Skip to main content

Review: The Painted Veil, by W. Somerset Maugham

The Painted Veil is the story of Kitty Fane, an Englishwoman living in Hong Kong in the 1920s. Unhappily married to Walter, a bacteriologist, Kitty embarks on a love affair with Charles Townsend, a local government official. When Walter finds out about the affair, he coerces Kitty into accompanying him to Mei-tan-fu, a town that has been struck with a cholera epidemic.

What I loved about this book, and what I love about all Maugham's books, is the way he has with language. The novel is short, but each sentence he uses packs a powerful punch; from the first page I was absolutely enthralled. Kitty is an extremely shallow, materialistic character, but still she's likeable--you even understand why she does what she does. We only see Walter through Kitty's eyes, and we're given a distasteful view of him; I wish that Maugham had introduced the reader to what he was thinking. Despite its flaws, however, I was utterly captivated by The Painted Veil.
Labels:

Comments

kristen said…
I just read The Painted Veil and really enjoyed your review -- I agree that it would have been nice to get into Walter's head. Have you seen the movie? I thought the movie was maybe a little more sympathetic toward Walter -- but that might just be Edward Norton's excellent acting. For once, I thoroughly enjoyed both the book AND the movie!
May 2, 2008 at 12:47 PM
Katherine said…
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have it in my Netflix queue... I've heard very good things about it in other places, too.
May 2, 2008 at 2:05 PM
The Dissident Daughter said…
Hey, I haven't posed in a while but thought I'd say hi. I've been dying to read this book, just haven't gotten to it in my pile of books. I applied today to work at a bookstore writing about books! Such a total dream job for a bibliophiliac (ummm if that is a word...) like me! I hope everything works out but I'm not getting my hopes too high. I hope all is well with you! I thought you had disappeared but you just changed your web address!
--Paige
May 2, 2008 at 7:19 PM
Teddy Rose said…
Great review Catherine!

I loved the movie and the book is on my TBR.
May 4, 2008 at 2:04 AM
Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said…
Sounds great--I love books with powerful and beautiful language, even though sometimes they are few and far between. I'll have to check this one out!
May 6, 2008 at 10:54 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.
194 comments
Read more

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...
115 comments
Read more

Review: The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y.K. Lee

The Piano Teacher is a complicated novel. On the surface, it’s about a love affair between two British ex-patriots in Hong Kong in 1952-3. Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong with her husband Martin at a time when the world is still recovering from WWII; Claire takes up work as a piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family, where she meets Will Truesdale, the Chens’ enigmatic chauffeur. The book jumps back in time between the 1950s and the beginning of WWII, when Will is interned in Stanley, a Hong Kong camp for enemies of Japan. On “the outside” is Tudy Liang, Will’s beautiful Eurasian lover. There’s no doubt that Lee’s writing is beautiful. But there’s something lacking in this short, terse novel that I can’t quite put my finger on. First, I think it’s the tenses she uses when taking about each story: that which is set in the 1950s is in the past tense, while the war scenes are talked about in the present tense (confusing, no?) The interpersonal relationships of the m...
12 comments
Read more