Maugham’s greatest and most enduring popular novel that tells the story of Larry Darrell, an attractive and enigmatic American who forsakes the comforts of bourgeois society to live a life dedicated to pursuit of truth and meaning.
The books starts with a quote from the Katha Upanishad : “The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to salvation is hard.”
Larry : “Money just doesn’t happen to interest me”
Isabel giggled. “Darling, don’t talk like a fool. One can’t live without money.”
“I have a little. That’s what gives me the chance to do what I want.
Isabel : “Don’t you think you might tell me what you’ve been up to all the time you’ve been in Paris?’
Larry : “I’ve been reading a good deal….I can read French. Of course Greek’s more difficult. But I have a very good teacher. Until you came here I used to go to him 3 evenings a week.”
“And what is that going to lead to?”
“The acquisition of knowledge,” he smiled.
“It doesn’t sound very practical”
“Perhaps it isn’t and on the other hand perhaps it is. But it is enormous fun. You can’t imagine what a thrill it is to read the Odyssey in the original. It makes you feel as ifyou had only to get on tiptoe and stretch out your hands to touch the stars.””
“When are you coming back to Chicago?”
“I couldn’t go back now. I’m on the threshold. I see vast lands of the spirit stretching out before me, beckoning, and I”m eager to travel them”
“What do you expect to find in them?”
“The answers to my questions. I want to make up my mind whether God is or God is not. I want to find out why evil exists. I want to know whether I have an immortal soul or whether when I die it’s the end.”
“But Larry,” she smiled. “People have been asking those questions for thousands of years. If they could be answered, surely they’d have been answered by now.”
“… you might say that if men have been asking them for thousands of years it proves that they can’t help asking them and have to go on asking them.”