Leaving wealth and loved ones behind, Larry Darrell journeys to the mountains of India in search of spiritual wisdom.

The Razor's Edge

It irks me that I cannot hope with any words of mine to give an idea of the pleasantness of his voice that invested even his most casual utterances with persuasiveness, or of the constant change in his expression, from grave to gently gay, from reflective to playful, that accompanied his thoughts like the ripple of a piano when the violins with a great sweep sing the several themes of a concerto.

when passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honour is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive.

I’ve come too late into a world too old. I should have been born in the Middle Ages when faith was a matter of course; then my way would have been clear to me and I’d have sought to enter the order. I couldn’t believe, I wanted to believe, but I couldn’t believe in a God who wasn’t better than the ordinary decent man. The monks told me that God had created the world for his glorification. That didn’t seem to me a very worthy object. Did Beethoven create his symphonies for his glorification?

W. Somerset Maugham

Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brillant characters - his fiancee Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob. The most ambitious of Maugham's novels, this is also one in which Maugham himself plays a considerable part as he wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates.

 wen

Do children beseech their earthly father to give them sustenance? They expect him to do it, they neither feel nor need to feel gratitude to him for doing it, and we have only blame for a man who brings children into the world that he can't or won't provide for. It seemed to me that if an omnipotent creator was not prepared to provide his creatures with the necessities of existence, material and spiritual, he'd have done better not to create them. 

if you will act as if you believed belief will be granted to you; if you pray with doubt, but pray with sincerity, your doubt will be dispelled, if you will surrender yourself to the beauty of that liturgy the power of which over the human spirit has been proved by the experience of the ages, peace will descend upon you.

Prashanth Srivatsa

Maugham's characters are his stories. Multi-layered and fascinating, their intentions, ideas and perceptions are devastatingly remniscent of reality. Despite the spirituality content towards the end, Maugham does enough to keep the romanticism flowing parallel to his social commentary.

Trish

I rarely find it so difficult to articulate my feelings after reading a novel - but I finished this book weeks ago and I still can't quite find the words to express what I want to say. 

With time I've found that this might be close to a perfect novel. At its core this book is a stunning character study of five utterly unique and captivating people (Elliot, Isabel, Larry, Gray and Sophie) and how their lives intertwine over the course of several years. 

I absolutely loved this novel. Isabel was my favorite and I only wish we had more about Gray. I have little sympathy or affection for the Larry's of the world. I find them aimless, selfish and tiresome. But I'm young. Maybe one day I'll have an existential crisis of my own and then I'll understand the inner turmoil Larry went through in this novel. Until then, I'm wholly sympathetic to Isabel and love her for all that she is.

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Mykyta Barabanov

Happy in whatever it is we perceive important, weather its a search of absolute or a new way to be relevant in the society.

Trever

A well-crafted book despite its flaws. The character development was okay, since the only characters I actually got a sense of were Larry, Elliot, and Suzanne. Larry I found to be likeable but annoyingly upper-class; I just didn't love this as much as I wanted to.

Melody Izard

This is a story about the search for meaning in life. While searching for meaning the trappings of pleasure are waiting to snatch you. Larry refuses to be snatched. Maugham observes and learns, meandering throughout the story and introducing us to characters along the way.

Andrew Molina

I love this book so much. The language is poetic. The characters are beautiful and rich. The world and the time is one I long to experience, though of course the privilege is unspoken and the inequity supporting it goes hidden. 

I re-read the penultimate chapter multiple times. The way Maugham communicates how Larry reasons about the meaning of life and spiritual concepts is both nuanced and inviting at the same time. Maugham does a beautiful job of balancing the philosophy with the human and you can't help but think about how you view the world as you read it.

There was something upon reflection that I hadn't picked up on on my first read. Elliott lives life as a game, a societal one. And at the end, Larry discusses existence as a game. And no matter the depth or shallowness at which you engage in your game, the thing that really seemed to matter was whether you knew it was a game or not. It's hard to say whether Elliott knew the full extent of the game he played, but he did know it to some extent, and it allowed him to balance both his playing of the social game with his kindness and generosity to everyone. Larry, not willing to play any games, eventually realizes the game he wants to play and goes for it, with full understanding that it's a game. And I think, in a lot of ways, so does Maugham, with his last conversation with Isabel. 

If it's a game, then play it and play it well. But don't forget it's a game.

Janet Doré

I classify this as one of those hyper-intellectual classics that makes even 'us smarties' feel like maybe we're really not that smart. But, I made it through with some appreciation for the core philosophical dilemma...barely. At least I can sound smart at dinner parties now...

The Razor's Edge

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