The Painted Veil
- Book Review,
by W. Somerset Maugham
From Library Journal
Shallow, poorly educated Kitty marries the passionate and intellectual Walter Fane and has an affair with a career politician, Charles Townsend, assistant colonial secretary of Hong Kong. When Walter discovers the relationship, he compels Kitty to accompany him to a cholera-infested region of mainland China, where she finds limited happiness working with children at a convent. But when Walter dies, she is forced to leave China and return to England. Generally abandoned, she grasps desperately for the affection of her one remaining relative, her long-ignored father. In the end, in sharp, unexamined contrast to her own behavior patterns, she asserts that her unborn daughter will grow up to be an independent woman. The Painted Veil was first published in 1925 and is usually described as a strong story about a woman's spiritual journey. To more pragmatic, modern eyes, Kitty's emotional growth appears minimal. Still, if not a major feminist work, the book has literary interest. Sophie Ward's uninflected reading is competent if not compelling. Recommended only for large literature collections. I. Pour-El, Des Moines Area Community Coll., Boone, IA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From AudioFile
With the author's characteristic detachment, this novel tells of a shallow, young adulterous whose bacteriologist husband takes her to a remote area of China ravaged by a cholera epidemic, where their propinquity and peril in battling the health crisis leads to her spiritual awakening. Sophie Ward reads primly and accurately, with little investment or enthusiasm. Y.R. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
Review
“The modern writer who has influenced me the most.” – George Orwell
Review
?The modern writer who has influenced me the most.? ? George Orwell
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