Quando Kitty rientra a Hong Kong dopo la scioccante esperienza di Mei-Tan-Fu e rincontra l’amante lo apostrofa: Some people find this book a huge disappointment. Others like it very much. So how do you go about deciding whether to read it or not? For me the answer is simple. If you need to like the characters in a book, then I doubt this book will suit you. If you need characters to grow wiser, mature and improve themselves then your opinion will be up for grabs. If you want a book that draws realistic characters that do what a person with that personality would do, then yeah, I think you’ll like this. This is why I liked it. This is my favorite by W. Somerset Maugham. Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes: “ Poetrylifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.”

Walter laughed a cruel laugh. "Townsend will never leave his wife," he sneered. "You are just his plaything. If he promises to leave Dorothy, I will give you a divorce. Otherwise, you must come up country with me to Mei-fan-tu where I've offered to take charge of the cholera epidemic." Wonderful writing and a good read from Maugham. I had not read him lately so I forgot how good a writer he is.

What to know

This book got under my skin- first because I totally disliked Kitty and then because I really wanted everything to turn out well for her. I had a love hate relationship with her right from the beginning. For Walter, her husband, I felt mostly pity. An introvert who just didn’t know how to express his feelings. If only…If only either could have changed just enough. The Holy Spirit moves in mysterious ways," said the Mother Superior. "Your husband is a saint for trying to save the coolies and you are a saint for being by his side." Maugham plunges us into the center of the action with little explanation. We meet Kitty and Charles in the bedroom, and from their fearful reaction to an unknown presence outside, the reader can infer that their union is an illicit one. The mysterious turning of the knobs suggests an ominous and imposing presence, but the identity of this intruder is not yet revealed. Gradually, this section provides evidence that it was Walter, Kitty's husband, who turned the knobs. The Charlies of this world are grating on my nerves, but I have to admit Somerset Maugham nailed him. Vain, good-looking, brutally selfish and shallow, they come, they see, they conquer, they leave. Maugham's story of an unfaithful woman who follows her husband into a cholera epidemic and ultimately earns redemption was inspired by a story in Dante’s The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio section of the Comedy contains the lines "Pray, when you are returned to the world, and rested from the long journey, remember me, who am Pia. Siena made me, Maremma unmade me: this he knows who after betrothal espoused me with his ring." A tutor told Maugham that these lines were spoken by Pia, a women from Siena whose husband suspected her of adultery but was afraid to kill her because of her powerful family. He took her down to his castle in the Maremma and hoped that the noxious vapors there would end her life, but when she did not fall ill he threw her out of the window.

I won't tell you any more. Somerset Maugham was one of my absolute favourite authors growing up. I've read just about everything he's written. You have to read this book. Talk about suspense! Lo stesso Walter mi pare abbia un percorso che lo rende molto più interessante di quello che lo stereotipo del medico tutto dedito al lavoro, freddo imperscrutabile insensibile: per quanto ossessionato dal decoro, quando scopre la storia tra sua moglie e Townsend è disposto a divorziare se l’amante è pronto a fare altrettanto per poi sposarsi con Kitty – in alternativa le impone di seguirlo nell’interno del paese, da Hong Kong a Mei-Tan-Fu, a combattere un’epidemia di colera. Non un posto per una signora, ma l’occasione di fare una grande esperienza umana. This also explores the themes of duty and family. What allegiances do we owe to family and when personal aspirations conflict with what society expects, what do we do? Maugham not only works this out between Kitty and Walter but also between Kitty and her parents, and the scene between her and her father is particularly poignant. Even still, it is the moment I became less forgiving of her character and the direction the book was taking. I would have liked her to have still more sympathy and love for her family, became more transparent with Waddington and, finally, resist Charlie -- even one last time. She didn't change as much as I had hoped.

They saw the white china knob of the handle slowly turn. They had heard no one walk along the verandah. It was terrifying to see that silent motion. A minute passed and there was no sound. Then, with the ghastliness of the supernatural, in the same stealthy, noiseless, and horrifying manner, they saw the white china knob of the handle at the window turn also. Kitty, her nerves failing her, opened her mouth to scream; but, seeing what she was going to do, he swiftly put his hand over it and her cry was smothered in his fingers.” The novel was first published in serialised form in five issues of Cosmopolitan (November 1924 – March 1925). Beginning in May 1925, it was serialised in the United Kingdom in eight parts in Nash's Magazine. I have to say that Walter had a special place in my heart. I love stories with darker themes and am drawn to anti-heroes. There was something so sinister and calculating about Walter that really drew me to him. Kitty was right to be afraid of her husband, even as she knew that he loved her. Walter was kind of a scary guy.

Overall: 4.7 (out of 5.0) I devoured this book. Kitty is so petty and unlikeable at the beginning, but I cheered her on at the end. It’s a well-paced character study that’s lively and even funny at times. Kitty's work at the convent changes her personality. She sees her former acts of selfishness and attempts to make amends for them, apologizing to Walter for her affair. The situation is complicated further when she realizes she is pregnant. Ultimately, it’s not about cholera so much as the people around it. Kitty and Walter use the presence of disease to poke at each other: Notwithstanding the darkness of the shuttered room he saw her face on a sudden distraught with terror. He loves her; she finds him repulsive. She has an affair and after he finds out, he announces they are going into rural China where a cholera epidemic is raging. Is he trying to kill her? Himself? Both of them?I never expected you to love me, I didn’t see any reason that you should, I never thought myself very lovable….What most husbands expected as a right, I was prepared to receive as a favour.” L’intera trama prende spunto da un altro celebre riferimento letterario: da quella Pia de’ Tolomei che Dante incontra nel Purgatorio. Questi i versi del poeta fiorentino: Maugham a fost sincer cînd a spus despre el însuși (în Bilanț) că nu are cine știe ce talent literar și nu se pricepe la comparații și metafore. Sinceritatea lui mi l-a făcut simpatic și am dus romanul pînă la capăt. Acum lacrimile îi şiroiau pe faţa ei bună, de casnică” (p.198). Să ne uităm și în original: „Now the tears were pouring down her kind, homely face”. The denouement is not what you think. This is a lovestory and not a lovestory. It's about love and all its definitions. And for me, it was a tribute to the role of different kind of men playing a role in a woman's life.

I waited, but didn't quite get that, though. Turns out, surprise-surprise, the film adaptation is much more "Hollywood" than Maugham's book. Which isn't a bad thing for the film, actually, especially if you happen to have a crush on Edward Norton, as I do. The Painted Veil meaning: At a wedding, the veil is white, which represents the innocence and purity of the wearer. As the title of the novel suggests, the veil is painted, which implies that the wearer is not innocent any more. The novel takes a dig at how our society and the people that live in it are tainted. ADULTERY, REDEMPTION AND CHOLERA DISEASE IN CHINA. Delirium. Or perhaps it was the last line of Goldsmith's elegy that she hadn't read yet somehow knew! If only she could cry for Walter like the stupid, round-faced coolies! Kitty visits with her father, a quiet man who is adjusting to a life where Kitty’s domineering mother does not badger him. He plans to take a legal post in the Bahamas, and Kitty begs to go with him. For the first time in her life, Kitty has an honest conversation with her father, and establishes a relationship with him. Kitty plans to raise her unborn daughter as a strong, independent woman. In the first issue of the English Edition, the text was in its unaltered form where Maugham directly quoted many real-life locations such as ‘Hong Kong’, ‘Happy Valley’, ‘The Peak’ (Victoria Peak) and ‘Kowloon’ which led to the eventual lawsuit due to its false depiction of these places and the misunderstandings that could arise from it.Maugham aveva fama di cattivissimo, di cinico, la sua biografa Selina Hastings lo definì “violento come un tumore maligno”: si narra che il ritratto che gli fece il pittore Graham Sutherland lo abbia messo così a disagio da nascondere l’opera, tenerla privata e non mostrarla a nessuno. The ending was sad, darnit, I was beyond grieving, but accepted the realism of it. And it was positive. Kitty Fane is a beautiful, vain, upper-class British woman unhappily married to Walter Fane, a bacteriologist working in Hong Kong. She is conducting an affair with Charles Townsend, the Assistant Colonial Secretary, and the two are in her room when the knobs to her door mysteriously turn from the outside. And later, I waited for this beautiful moment of recognition between estranged husband and wife, in cholera-infested China: Maugham entra subito nel vivo e poi ci ricapitola gli antecedenti. Si comincia con la scena d’adulterio, Kitty sta incontrando il suo amante, Charlie Townsend, un funzionario statale inglese, quando sente che qualcuno sta tentando di aprire la porta della sua stanza da letto e teme che sia suo marito Walter.