Of Human Bondage... | 
I cannot express how much I needed this novel. I bumbled along with my poor dear Philip as he tried so hard to make sense of life and love. For all its reputation, this really isn‘t bleak. It feels deeply, almost painfully honest. A tender, searching bildungsroman that invites you to muse alongside its philosophy as you travel through the life of its frustrating, kind, and lovable hero.
Mom and I went to a makers market today. Found some cute things (candle, cat things). There was also a cute little shop in a trailer that sold used books 📚 and a free paint chip bookmark with purchase.
pickWhat an interesting book, truly. Ah yes, a classic. But I honestly was so annoyed at the MC and his … predicament? That‘s not the right word. 🧐 Anyway, I didn‘t listen to this straight through; very happy I had the Cliffs Notes (ahem, written in 1963!!!) and almost maybe wish this could be a college level course exploring the author, this dang book AND the films 🎥 of which I hope to see someday. Might be a tough sell to Hub. 💖
#Oct2024 Book97
I don‘t really have a quote to share but wanted to post that I am at the halfway mark and our MC is not the easiest guy to cheer for right now. Also, am listening, as well, and have started thinking in an English accent - kinda weird?
Philip has fallen hopelessly stupidly in love with Mildred and honestly, it is annoying to be in his head right now. Ugh
#Oct2024 #SugarPumpkins4Pie #OfHumanBondageReadalong
A book blogger friend of mine is hosting a readalong of this in October. I can‘t help it, I am a joiner 😩🥸
#ofhumanbondagereadalong ⛓️💥
pickThe novel is considered to be Maugham's masterpiece. It's the story of Philip Carey, an orphan born with a club foot, and his struggles for self-discovery and independence. It's a coming-of-age story of personal growth and self-discovery, as he tries to find meaning in his life and make sense of his place in the world.
Overall, “Of Human Bondage“ is a complex and deeply moving novel and it is somewhat semiautobiographical in nature.
I'm sorry, were we meant to be inspirational? 🤪 I fear it's going to be demotivational cynicism all month from me. 😅
#InQuotes #Youth
@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
January stack. I‘m in a good place 🤗 I want to read as much as I can before work and school get busy
pickI liked this a lot more than I expected! In a lot of ways it was quite conventional, the story of a man‘s life around the end of the 19th and start of 20th centuries, and I can‘t put my finger on what I loved so much but I was so immersed in it and even at 600 pages it never felt long to me. The journey of Philip‘s life was so quiet but oddly profound in places. I didn‘t love the way the women were portrayed, but them even the horrible or passive
Philip definitely made that mistake, over and over again. #litfortunecookie @KVanRead
Want to play? @TheSpineView @CarolynM
pickMaugham mixed fact with fiction in his semi-autobiographical masterpiece. Written over a hundred years ago, it is still relevant — even as it takes you back in time to the bleak realities of life without modern medicine or labor laws. I felt so much compassion for the protagonist and found his sensitive nature and love of books especially endearing. Reading this was like being on a journey through someone else‘s life.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Might be the first time I‘ve smiled the whole novel. Grim reading about the human condition.
pickThis is Somerset Maugham‘s 1915 Bildungsroman with similarities to his own life - orphaned at an early age, taken in by an uncle who was a vicar, bullying at boarding school etc. He details his protagonist Phillip‘s search for life‘s meaning from religion, through a life lived for art or for passion. Phillip is beset with trials, some self inflicted. I groaned and scolded him a lot 😂 but it kept me interested. ⬇️
#bookreport
This week has been devoted to the audiobook Of Human Bondage. 24 hrs done, 2 to go. I am loving it although Phillip is such a pillock sometimes. I groan at him aloud! Also sneaked in History of the Rain, super atmospheric and a quirky, clever style but it struggled to hold my attention as I was probably still thinking about Phillip! 🤷🏻♀️
Extraneous photo - my favourite cafe owner has introduced me to Pho and now I‘m addicted.
Of Human Bondage (through careless love): “He thought to himself that there could be no greater torture in the world than at the same time to love and to contemn.”
pickSo much in this book that I love... it‘s delightfully humorous and very British, even in it‘s painful, harrowing loneliness. I love Philip for his humanness and all of his bumbling attempts at just living a life. I adored Norah, the Athelny family, Dr. South, and Sally. I love the slowly developing storyline of an ordinary life and the truly beautiful writing.
And then there‘s f🤬ing Mildred. What an insufferable bitch. 😂
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
#1001books
One should always take the #midnight train to Paris when given the option. #quotsyoct19
August stats: I only read 11 this month, but two were quite long. One pan (the Flagg) and one so-so (the Dreiser) but the rest were wonderful. All in all a good month.
I don‘t totally agree with Maugham, but there‘s _some_ truth to this. #youth #quotsyaug19 @TK-421
pickI loved spending time with this book. Philip sometimes annoyed me, but unlike Hans from The Magic Mountain or Clyde from An American Tragedy, I loved him anyway. A novel of ideas, with beautiful prose, much sadness, but also much hope.
Quotes just keep jumping out at me with this book.
#AyupAugust
(Day 22 - #Human)
*Meet Philip, born with a club foot and orphaned at the age of nine. His move to the vicarage occupied by his uncle and aunt is not all that salutary for him though. It‘s a rather cold and isolated existence, but there are books, which Philip loves. When he is sent to school he has a hard time, owing to his sensitivity and his disability. He becomes a gadabout, searching for happiness, but decides on being a family
I know how Philip feels! My reaction was “she looks like her pictures.” 😀
This very nearly made me laugh out loud in the restaurant over lunch!
Philip, Philip, Philip. You‘re just making yourself unhappy over and over aren‘t you?
I‘m loving this little guy, and I know Maugham is setting me up, as he always does, for heartbreak. #currentlyreading
Finally getting to this classic. I‘m reading the ebook edition with a boring cover, so I grabbed this one off the internet. #currentlyreading
pickThis was a very dense read, longer than the 600 pages would let on. The word count is quite high with unbroken paragraphs spanning pages. But the beauty in which the text is written made this a difficult book to put down. Of Human Bondage is a work that reflects upon a different time in our society but is still so relevant to the struggles of today's youth as they come of age. This is a book I will come back to again.
"The pessimism of the subject attracted his youth; and he believed that the world he was about to enter was a place of pitiless woe and of darkness." — Of Human Bondage, 1915. The youth have always thought we ruined the world. It's not a millennial thing.
I'm only 36 pages in but I am already loving the process of reading Of Human Bondage. This leather bound copy from 1936 is a joy to hold and turn the pages of.
"Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading..."
Picked up some sweet Limited Editions Club books from a fellow booknerd this weekend, including OHB, which has been on my wishlist forev‘s.
'... #Death is unimportant. The fear of it should never influence a single action of the wise man. I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know that I shall be horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to keep myself from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a pass; but I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.' #quotsynov17 @TK-421
