The Painted Veil

If I recall rightly, one of Guy de Maupassant's short stories, I forget which, that led me W. Somerset Maugham's writing, his short stories in particular - Footprints in the Jungle, Rain and several others that appeared in his collective works. I never went back to reading either of their novels until now.

I've known the story of The Painted Veil for a long time, having read excerpts of it here and there and watched the trailer to the movie adaptation starring Edward Norton (sigh) and Naomi Watts, and finally bought the book just last week on a whim - I haven't yet watched the movie.

It is the story of a young, silly girl named Kitty who marries Walter Fane, a bacteriologist working in Hong-Kong, soon after her younger sister announces her engagement to a man with a title. While in Hong-Kong, Kitty has an affair with assistant colonial secretary Charles Townsend, a selfish man who believes Walter would rather forgive his wife and continue to live in assumed ignorance instead of creating a scene and possibly losing his job. Instead, a disappointed Walter gives Kitty an ultimatum - she either travels with him to a cholera ravaged town in interior mainland China, or she and Townsend marry as soon as both their spouses give them a divorce. Townsend, being as shallow as Walter expects, refuses and Kitty finds herself resigning to a fate of death in the epidemic which is readily claiming any victim. It is in this town that Kitty begins to understand Walter, who is not only just ashamed of her but despises himself for having loved her. Realizing that she is now alone in the world, Kitty begins to offer her services to the French missionary in Mei-Tan-Fu. She discovers how repulsive her actions have been and how badly she has mistreated Walter. She loses him at the cusp of new beginnings but is fully aware of her own stupidity. Though she doesn't necessarily redeem herself she does gain a larger emotional understanding of people and learns of what is really important in life.

I loved the writing. So very simple but filled with such emotional depth that I had to take a couple of moments to get past the moment before delving into the story again.

Kitty is portrayed as a silly woman, who knows nor cares for the meaningful things in life. She isn't intelligent but has the looks and marries Walter, knowing that he loves her much more than she is capable of returning the emotion.

"I tried not to bore you with my love; .... and I was always on the lookout for the first sign that you were impatient with my affection. What most husbands expect as a right I was prepared to receive as a favor." - Walter (when confronting her of her infidelity)

Kitty pretty much takes him for granted through the first quarter of the book -

"...perhaps Walter loved her so passionately that he was prepared to accept any humiliation is sometimes she would let him love her."

It is only after Townsend's rejection of her that she realizes and appreciates, to a certain degree, Walter's character. She doesn't grow to love him, but she does learn to respect him. His compassion for little children and the people of a dying town make him every bit the man that Townsend can never be. But he remains that man that Kitty can never love.

It's wonderful reading this book because you know that a man has written it from a woman's perspective. The feminist in me cries in protest at the portrayal of the protagonist, obviously. But Maugham, in very precise sentences, lays out all of a woman's emotions - which are supposed to be difficult to understand! He minces no words when Kitty reasons quietly why she could never love a man like Walter. She knows that others would hate her for it as he dies a martyr's death and though she respects him she acknowledges that for her it living life with him would have been terribly. They wouldn't have made each other happy, even though he once loved her.
I like the character of Waddington, a British deputy commissioner stationed in Mei-Tan-Fu. He is written to be shrewd (in fact, all characters except Kitty and Townsend seem to be rather perceptive) but doesn't let on more. Walter elicits sympathy - though the story does focus more on him through Kitty. His last words - "The dog it was that died" - (from Oliver Goldsmith's An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog) are as enigmatic as the man himself. Simple but to the point, still.

One of the things about this book, and the writing, that puts this on my 'favorites' shelf is that it speaks out loud the things most beings would hide. The contrast between self-centered and shallow characters and the more righteous and world/people aware ones is stark. It shows that while some people can change one's character still remains defined just as it always was. It is the choices you make that make you different. The innate qualities of a person, be it their will to sacrifice worldly pleasures to do good for humanity - like the nuns, their ability to attach themselves to another person because of their love - like Waddington and his Manchu mistress, their ability to feel compassion for others though their own personal feelings have been taken for granted - like Walter, their high opinion of themselves which are only skin deep - like Townsend and to some extent even Kitty, can never be altered. I consider the line "he did of a broken heart" to be one of the saddest in the book. It makes you wonder...

The movie adaptation is supposed to bring closure to Kitty and Walter, which is what (a romantic) one would want, I suppose, but personally I think Maugham's writing does the story enough justice. The story lives up to its title taken from P.B. Shelley's sonnet -

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; who ever weave

Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear.

I knew one who had lifted it--he sought,

For his lost heart was tender, things to love,

But found them not, alas! nor was there aught

The world contains, the which he could approve.

Through the unheeding many he did move,

A splendour among shadows, a bright blot

Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove

For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.