One of the many fantastical autobiographical novels of the early 20th c. Somerset Maugham rose to fame for his plays yet turned to fiction in order to recount his earlier years. The novel is a modern interpretation of the classic English gentleman from origins to accomplishment. Like that of a Dickens our hero Carey is a child of misfortune, both a orphan and a cripple, who is subjected to the taunts of fellow school mates and the strict rules of unforgiving relatives. Unlike the melodramatic and often tragic tales crafter previously, Carey’s is a simple life and in that way an accurate rendition of real circumstance. I found it slow at times and though I sympathized with Carey I found the people surrounding him bore, not to mention his tiresome love affairs, the exception of this being the Athelny family who we only met within the last a hundred pages. Initial reviews of the novel when it came out were galvanized with one side finding it to be “the sentimental servitude of a poor fool" whilst the other compared it to a Beethoven symphony, in my case I find both reactions to strong for what is but simply a personal meditative reflection on youth.
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‘Philip watched curiously the process of death. There was nothing human now in the unconscious being that struggled feebly. Sometimes a muttered ejaculation issued from the loose mouth. The sun beat down hotly from a cloudless sky, but the trees in the garden were pleasant and cool. It was a lovely day. A bluebottle buzzed against the window-pane. Suddenly there was a loud rattle, it made Philip start, it was horribly frightening; a movement passed through the limbs and the old man was dead. The machine has run down. The blue bottle buzzed, buzzed nosily against the window-pane.’
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