Of Human Bondage

by W. Somerset Maughm

It's crazy how something completely irrational, like an obsession with a wretched human, can become so binding as to completely immobolize human consciousness. As a reader I began to feel bound to the masochistic tendencies of Mildred, the main character's dastardly love-interest. Every 50 pages or so, Mildred would pop up and you just knew that she was going to wreck Philip's life. No matter how smart Philip thought he was and no matter how over Mildred he claimed to be, she would appear and in minutes he would turn into a snivelling shell of humanity completely "bound" to her manipulative whims.

I've often wondered if the author is trying to argue that mature relationships are only possible when a soul has been obliterated and when that same soul comes to expect nothing more than a comfortable normativity. Only then can one love? Only then can one appreciate a relationship? That seems to be how the books ends, even though it is a "happy ending." On the other hand I think that Maugham is dead-on in his analysis. Most people give up their dreams for companionship. They give up the wanderlust for a steady outpouring of affection (and yes nookie too). There just never seems to be that middle path. Of course I could be biased, but I think that Philip should have traveled to Spain. Sally might have waited; after all, she knows him better than anyone. Plus, Spain represented the mystery of existence, and Philip never even got to explore that mystery. He abandoned the search for existential answers for the love of an amazing woman. Crazy!

Perhaps I've misread the the last 200 pages, but the travesty of bondage seems much broader than the malicious Mildred. The travesty of bondage is being chained to a constricted, if comfy, concept of normal life. Is Mildred really any worse than the life represented by Sally? I don't know, but it's worth considering if you ever get the chance to read _Of Human Bondage_.

Peace.