The Razor's Edge
First edition
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| Author | W. Somerset Maugham |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Doubleday, Doran |
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Publication date
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1944 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 314 (Paperback) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 53054407 |
| 813.54 | |
The Razor's Edge is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. The book was first published in 1944. It tells the story of Larry Darrell, an American pilot traumatised by his experiences in World War I, who sets off in search of some transcendent meaning in his life. The story begins through the eyes of Larry's friends and acquaintances as they witness his personality change after the War. His rejection of conventional life and search for meaningful experience allows him to thrive while the more materialistic characters suffer reversals of fortune. The book was twice adapted into film, first in 1946 starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney, and Herbert Marshall as Maugham and Anne Baxter as Sophie, and then a 1984 adaptation starring Bill Murray.
The novel's title comes from a translation of a verse in the Katha Upanishad, given in the book's epigraph as: "The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to "enlightenment" is hard."
Maugham begins by characterizing his story as not really a novel but a thinly veiled true account. He includes himself as a minor character, a writer who drifts in and out of the lives of the major players. Larry Darrell's lifestyle is contrasted throughout the book with that of his fiance's uncle, Elliott Templeton, an American expatriate living in Paris and a shallow and unrepentant yet generous snob. For example, while Templeton's Roman Catholicism embraces the hierarchical trappings of the Church, Larry's proclivities tend towards the 13th-century Flemish mystic and saint John of Ruysbroeck.
Wounded and traumatized by the death of a comrade in the War, Larry returns to Chicago, Illinois, and his fiancée, Isabel Bradley, only to announce that he does not plan to seek paid employment and instead will "loaf" on his small inheritance. He wants to delay their marriage and refuses to take up a job as a stockbroker offered to him by Henry Maturin, the father of his friend Gray. Meanwhile, Larry's childhood friend, Sophie, settles into a happy marriage, only later tragically losing her husband and baby in a car accident.
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