Oscar，
书是两个月前读的，然后写了书评没给几个人看过...刚又看了一遍觉得还能看...所以发给您了～
最近写文书什么的有点忙也没联系...过两天我还得去参加个研究活动...SAT班还好吧，加油～
最后推荐个网站～这会没时间的话就先留着以后再看～
http://www.goodreads.com
Jincheng

Ramblings on The Razor’s Edge

One thing inevitable is that I am impressed by this novel and feel strong empathy with the younger Larry. As a consequence, I cannot go so far as to harshly criticize this piece of work. The proper summary of my attitude should be: I admire it, yet it does have its imperfections.

Agreed, Maugham’s personal life is quite a mess, but to appreciate this masterpiece any judgments concerning this matter is irrelevant. A writer’s life and his ideals are quite distinct from each other, and if he ever strives to produce a work expressing his true longings, the work should not be in the least stained by his deeds. As a line in I don’t remember what novel goes: Don’t believe him. He doesn’t believe himself. When it comes to ideals, what a writer writes and what he does really has no obvious connections. And a literary work should be admired on account of its own quality, instead of its author’s.

Success

The author, in the end of the story, discovers with a bit of surprise that he has written ‘nothing more or less than a success story’. And viewing the story as a whole, that’s largely what I thought. The more intriguing part, however, is that the novel is ‘nothing more’ than a success story. Of course there are other themes, but as the story concludes, success becomes the most consistent one, and possibly the only consistent one. Isabel, Elliott Templeton, Larry Darrell, Louisa Bradley, Sophie Macdonald, Suzanne Rouvier and Gray Maturin all succeeded in their own way. Although Larry is seemingly an exception, in truth he did nothing more than attaining his own success.

Here the word success is adopting a broad sense. Well, success’ exact meaning does vary with people, but before reading this book I certainly wouldn’t categorize Sophie’s life as a success. As I see it generally we are inclined to agree that Gray Maturin is successful, and Larry, Elliott, Suzanne as well. Also, if you are of the opinion that at that time, a successful woman is the equivalent of a woman who leads a wonderful material life (regardless of most parts of a spiritual life, and in this case especially love), then Isabel is successful. However, if you mean to say that Sophie is another success, the word success probably means ‘the acquisition of what one wants’ in your mind. My point here is, sometimes we are too earthbound and think of success only with a confined vision. It’s okay to be worldly, toiling everyday for a success, and it’s okay to think that success is nothing more than an ultimately vain pursuit, but it’s dead mistaken to be worldly while believing that success means as little as loads of money or a splendid material life. Once you do, your life will become a mere existence and you a ghost wandering listlessly in a tedious continuum of time.

Enlightenment

Now it’s time to look into what Larry really accomplished. While out of rationality I said that his success is no more than an ordinary one, I would have to concede that personally I admire this kind of success. It is of a unique nature. Although philosophy still leaves to doubt whether such knowledge is attainable (I think they study that in epistemology), the idea of enlightenment never ceases to be inviting and in certain ways convincing. Maugham apparently didn’t manage to escape this complex. It’s a fact, and not a sad one. I don’t suppose this theme has struck many authors as one worth developing, and those who did have an intention to write about it mostly haven’t been able to weave it so skillfully with people’s everyday life as Maugham triumphed in doing. That’s actually part of the reason why I admired the book.

One particular thing was a disappointment, though. Maugham let Larry lift others’ hands with his mind. Now this is a bit off the limit. It’s all fine if the book involves something related to Hinduism, since no matter how much they sound like sheer gibberish they can be to some extent enlightening, but the whole lifting hand thing is another story. These elements only render the story absurd and X-man-ish. Admittedly this mysticism might have had a tinge of creativeness at Maugham’s time, but anyway if this novel is to be labeled classic, the flaw will always be conspicuous.

Sorry for the fact that so far I haven’t really expressed anything substantial about the idea of enlightenment. Well, the one thing I’m sure of is that I would really love a world with that possibility. Also, if there is anything similar to enlightenment, it should not entail Hinduism. Hinduism reminds me of Maslow’s self-actualization need as the supreme need in one’s life. However, the dilemma is that here I don’t have a definite standpoint – I’m not sure if Maslow or Hinduism is right. Maslow in his later years claimed that self-transcendence is an even nobler pursuit. While Hinduism delicately avoids this conflict between self and others by accentuating the Oneness of one’s soul and Atman, the omnipresent god, it involves too many assumptions (or beliefs) and is somehow difficult to accept. In a word, all I’m trying to say is that if there is something of enlightenment, its significance should be questioned. (I know this sounds like: okay, that exists, well then it’s not good enough. But that’s simply what it looks like for me.)

About Larry

I recall somebody writing a review for the book claiming ‘I’m Larry 19’ in the end of the review. This comment appeared at first a bit conceited for me, but later I realized that it isn’t even a self-compliment without the book. All questions point to the main character Larry.

First off, what made Larry change from a simple teenager to a man with an aspiration to enlightenment? Some say this part was a disappointment in the novel. In my opinion, it could be a consequence of Maugham’s not attaching too much importance to the plot, or it may be that he deemed it would take nothing much to get a teenager change his mind. If the latter is true, this plot is only giving the story more real-life details: In real life, the events that completely reshape our views of the world don’t always look at once life-changing. Written down, it’s really just trivial, but only as we experience it can we discover the things that stir within our mind. If it’s a friend’s death in a war that gave Larry an epiphany, let it be a friend’s death. I think that’s well enough to do the job.

Then there’s the problem of Larry’s living conditions: what must be achieved in order to lead a life as Larry did? This is an intractable one to deal with. Apparently our Darrell is much more than an ideal figure for Maugham. He’s potentially the common ideal for all people valuing spiritual life. Everybody, old or young, at a certain age has dreamt of being a saint, and in this novel there he stands. Not only that, he is someone who was once a citizen of America with no distinction from any others and who later worked his own way to become a saint. Can anyone honestly say that’s not tantalizing at all? But here is the predicament that almost confronts everyone: To live as Larry does, you need to have as little attachments as possible (as in strong attachments like family bonds), a certain amount of money enough for you to sustain a living without too much worldly worries, and a willing heart to undertake whatever humble work you can find. This is actually part of the reason why some people think Wittgenstein is a prototype of Larry Darrell, but I’d rather put that question aside and return to that predicament. The fact here is, Larry is only an ideal, and is untouchable in certain aspects. What we can do is merely striving for his lifestyle, or disregarding that possibility and live as we ourselves please.

A little bit about Hinduism, Continence & Knowledge

I’m in no proper position to ramble on these three topics, but I’m tempted to talk about them. Before writing this review I must have read more than twenty reviews and have come across some that were really harsh yet inspiring. One of them mentioned Kama Sutra (which after hearing the name I searched online, skimmed through and found it in some way hilarious) and didn’t care too much about Katha-Upanishad where this quote came from:

The sharp edge of a razor is hard to pass over,

Thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.

(Needless to say here Salvation means Larry’s salvation, although it would be better if it weren’t capitalized, corresponding to the success theme.) In Hinduism there are four main goals of life: Dharma (Virtuous living), Artha (Material prosperity), Kama (Aesthetic and erotic pleasure) and Moksha (Liberation). An excerpt from Kama Sutra states: "Dharma is better than Artha, and Artha is better than Kama.” Larry in the book when asked how he would live after leaving Paris also says: “With calmness, forbearance, compassion, selflessness and continence.” It seems that Hinduism in some ways condemns Kama as the least desirous of all pursuits and advocates that continence contributes to spiritual life. And the more interesting fact is that it was Maugham who said that (through Larry of course). His exact words were: “I know by personal experience that in nothing are the wise men of India more dead right than in their contention that chastity intensely enhances the power of the spirit”.

Well, I suppose he’s kind of right about that.

Finally, Larry also mentioned that sages of India deemed knowledge or reasoning as the most precious faculty of men. Why does that sound western to me?