle comedy of manners, a drama of personal degradation, and a saga of one person’s immersion in Eastern philosophy. And they don’t seem to mix convincingly; at least they don’t for me.
But I don’t see the problem with this mode of narrative. A great many great books over the centuries have told their stories mostly or entirely through letters or indirect narration, and it doesn’t hurt their directness — after all, we’re still reading words on paper and assembling them in our heads, however the information is relayed. “Show, don’t tell” is only a guideline, not an absolute rule, even in movies or theater where it properly applies. In a book, there’s no showing anyway, only one type of telling or another.
That said, I’m very surprised that this has been filmed, not once but twice, when it doesn’t seem to have much to give the medium. The 1946 one I can understand; the book was recent and the studios liked to film “prestige” books however unlikely. But why was Bill Murray burning to film it in 1984?
Yes it is a dismal cover. Thanks for reviewing this so I am not tempted to buy/read it despite the dreadful packaging!
I read Maugham’s The Painted Veil years ago and enjoyed it, but I still haven’t tried any of his other books. It sounds as though I can safely avoid this one! Sorry it was so disappointing.
It is a dismal cover but I have to say, I love it. But not as much as his short stories
The book was a huge financial success & then made into a film – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_m4YKnWjdg the first in the 40s. It is on a list of one of the best selling 20th century novels. I read it years ago, did not care for it. I think he wrote excellent short stories, they are collected in four volumes so you might wish to try some of those.
The Razor’s Edge was one of the first Western novels to propose non-Western solutions to society’s ills. Its title comes from a passage in one of the Upanishads, which constitute a class of Hindu sacred literature: “The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.”
I felt much the same way about Tan Wang Eng’s Maugham flavoured novel The House of Doors.