[Includes spoilers.]
W. Somerset Maugham's "Razor's Edge" (1944) was referred to continually in my research for "Retreat". There was a lot of literature that wasn't explicitly about health which I had to avoid for the sake of focus. But in January 2019 I bought a copy; and it sat on my shelf for six years.
In the main I am a non-fiction reader. I'll enjoy some fiction, but as a rule I feel like I'm wasting time with it. There is a certain type of fiction, however, which transcends fantasy and ends up having a socio-historical effect. With "Retreat" the examples would be Jack Kerouac's "The Dharma Bums", Herman Hesse's "Siddhartha", or Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Each of those three books defined a sensibility and a way of understanding the world.
How everyday philosophy and pop psychology are a hair's breadth away from fiction is epitomised by another book which I read, Carlos Castaneda's "The Teachings of Don Juan". Purporting to be a documentary report of the author's interaction with a Yaqui shaman, it turned out to be completely made up. However, its effect on culture and people's lives was very real.
I would direct the reader to Maharshi scholar and disciple David Godman's excellent article for details on the interaction between the English Somerset Maugham and the Indian guru Ramana Maharshi. A number of Englishmen are mooted as being models for the character Larry Darrell who is so fascinated by vedic philosophy: Maharshi disciple Guy Hague, the author Christopher Isherwood, and (improbably) the scurrilous diarist Henry "Chips" Channon. Darrell is a composite. Yes, the Vedas and Buddhism came to America as early as Vivekananda's Chicago's 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions - but the English too were early adopters of these revolutionary ideas.
I'm so glad that I eventually read it! I thoroughly enjoyed it in a way I can't remember being so transfixed and delighted by a book since I picked up Philip K Dick's "Valis" in the nineties. I only wished I had read it sooner. In its remarkable way it sets the spiritual impulse of "the seeker" Larry Darrell against the background of affluent society. This lends perspective on both. Indeed for much of the book Larry is like a black hole at the writing's periphery. Arguably the novel works at its best that way, even if the commentary on the Vedas itself isn't too shabby. And as much as Larry is a great advertisement for the esoteric vedic values, it is the author Somerset Maugham, who plays himself as a character in the book, who holds all the cards.
Rather than using Larry's stringent high-mindedness to entirely undermine more obviously superficial characters like the mercurial Isabel or highfalutin' Elliot, Somerset Maugham sees them all as actors on a stage. A part of me came away thinking that Elliot, fixated upon the motion of high society, wasn't so ridiculous really - he had his own karma. Critically though, Larry is granted respect on an equal footing with those people obsessed with status and wealth, even if he has his own foibles (evangelically plotting to rescue Sophie), or blind spots (not acknowledging how his own wealth underwrites his spiritual journey). Certainly since the nineteen eighties, anyone on such a path has been eyed with fear, suspicion, and contempt - so it is both salutary and encouraging to read this powerful story.
It's a pity that both the movies made of "The Razor's Edge" are stodgy with wooden dialogue - but what can we expect? If you have read the book too, I'm very glad for us.
