Maugham's classic work on the spiritual awakening of women – The Veil

The Veil is maugham's classic of female spiritual awakening, and one of his most controversial works.

Maugham is known as "the most storyteller". His novels are always so witty and humorous, often hiding compassion and sympathy for human nature in the irony between the lines.

Katie, the heroine of "The Veil", can't figure out how her husband has discovered the secret of her cheating?

The turning of the doorknob during the affair, the words of her husband at dinner, and the sudden decision to take her to the land of cholera, the details that heralded the exposure of her adultery, made Katie's nerves tighten.

Finally, unable to bear it, she decided to showdown!

However, when the veil is lifted, she is greeted by a large scene of love disillusionment, Katie collapses, and the truth of love and the indifference of human nature crush her innocence.

Some readers said: It is difficult to imagine that a novel like a third-rate melodrama contains such a rich aspect, shallow marriage, morality, a woman's growth, deep adherence to faith, cognition of death, the pursuit of ultimate meaning, and the extremely subtle oriental atmosphere and death breath, which is very shocking.

Maugham, as a famous "sharp and poisonous tongue man", presumably everyone has been "tea poisoned" by him more or less, right?

Incomplete poisonous tongue quotes

"I think if you talk about self-esteem when you're in love, there's only one reason: you actually love yourself the most." "It's useless to spill the milk and cry, because all the forces in the universe are trying to knock the milk over."

"At the age of eighteen, the emotions are impulsive, but they can't grow."

"What you have to overcome is your vanity, your desire to show off, and what you have to deal with is your cleverness that always wants to make a splash." 」 In "The Veil", Maugham uses his extremely calm and delicate observation and description to portray the fall and awakening of a woman to the fullest.

The vividness and naturalness of the content will make people feel that they are not reading a story, but from the perspective of a bystander, they have spied every detail from the wife's infidelity to the death of the husband.

Maugham said the novel was inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy. Verses from the Purgatory.

Ah, when you return to earth, rest after a long journey, said the third ghost, following the second, remember me, I am a. Siena made me, Maremma destroyed me, and the man who married me with his ring after the engagement knew it.

Bishnu was a high-class woman, and her husband suspected that she was having an affair, and feared that she would be retaliated against by Bizer's family and did not dare to kill her directly, so he took Bizeron to his castle in Marema, threw her out of the window, and eventually died.

The story sparked Maugham's imagination and kept going back and forth in his head for years until he found his foothold in Hong Kong and finally wrote The Veil.