The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Painted Veil
Book Review: Very human view of society, class, and culture.
Summary: 4 Stars
Pity how many Amazon.com user's reviews are mostly those who are slamming the book AFTER they see a Hollywood film version of it. Doubly so for a film that is produced some 80 years after the book is published.
IF YOU ARE LOOKING TO RELIVE A MOVIE, DO NOT PICK UP THE BOOK THAT WAS WRITTEN FIRST. Seriously. See the movie again. Don't complain about the book being different from the movie. There are things like dead authors that scriptwriters cannot consult with. There are budgets. There are actors who are unable to portray the character the way that the writer intended. There are movie studios that hammer out a long listing of demands and restrictions, like length of the film and where it can be shot, etc. Don't ever expect a book to be like a movie, and vice versa. Unreal.
***Spoilers below***
Kitty Garstin is the elder daughter of a controlling woman and her put-upon, beleaguered husband. Mr. Garstin has never lived up to his wife's expectations, and neither has Kitty. She's unmarried and bordering spinsterhood (according to 1920s standards - NOT 2006 WHEN THE MOVIE WAS MADE). She meets Dr. Walter Fane, a bacteriologist and also an M.D. who is a public servant in Hong Kong. As Kitty's younger sister, Doris, is marrying a baron, and Kitty feels pressure to marry and leave her father's home.
Kitty impulsively accepts Walter's unexpected proposal of marriage, knowing fully that she does not love him. Walter immediately takes Kitty to live with him in Hong Kong, where she enters colonial society. She very soon meets the Townsends and begins an affair with Charlie, a forty-something colonial secretary. Walter discovers the affair and demands that Kitty accompany him to a remote village, Mei-fan-tu, which has been overrun with a cholera epidemic ... certain death for them both.
Kitty balks and refuses to go to Mei-fan-tu, and Walter agrees to divorce Kitty quietly only if Charlie will divorce his wife AND immediately marry Kitty. He does this knowing that Charlie will not leave his wife for Kitty, which Kitty soon discovers. Since Kitty cannot procure a divorce and remarriage with Charlie, she leaves Hong Kong with Walter, who shows her no kindness.
The majority of the novel is Kitty's personal growth in Mei-fan-tu. She discovers that her husband is selfless and adored by the nuns who run the hospital he does his research and treats the cholera patients at. The other characters here, particularly British civil servant Waddington and the French Mother Superior, are well-written and assist Kitty in growing from a petulant, selfish young girl to a humbled, generous woman. She works with the Chinese orphans and from a distance understands the extent of the cholera epidemic swirling around her. Quite unexpectedly, she discovers that she is pregnant. She tells Walter, who has barely warmed to her, and he asks if the child is his. She knows that it is not, and in fact it is Charlie Townsend's, but doesn't lie to Walter to gain his love and trust back.
Walter eventually catches cholera and his death is quick; Kitty barely has time to prepare for it. She is shocked at how little she grieves for him, and tries to continue the life she has built in Mei-fan-tu ... her friendly, platonic relationship with Waddington, her friendships with the nuns, and the work that she does with the orphans. She soon discovers that pregnant or not, she soon realises that her place is not in Mei-fan-tu. The nuns ask her not to return to work as it is too dangerous, and packs up what little she has in Mei-fan-tu and returns to her home in Hong Kong.
Upon her return to Hong Kong, she is unexpectedly met by Charlie Townsend's wife, Dorothy. Dorothy admits that she thought that Kitty was quite vulgar when they lived in Hong Kong at the same time, and felt horrible about it. She begs Kitty to stay with her and Charlie as it was too overwhelming for Kitty to return to her home. Kitty reluctantly agrees and avoids Charlie, but eventually Charlie worms his way into Kitty's room and takes advantage of her weak emotional state. Until Charlie approaches her, Kitty has never really grieved for Walter, but breaks down into heaving sobs ... and Charlie pounces on her sexually. It is a consensual sexual act as Kitty is reminded of the passion between them, but hates herself afterward and leaves the Townsend's home immediately to return to her parents' home.
En route to England, she finds that her mother has died, but not without some coarse words from her via post before she dies. She arrives home to find that her father has finally been awarded the Chief Justice position in the Bahamas, ironically after Mrs. Garstin had pushed him into such a role for their entire marriage - she never lived to see it. Mr. Garstin is finally free of the women in his life and looking forward to starting out again on his own. Kitty begs him to take her with him, and he reluctantly agrees. The book ends with an odd kiss to Kitty from her father ("on the lips, almost like a lover"), and her declaring that she would raise her unborn daughter (she is sure it was a girl) to be independent and not befall the same marital/extra-marital fate that Kitty had.
Overall, it is beautifully written. The chapters are very short and quite descriptive, so it's easy to paint a picture in your mind. Maugham's writing style is very easy to follow; not too dense or too simplistic. The story is tragic yet very human, and Kitty is easy to identify with. Very well done, and I highly recommend it.
Unless, that is, you've seen the movie first.
Book Review: Vintage Maugham
Summary: 5 Stars
The Painted Veil pits amiable but unscrupulous fools against tormented souls, has a duly sarcastic starting-point, and is set in far-away, warlord-era China; in short, it has the ingredients for vintage Maugham.
The book begins in Hong Kong, with an adultery scene. Kitty Fane is beautiful, shallow, and calculating. She soon finds her match in Charles Townsend, a vain and cynical but popular colonial official - and in her own husband, the lover's very photo-negative, who drags her through plague-ridden country in revenge. The story is that of her spiritual transformation. It can even be read to show women's superior ability for moral elevation.
The Painted Veil is full of Maugham's innumerable human insights, and it is filled with danger, physical and psychological. This is an easy to read, absorbing novel. Readers expecting lush visions of warlord-era China to jump from the page, though, will need to look in another place. The "native" country is distant, dream-like and morbid, seen through the eyes of the heroine, whose preoccupations are elsewhere. It is only peered at from the height of a curtained palanquin. Indeed, the novel paints the superficial and self-centred expatriate community of Hong-Kong much more than it does labouring China; as such, it probably remained true to life until very recent times.
Book Review: Wonderful book!
Summary: 5 Stars
The Painted Veil is the story of Kitty Fane, an Englishwoman living in Hong Kong in the 1920s. Unhappily married to Walter, a bacteriologist, Kitty embarks on a love affair with Charles Townsend, a local government official. When Walter finds out about the affair, he coerces Kitty into accompanying him to Mei-tan-fu, a town that has been struck with a cholera epidemic.
What I loved about this book, and what I love about all Maugham's books, is the way he has with language. The novel is short, but each sentence he uses packs a powerful punch; from the first page I was absolutely enthralled. Kitty is an extremely shallow, materialistic character, but still she's likeable--you even understand why she does what she does. We only see Walter through Kitty's eyes, and we're given a distasteful view of him; I wish that Maugham had introduced the reader to what he was thinking. Despite its flaws, however, I was utterly captivated by The Painted Veil.
Book Review: great book
Summary: 4 Stars
I highly recomend the book. It is one of those books that you just can`t put away.Book Review: the painted veil book
Summary: 5 Stars
I enjoyed the book very much, I saw the movie on tv first and then wanted to read the book. I got very good service from amazon also.