Famous First Sentences: The Razor's Edge

There is something quietly unassuming and gently diffident about Somerset Maugham's writing that must surely be a reflection of some sector of his soul, despite the public extravagance of that portion of his wildly eclectic life that he spent on the French Riviera, where he would entertain the elite in real style.

But even then he realized the unfortunate tendency of success to corrupt the quietest of souls. What is interesting about the vast (and I mean VAST) contrasts in his travels and work life -- from King's College to the slums of London's East End, where he worked after studying to be a surgeon -- from Tahiti to India to driving ambulances in France to a stint as a secret agent in Russia to South Carolina (just up the road, in fact, from where I live now) -- is that all this rich experience led him to further and more avid introspection, rather than anything else.

The first sentence of Maugham's The Razor's Edge (1944) is unassuming, too:

• I have never begun a novel with more misgiving.

I must admit, there is something very engaging about that. I'm immediately intrigued by the notion that someone as famous, celebrated, and gifted as Somerset Maugham might have misgivings about anything literary at all.

Maugham is a minor character in the novel, which he maintained was pretty close to a true account, but which seems to combine some of the experiences and characteristics of two people, a mining engineer and Christopher Isherwood. The fact that the narrative voice here confesses to have misgivings is indicative, though, of a mind that considers the responsibilities of any author to the Truth (with a capital "t"). All Maugham's work, no matter how fictionalized or fabricated the details of any scene, character, or episode, seeks to convey the Truth, whatever that might turn out to be, and no matter how painful it might finally be to tell it.

Truth has consequences for the human mind that are as effective as any drug. The pattern of truth, indeed, carves a new perception that is as physical a change as any other. So life in the London slums was reflected in Liza from Lambeth (1897); The Moon and Sixpence (1919) shone an unrelenting light on the pursuit of Art, to the exclusion of pretty much all else.

Maughm was in his sixties when he was writing The Razor's Edge. After two world wars (he escaped the second on a coal barge, too old to serve in the army), he had behind him also a long life of reading, travel, more reading, much experience on which to draw for his depiction of the innate selfishness of the American South's plantation owners, and the quiet aestheticism of the protagonist, Larry Durrell, who has to travel far and wide himself, in order to find that it is difficult indeed to walk on the edge of a razor without a slip, without leeway at all.

The image is drawn from the Upanishads (the Katha-Upanishad, Death as Teacher) which states that it is difficult to pass over the edge of a razor; so the wise say that the path to salvation is hard. Larry Durrell's life is difficult, but the point is that he learns from his experiences, and achieves some small measure of enlightenment on his journeys through India.  He chooses to turn his back on materialism; the result is an enrichment of mind.

The Razor's Edge is full of wonderfully drawn characters and spans three continents.  Two movie versions exist: the 1946 version with Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney, and the 1984 version starring (and partly written by) Bill Murray.