The 1925 novel, The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham surprised me by it’s readability. The story is about the beautiful yet spoiled Kitty Fane who marries Dr. Walter Fane and travels with him to China where he works as a bacteriologist. She has an affair with a married man and is caught by her husband. He then moves them to a small town that is experiencing a cholera epidemic. Kitty finds herself drawn to the catholic convent and learns to think about others rather than herself. She also starts to see her husband in a different light when she learns all that he is doing to help the victims of cholera.

Kitty starts the book as a thoughtless, silly woman but during the course of the story undergoes a change. Her personal growth allows her to see what terrible mistakes she has made and to seek forgiveness. Her maturity by the end of the book helps to give her direction and purpose in life.

The Painted Veil is a simple story of love, betrayal and a search for the real meaning of life. The author obviously has a strong moral lesson he wishes to implant but due to the shortness of the book, discussions on life philosophies are kept to the bare minimum and therefore the question of Kitty’s salvation and morality seemed rather rushed. I did enjoy the story and I thought the ending was excellent with Kitty vowing to bring up her daughter to be strong, not weak and silly like she had been.
While not a particularly happy read, this is a story that I suspect will linger in the back of my mind for some time. ( )

“Her character was like a country which on first acquaintance seems grand, but inhospitable; but in which presently you discover smiling little villages among fruit trees in the folds of the majestic mountains, and pleasant ambling rivers that flow kindly though lush meadows. “

“I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos.”

Kitty Fane is a young English woman, living in Hong Kong with her husband. She feels isolated and lonely and begins to have an affair. When her husband discovers her tryst, he gives her an ultimatum-he will divorce her and she will be left with nothing or she can accompany him to an area where there is a cholera epidemic raging. She reluctantly chooses the latter, despite the deadly consequences.
Once again, I was not prepared for how good Maugham was as a writer. He deeply understands the human condition, seemingly on all levels. I also think he is one of the most modern of all the classic authors. This was written in 1925 but it resonates, like it was written yesterday. This is another terrific novel, possibly my favorite of his work. ( )

What a story! HIGHLY recommend this one. ( )

I found a Penguin copy of The Painted Veil on the street. When I opened it I had the vaguest of memories that I might have read it long ago but from the first page it had me riveted until the last. The title comes from a sonnet by Shelley which begins

Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread,—behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies...

For me it was a sepia coloured novel and although barely mentioned (as best I recall), I could hear the ceiling fans, taste the whisky and sodas and feel the rhythms of louvered afternoon light in this British Colonial outpost. But the setting is not the subject of this remarkable story. It is (as per Shelly) about Life and lifting the veil. Emotions are laid bare and we are reminded of our humanity (except for the grinding poverty of the coolies).

The veil of expectation is lifted over and over again: the discovery of the affair, Walter's reaction, Kitty's disenchantment and surrender to fate, Wallington's real life, Walter's death (the dog it was who died), confronting Townsend, parent's boredom with their children, Kitty's father's sacrifice.

When all things lasted so short a time and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men, attaching an absurd importance to trivial objects, should make themselves and one another so unhappy.

A wonderful book by a great male writer. ( )

Love and loss on a painfully human scale. ( )