Reviews and Comments

I don't know that I've read very many bildungsroman, but based on what I've read about the genre, Of Human Bondage fits perfectly. We watch the main character, Philip, grow from an awkward youth to a man that's about my age. Few of the characters are particularly likable, including Philip, but they feel more realistic than those developed by earlier English writers. Parts of the narrative were painful enough that I wanted to put the book down, but I was glad that I persevered.

Maugham's writing is pulpy and not always terribly elegant, but the story feels heartfelt and genuine. I prefer a good story written fairly well to a poor story written in brilliant prose. You can't shine a turd.

One of the aspects that I most enjoy about writing from times past is the perspective that it lends. My favorite part of Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" was its sketch of early-19th-century New York rather than its perplexing narrative of the reluctant clerk. On Human Bondage follows a middle-class boy through turn-of-the-20th-Century London, Paris, Heidelburg, and the English countryside. We see the effects of his surroundings and his company on the decisions that he makes (many of them poor).

Gore Vidal's surprisingly engaging preface to the book points out that Philip's middle-class sensibilities about money and cleanliness were unusual in contemporary writing. As a middle-class guy myself, I felt sympathetic to some of his reactions, though the conservative English culture of the time made the overall impression of his situation seem more alien.

The book (as the author admits in his introduction) is longer than it should be, but I will admit that it was ultimately rewarding.

This book was some heavy going, but it was worth the effort. It's a physics textbook with much of the math stripped out (a relief for me). Physical principles are presented by illustrating their applications in everyday objects. The writing style is pretty casual, which is another welcome change.

It's rare for me to read a book that I want to re-read after finishing a couple of chapters. This book is so dense with useful knowledge that I know much of it has already leaked out of my ears. Over the course of the year or so that it's taken me to read this tome, I've incorporated my learning into a dozen or more lunch conversations. Time has dimmed much of what I learned, so I want to read it again. My book queue has accumulated a fair amount of (literal) dust, though, so it may be a while before I get back to it. In the meantime, I'm sure that I will be encouraging friends and family to borrow it and to read it cover-to-cover. It is a fantastic survey of the modern marvels that we take for granted in our everyday lives.

My god, what a slog! The story itself meanders over a pretty vast timespan and cast of characters. The worst part is all of Tolstoy's long-winded philosophical discursions peppered throughout (especially at the end). Much like Moby Dick, if the author had stuck to the narrative instead of trying to show off, it'd be a much easier read. I get that he's trying to illustrate that people are influenced by their circumstances, but letting the story alone prove his point would have been sufficient.

The story itself is pretty entertaining. It can be tricky to keep all of the characters separate, but you figure out who's who pretty quickly by their mannerisms and speech patterns. I did like the way the characters developed between the two periods of war.

Having struggled through the bloviating, I can assure any prospective readers that the non-narrative chapters and passages can be skipped without detracting from the story. You'll finish the thing much faster, too.

Richard Feynman is definitely an admirable fellow. He's extremely intelligent and has an enviable work ethic. Some of the stories in this book are fascinating illuminations on times and places I know little about. His voice in prose is not very appealing to me, however.

I'm not sure what it is that bothers me about the way he talks or writes (I gather from the preface that these stories are essentially dicatations). Heather felt he was caddish, and it's clear that he had a fascination with women. For me, though, these elements of the stories are not that remarkable giving the age he was living through. Guys just seemed to act that way during the middle of the century. Maybe I felt like his casual tone was a bit forced.

He's obviously brilliant, but he also sees himself as a straight shooter that likes to cut through the usual tangle of academic obfuscation. I guess I still felt an undercurrent of arrogance along with a bit too much bragging. Maybe I just envy his achievements; I don't know.

In any case, the material is good and pretty consistently entertaining. The most valuable element for me was the window on mid-century academic life.