Review: The Painted Veil (by W. Somerset Maugham)

My Rating:  5 stars

I’m quite stingy when it comes to rating books and normally would not give more than 4 stars, even for a book I thoroughly enjoyed. However, in the case of W. Somerset Maugham’s classic The Painted Veil, the first thought that came into my head after finishing the book is that this is a masterpiece that absolutely deserves nothing less than 5 stars!

The entire book is beautifully and tightly written, using what I would categorize as “classical” language, but in a style that is simple and easy to understand. Maugham did a fantastic job telling the story of how the main character Kitty Fane’s adulterous affair and the aftermath of it causes her to re-assess and make changes in her life that she never thought possible. In all honesty, from the beginning of the story to the very end, I did not like Kitty one bit. I felt she was silly and foolish (and vain, immature, self-centered, etc.) and even when she “changes for the better” later on, I still couldn’t bring myself to like her. No doubt that Kitty grew a lot after her experiences in China, but I actually still saw a bit of the same characteristics in her, albeit to a much lesser degree. As I was reading, my feelings towards Kitty went from despising her in the beginning to pitying her later on in the story (the pity comes from acknowledgement of the fact that, in a sense, part of her plight truly WAS due to societal conventions and how she was raised).

Since I read this book for one of my book clubs, I don’t intend to write a long review on it, as I prefer to save more in-depth analysis for when we discuss the book. However, for anyone who may be considering whether to read this book or not, my response is a wholehearted YES! The amount of ground that Maugham was able to cover – love, betrayal, redemption, society norms and conventions, culture, marriage and relationships, religion, gender roles and stereotypes, class structure, etc. – in such a short book (my Kindle version was less than 200 pages) is not only astounding but also extremely rare. Don’t let the “classic” label fool you into thinking this will be a difficult book to get through because it definitely won’t be – this book is an easy read, yet still invokes much insight into numerous topics that are still relevant today.

Lastly, I know there was a movie adaptation of this book that came out around 10 years ago, but I actually don’t plan on watching it, at least not any time soon. I’m very particular when it comes to book to movie/tv series adaptations, especially ones that turn out to be very different from the book due to changes made by the producers/directors. I don’t want my memory of the book to be ruined if I end up disliking the movie’s interpretation of the story/characters.

(Read in January 2017)