The Razor's Edge

“I have never begun a novel with more misgiving. If I call it a novel it is only because I don’t know what else to call it. I have little story to tell and I end neither with a death nor a marriage.”

One question that arises here is whether Maugham is writing these lines as himself or as the fictional version of himself who moves through the story interacting with his fictional characters. The fact that Larry’s quest takes the form of a hero’s journey suggests the author is aware that he does have a proper novel, so it is probably the fictional Maugham who has reservations. This creates a distinct separation between author and character.

“The man I am writing about is not famous. It may be that he never will be. It may be that when his life at last comes to an end, he will leave no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water. Then my book, if it is read at all, will be read only for what intrinsic interest it may possess. But it may be that the way of life that he has chosen for himself and the peculiar strength and sweetness of his character may have an ever-growing influence over his fellow men so that, long after his death perhaps, it may be realized that there lived in this age a very remarkable creature.” 

Maugham foreshadows the end of the story in which Larry, having achieved his quest for meaning, becomes a Christ figure, a holy man passing briefly through the lives of other people, changing them, perhaps, but remaining invisible himself. In light of this analogue, this passage shows Maugham writing about Larry much as the apostles wrote about Jesus in the synoptic Gospels of the New Testament.

For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they were born, the city apartment or the farm in which they learned to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives’ tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can’t come to know by hearsay, you can only know them if you have lived them. You can only know them if you are them.”

Throughout the story, people like Isabel and Gray are motivated by the peculiarly American value of work for work’s sake as well as the sense of American exceptionalism and the obligation to participate in and contribute to “The Great Experiment.” Older nations like England and France are steeped in different values, therefore Maugham, an Englishman, can never entirely understand the feelings and compulsions of his American characters.