2023/02/17

Eat Pray Love - film Wikipedia

Eat Pray Love - Wikipedia

Eat Pray Love

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the book, see Eat, Pray, Love.
Eat Pray Love
Eat pray love ver2.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byRyan Murphy
Screenplay by
Based onEat, Pray, Love
by Elizabeth Gilbert
Produced byDede Gardner
Starring
CinematographyRobert Richardson
Edited byBradley Buecker
Music byDario Marianelli
Production
companies
Distributed bySony Pictures Releasing
Release date
  • August 13, 2010
Running time
  • 133 minutes
  • 140 minutes (extended)[1]
CountryUnited States
Languages
  • English
  • Italian
  • Portuguese
  • Indonesian
Budget$60 million[2][3]
Box office$204.6 million[3]

Eat Pray Love is a 2010 American biographical romantic drama film starring Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert, based on Gilbert's 2006 memoir of the same name. Ryan Murphy co-wrote and directed the film, which was released in the United States on August 13, 2010. It received mixed reviews from critics, but was a financial success, grossing $204.6 million worldwide against a $60 million budget.

Plot[edit]

Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having – a husband, a house, a successful career – yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused, and searching for what she really wanted in life.

Inexplicably unhappy and restless after eight years, Elizabeth doesn't want to be married anymore. Stephen doesn't understand why and doesn't accept the divorce easily. In the meantime she has a brief affair with David, a young actor. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a three point trip: Italy, India and Bali, a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery.

In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy, enjoying pastas and gelato for four months. A new Swedish friend introduces her to a private Italian tutor, and they celebrate Thanksgiving together right before she departs for her next stop. Liz heads to an ashram where she experiences the power of prayer in India. In addition to mass prayer sessions, honoring their guru, she is assigned the chore of scrubbing floors. 'Texas Richard' keeps her on her toes as well as supporting her. When he's ready to move on, she's reassigned to greeting and orienting new arrivals.

Feeling more centered, Liz moves on to Bali, Indonesia. A year after first meeting him, she reintroduces herself to Ketut there. He gives her various tasks. While Liz is cycling she is run off the road by Felipe, a Brazilian. She is sent to Wayan in the village to help cure a bad gash in her leg. There she meets Brazilian Armenia. She convinces her to come back to the village that night to the Beach Shack for dancing.

There, Felipe approaches Liz, apologizing for almost killing her with his jeep. Armenia then tries to set her up with young Ian, but she doesn't want another idle fling. Felipe offers to give her a lift. Hours later he returns with a hangover cure and his number. They hook up, and two weeks later Liz makes an appeal to her friends to donate to Wayan's future house, coming up with over $18,000. When Felipe proposes they spend a few days together in a remote spot, Liz panics, breaking up with him.

Deciding her time there is over, Liz gets prepared to leave and stops to say farewell to Ketut. He encourages her to embrace and, not run from love. She acknowledges his advice and runs to the dock after Felipe where she confesses her feelings to him. Finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love comes to her.

Cast[edit]

Production[edit]

Eat Pray Love began principal photography in August 2009. Filming locations include New York City (United States), Rome and Naples (Italy), Delhi and Pataudi (India), Ubud and Padang-Padang Beach at Bali (Indonesia).[4][5]

Hindu leaders voiced concern over the production of the film and advocated the use of spiritual consultants to ensure that the film conveyed an accurate reflection of life in an ashram.[6][7] Both Salon.com and The New York Post have suggested that Gurumayi Chidvilasananda was the guru featured in the film and in the book by Elizabeth Gilbert on which the film was based, though Gilbert herself did not identify the ashram or the guru by name.[8][9]

The two Balinese lead characters (Ketut Liyer and Wayan) are played by Indonesian actors Hadi Subiyanto and Christine Hakim, respectively.

Soundtrack[edit]

  1. "Flight Attendant" by Josh Rouse
  2. "Last Tango In Paris (Suite, Part 2)" by Gato Barbieri
  3. "Thank You" by Sly & the Family Stone
  4. "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" (from Mozart's The Magic Flute) by Wiener Philharmoniker
  5. "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young
  6. "Kaliyugavaradana" by U. Srinivas
  7. "The Long Road" by Eddie Vedder and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan[10]
  8. "Harvest Moon" by Neil Young
  9. "Samba da Bênção" by Bebel Gilberto
  10. "Wave" by João Gilberto
  11. "Got to Give It Up, Part 1" by Marvin Gaye
  12. "'S Wonderful" by João Gilberto
  13. "Better Days" by Eddie Vedder
  14. "Attraversiamo" by Dario Marianelli
  15. "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac
  16. "Boyz" by M.I.A.

Reception[edit]

Box office[edit]

The film debuted at #2 behind The Expendables with $23,104,523. It had the highest debut at the box office with Roberts in a lead role since America's Sweethearts in 2001.[11] During its initial ten-day run, revenue grew to a total of $47.2 million.[12] The competing film The Expendables features Eric Roberts, Julia Roberts's brother, and the box office pitted Roberts versus Roberts. Hollywood.com commented that "sibling rivalry is rarely as publicly manifested" as this.[13] The film, produced on a $60 million budget, grossed $80,574,382 in the United States and Canada and has a worldwide total of $204,594,016.

Critical response[edit]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 36% approval rating based on 210 reviews with an average rating of 5.20/10. The site's critical consensus reads "The scenery is nice to look at, and Julia Roberts is as luminous as ever, but without the spiritual and emotional weight of the book that inspired it, Eat Pray Love is too shallow to resonate."[14] On Metacritic, it has a score of 50 based on reviews from 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[15] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F.[16]

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film 1 out of 5 stars, beginning his review "Sit, watch, groan. Yawn, fidget, stretch. Eat Snickers, pray for end of dire film about Julia Roberts's emotional growth, love the fact it can't last for ever. Wince, daydream, frown. Resent script, resent acting, resent dinky tripartite structure. Grit teeth, clench fists, focus on plot. Troubled traveller Julia finds fulfilment through exotic foreign cuisine, exotic foreign religion, sex with exotic foreign Javier Bardem. Film patronises Italians, Indians, Indonesians. Julia finds spirituality, rejects rat race, gives Balinese therapist 16 grand to buy house. Balinese therapist is grateful, thankful, humble. Sigh, blink, sniff. Check watch, groan, slump."[17]

Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe gave the film 3 out of 4 stars while writing "Is it a romantic comedy? Is it a chick flick? This is silly, since, in truth, it's neither. It's simply a Julia Roberts movie, often a lovely one."[18] San Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle overall positively reviewed the film and praised Murphy's "sensitive and tasteful direction" as it "finds way to illuminate and amplify Gilbert's thoughts and emotions, which are central to the story".[19]

Negative reviews appeared in The Chicago Reader, in which Andrea Gronvall commented that the film is "ass-numbingly wrong",[20] and Rolling Stone, in which Peter Travers referred to watching it as "being trapped with a person of privilege who won't stop with the whine whine whine."[21] Humor website Something Awful ran a scathing review. Martin R. "Vargo" Schneider highlighted several aspects of the film that he considered completely unrealistic.[22] Political columnist Maureen Dowd termed the film "navel-gazing drivel" in October 2010.[23]

The BBC's Mark Kermode listed the film as 4th on his list of Worst Films of the Year, saying: "Eat Pray Love... vomit. A film with the message that learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all, although I think the people who made that film loved themselves rather too much."[24]

In The Huffington Post, critic Jenna Busch wrote:

Eat Pray Love is ultimately charming and inspirational. Though it doesn't have quite the impact of the book, it will likely leave you pondering your life choices and forgiving your flaws. It will certainly have you forgiving the few flaws in the film. The performances are just too fantastic, the vistas too lovely to pay too much attention to anything else.[25]

In the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, journalist Curzio Maltese wrote:

How many platitudes fit in a two-hour-twenty-minutes-long movie? Several, if Eat Pray Love is anything to go by. Sure, if TV director Ryan Murphy's directing weren't so slow, even more would. For example, in the long part shot in Rome, the mandolin is conspicuously absent. There's a shower of spaghetti, Italians who gesticulate all the time and shout vulgarities as they follow foreign girls around. [...] There's lots of pizza. But no mandolin. Why? [...] Goes without saying that the story would've surprised us more if Julia had found out how well one can eat in Mumbai, how much they pray in Indonesia, and how one can fall in love even in the Grande Raccordo Anulare, possibly avoiding rush hour.[26]

The film received generally negative reviews in the Italian press.[27][28][29]

Merchandising[edit]

Marketers for the film created over 400 merchandising tie-ins.[30] Products included Eat Pray Love-themed jewelry,[31] perfume,[31] tea,[31] gelato machines,[30] an oversized Indonesian bench,[32] prayer beads, and a bamboo window shade.[33] World Market department store opened an entire section in all of their locations devoted to merchandise tied to the movie.[32]

The Home Shopping Network ran 72 straight hours of programming featuring Eat Pray Love products around the time of the film's release.[30] The decision to market such a wide range of products, hardly any of which were actually featured in the film, brought criticism from The Philadelphia Inquirer,[30] The Washington Post and The Huffington Post.[34]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "EAT PRAY LOVE (PG)". British Board of Film Classification. August 6, 2010. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
  2. ^ Fritz, Ben (August 12, 2010). "Movie projector: Stallone's 'Expendables' to blow away 'Eat Pray Love' and 'Scott Pilgrim'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 12, 2010.
  3. ^ Jump up to:a b "Eat Pray Love". Box Office Mojo. IMDb Inc. Retrieved September 30, 2010.
  4. ^ News for Eat, Pray, Love Retrieved on August 23, 2009
  5. ^ Tatiana Siegel (April 14, 2009). "Jenkins set for 'Eat, Pray, Love'". Variety. Retrieved August 29, 2009.
  6. ^ Eat Pray Love-No Shooting In Original Ashram Archived July 17, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved May 10, 2010
  7. ^ 'Eat Pray Love' Julia Roberts Movie Worries Hindus Retrieved May 10, 2010
  8. ^ Shah, Riddhi. The "Eat, Pray, Love" guru's troubling past." Salon.com, August 14, 2010. Retrieved November 22, 2011
  9. ^ Stewart, Sara. "Eat pray zilch." Archived November 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine The New York Post, August 10, 2010.
  10. ^ "Eddie Vedder with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: The Long Road". Review. Basement Songs. March 11, 2010. Retrieved March 10, 2012.
  11. ^ 'Expendables' Explode, 'Eat Pray Love' Carbo-Loads, 'Scott Pilgrim' Powers Down boxofficemojo.com
  12. ^ Gray, Brandon (August 23, 2010). "Weekend Report: 'Expendables' Battle On, 'Vampires,' 'Piranha' Settle for Scraps". Box Office Mojo.
  13. ^ Dergarabedian, Paul (August 10, 2010). "Julia Roberts vs. Eric Roberts at box office..." Hollywood.com.
  14. ^ "Eat Pray Love Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved September 19, 2021.
  15. ^ "Eat Pray Love Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  16. ^ "CinemaScore". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on April 13, 2022. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  17. ^ Peter, Bradshaw (September 23, 2010). "Eat Pray Love". the Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
  18. ^ Wesley, Morris (August 13, 2010). "Eat Pray Love movie review". The Boston Globe. The New York Times Company. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  19. ^ LaSalle, Mike (August 13, 2010). "Movie review: "Eat Pray Love"". San Francisco Chronicle. Hearst Corporation. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  20. ^ Gronvall, Andrea (August 12, 2010). "Eat Pray Love Showtimes & Reviews". Chicago Reader. Creative Loafing Media. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  21. ^ Travers, Peter (August 12, 2010). "Eat Pray Love News and Reviews". Rolling Stone. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  22. ^ "Something Awful – The Expendables; Scott Pilgrim vs. The World; Eat Pray Love".
  23. ^ Dowd, Maureen (October 20, 2010). "Making Ignorance Chic". The New York Times. Retrieved October 21, 2010.
  24. ^ Kermode Uncut: My Worst Five Films of 2010 on YouTube. Retrieved December 30, 2010.
  25. ^ Busch, Jenna (August 13, 2010). "Jenna Busch: Eat Pray Love Review". HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
  26. ^ Maltese, Curzio (September 18, 2010). "Nella Roma di Julia manca solo il mandolino". La Repubblica.
  27. ^ Tornabuoni, Lietta. "Lietta Tornabuoni: Eat Pray Love Review". L'Espresso. Archived from the original on September 21, 2010. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
  28. ^ Ferzetti, Fabio. "Fabio Ferzetti: Eat Pray Love Review". Il Messaggero. Archived from the original on September 21, 2010. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
  29. ^ Romani, Cinzia. "Cinzia Romani: Eat Pray Love Review". Il Giornale. Archived from the original on November 2, 2010. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
  30. ^ Jump up to:a b c d ABC News article: "Eat, Pray, Love – and Spend."
  31. ^ Jump up to:a b c Forbes article: "The Eat Pray Love Industry."
  32. ^ Jump up to:a b The Washington Post article: "'Eat Pray Love': Parsing our feelings about all those product tie-ins."
  33. ^ World Market website: "Eat Pray Love merchandise.
  34. ^ The Huffington Post article: "Shop, Buy, Repeat."

External links

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Somerset Maugham’s Swami - The New York Times

Somerset Maugham’s Swami - The New York Times

LETTER FROM INDIA

Somerset Maugham’s Swami

By David Shaftel
July 22, 2010


Books about Westerners seeking enlightenment in India seem to be everywhere these days, including in India itself. In Mumbai, Elizabeth Gilbert’s juggernaut of a memoir, “Eat, Pray, Love,” is prominently displayed in street corner bookstalls and hotel bookstores. Bootlegged copies are hawked to tourists stuck in traffic, and photographs of Julia Roberts, who plays Gilbert in the forthcoming film version, have crept into the papers next to those of Bollywood stars.

To critics, “Eat, Pray, Love,” which has sold more than six million copies in the United States, is a symbol of the commodification of Eastern spirituality, offering a breezy primer on the kind of self-examination that is said to take a lifetime, sandwiched between narratives of more earthly ­pleasures. But Gilbert is hardly the first writer to mass-market the ashram experience. 

W. Somerset Maugham’s novel “The Razor’s Edge,” published in 1944, sold over three million copies and spent almost a year on the best-seller list. In his introduction to “The Skeptical Romancer,” a recent collection of Maugham’s travel writings, Pico Iyer suggested that “The Razor’s Edge,” about a young American who (like Gilbert) breaks off a relationship to seek wisdom in the East, was the prototypical hippie novel. Paramahansa Yogananda, an Indian guru who toured the United States in the 1920s and ’30s, inscribed a copy of his “Autobiography of a Yogi” (1946) to Maugham, thanking him for “spreading the seed of India’s teachings.”

In “The Razor’s Edge,” a young American named Larry Darrell, traumatized by the death of a comrade in World War I, abandons conventional life with the materialistic but practical Isabel Bradley in favor of traveling the world studying philosophy and religion and, as he puts it, loafing. Along the way, he is gripped by “an intense conviction that India had something to give me that I had to have” and finds peace at the ashram of Sri Ganesha, a Hindu saint. (The book’s title is taken from the Upanishads.)

Larry’s experience is based closely on Maugham’s own visit to an ashram in 1938, undertaken to explore the “spiritual side of life that had always intrigued and at the same time eluded him,” as Selina Hastings puts it in her new biography, “The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham.” After interviewing a number of holy men (and declaring it “irksome to listen interminably to the same statements” repeated, “like parrots”), he arrived at the ashram of the prominent sage Sri Ramana Maharshi, in the sleepy south Indian temple town of Tiruvannamalai, in the modern state of Tamil Nadu. 

In his 1944 essay “The Saint,” Maugham describes a mostly silent meeting with the swami, who was “of a dark honey color with close-cropped white hair and a close-cropped white beard” and wore only a loincloth. When Maugham said he felt sick and weak, Sri Ramana replied, “Silence is also conversation.” This and many of the details of his visit found their way into “The Razor’s Edge.”

Gilbert didn’t identify the ashram she wrote about, though the information is easily found online. (When I visited the ashram, a cloistered compound with uniformed guards on the outskirts of the outskirts of Mumbai, a temple representative declined to be interviewed for this article; another employee confirmed I was in the right place.) But Maugham, writing in the age before mass tourism, seemed less concerned with Sri Ramana’s being overrun. In his essay “India,” he describes meeting a Western sadhu, or holy man, when he arrived, a novelty on his travels. Major A. W. Chadwick was a retired British army officer who, like Larry Darrell, was seeking enlightenment and was prepared to stay at the ashram “till this happened or till the yogi died.”


Sri Ramana Maharshi, 1949.Credit...Eliot Elisofon/Time & Life Pictures — Getty Images




These days, the jungle surrounding the ashram has given way to semi-urban sprawl. On a recent visit, the place was humming with quiet activity, as Indians and Westerners alike ambled in and out to chant, meditate, pray before the tomb of Sri Ramana, who died in 1950, or just to chat or nap in the courtyard. About 20 percent of the boarders in the roughly 100 double rooms are foreigners, and still more are “upcountry people” from north India, said V. S. Mani, a grandnephew of Sri Ramana and a trustee of the ashram. (There are also several Facebook pages devoted to the guru, with thousands of friends.) Meals are served in a communal dining hall, where Tamil curries are eaten off a banana leaf on the floor, with your hands.

John Maynard, the ashram’s English archivist and a devotee since the 1970s, said he liked the simplicity of the Sri Ramana ashram. “They are not asking people to donate any money or do volunteer work,” he told me. “They’re not trying to sell you something or enhance your sex life, as some gurus would.”

Though the Sri Ramana ashram has a reputation for solemnity, Tiruvannamalai — home to one of the biggest Hindu temples in South India as well as the sacred mountain Arunachala — is something of a tourist trap for seekers who reckon they can find some kind of guru there, said David Godman, the author of several books on Sri Ramana, who lives near the ashram. Nor is Sri Ramana’s the only ashram in town. There are several of varying credibility, said Godman, some headed by charlatans or “poster gurus,” whose faces are plastered everywhere.


At Sri Ramana’s ashram, Maugham is long since forgotten. There is no landmark to commemorate his visit nor is “The Razor’s Edge” sold in the well-stocked bookstore. The store does carry “A Search in Secret India” (1934), the Englishman Paul Brunton’s account of his search for a guru, which did far more to establish Sri Ramana’s reputation in the West, according to Godman. (Brunton himself later became the subject of Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s disenchanted 1993 memoir “My Father’s Guru.”) Back then, “only people in the know could have identified Maugham’s fictional guru as Sri Ramana,” Godman said.

But Maugham remained a beloved figure in India even as his reputation in the West began to suffer. “Maugham was read with somewhat surprising affection and attention about a generation ago by people who liked what they felt was his ‘cosmopolitan’ rather than specifically ‘British’ point of view,” Christel Devadawson, who teaches English at the University of Delhi, said in an e-mail message. Her colleague Harish Trivedi remembers reading a “fairly frothy” Maugham story called “The Luncheon.” “I recall our teacher bluffing his way through the word ‘asparagus,’ for neither he nor we had ever eaten or even seen it,” he said via e-mail.

At the ashram, the only person I met with vivid memories of “The Razor’s Edge” was K. V. Subrahmon, 77, a devotee from Tamil Nadu who said he had come there recently “to leave my body.” Bare-chested and wearing a dhoti, with long white hair and a beard, Subrahmon looked as though he stepped off the set of the 1946 film version starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney. He said he had been a Gandhian and “a bit of a Christian,” before becoming a devotee of Sri Ramana. At university, when reading Maugham was de rigueur, he developed a reputation as an idealist and a seeker. “Everyone used to call me ‘Larry’ in those days,” he said.

Subrahmon said the novel’s bits on Hinduism were “very well written for a layman, especially a Westerner.” But in the end, the earthier and more universal parts of the story endured for him. “Larry should not have left Isabel in suspense,” he told me. “I thought he should get in or get out. One shouldn’t take a girl’s love and emotions for granted.”


David Shaftel has written about books for The New York Times and The Financial Times.
A version of this article appears in print on July 25, 2010, Page 23 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Somerset Maugham’s Swami. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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DUALITY OF MAN AS A THEME IN SOMERSET MAUGHAM’S THE RAZOR’S EDGE

N-3-2016-11.pdf

Notions Vol. 7 No. 3, 2016

DUALITY OF MAN AS A THEME IN SOMERSET MAUGHAM’S THE RAZOR’S EDGE
S. Karanan*
Ph.D. Research Scholar
Department of English
Annamalai University


The Razor’s Edge is a novel by William Somerset Maugham published in 1944. Its
epigraph reads: “The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path of salvation is hard”. It is taken from a verse in the Katha -Upanishad.

In the novel, the “snobbery” and “money” and duality of people are the recurring themes.
In Larry’s conversation with Maugham, the narrator, Larry talks about the necessary existence of evil to balance out the good. It is an idea exemplified by several characters. No one is hundred percent good or bad because they are human beings and not Gods.

Isabel the heroine and her uncle Elliot illustrate the idea of duality of people. Elliot, as Maugham states, is a total snob. He exists to attend social functions and climb social ladders.
Elliot also possesses a good heart. Maugham goes at great lengths describing his friend’s elitism and vanity, but he also mentions his good nature. He is wealthy, with an apartment in Paris and a house on the Riviera. Maugham explains that money is not his obsession. For forging social relationships with the rich and socially connected is. His manners and personality make him one of the most popular members of Parisian high society.

Elliot lavishes gifts on people because he wants to curry their favours, but Maugham notes that he keeps giving people gifts even after they are no longer necessary. In the beginning, Elliot cooks up a plan to help Isabel forget Larry. He tells Mrs. Bradley that they should go to London for the rest of the season. There they will meet more rich and important people, and Isabel can be introduced to young- rich men.

Later Elliot grows annoyed with the blurring social differences he witnesses in London, Paris, and America. He gets very angry when a boorish American insults him without his knowledge and he laments when America become middle class when a taxi driver calls him brother. He also switches over religions, becoming a catholic because of its better social connections. As he gets older, Elliot continues his snobbish ways. He throws parties and socializes despite being sick. When he dies, he asks to be buried in a Count de Lauria costume that leaves him looking ridiculous. Maugham calls him a pathetic figure.

Despite all of Elliot’s faults, he also demonstrates a tender and generous nature. When his
sister, Mrs. Bradley dies, Elliot goes to Chicago and takes care of all arrangements. Also after the
stock market crash, he offers his apartment to his niece, Isabel, and her family. However there
are two sides of Elliot’s generosity. When he takes his sister and Isabel around London to give
them a good time, Maugham believes it is because of kindness and also a way to show off. He
gives Isabel his apartment, because he cannot bear his niece living on a plantation with only a
“few” servants. A snob and good-hearted person, Elliot is a perfect example of the duality of
man, a theme Maugham explores throughout the novel.
Isabel turns out to be the character with the most debatable morals. Based on appearance, she
seems to be a successful, happy woman. She marries Gray whom she does not truly love, though.
When the reader is first introduced to Isabel, she is a vivacious, charming, slightly
overweight girl genuinely with her fiancé. At the end of the novel Isabel is arguably the character
with the most questionable morals. She does not marry for love. She is a bit of a snob, and her
actions lead to the dissolution of a marriage and Sophie’s death.
Earlier, however, Isabel chooses a wealthy life over true love, Larry. Her feelings for
Larry never totally go away and as she admits this to Maugham. This leads to a trap that she sets
for Sophie. Sophie is an old friend who has turned to drugs, alcohol and sex after the death of her
family in a car accident. Larry asks her to help people, and Isabel becomes furious. She
sabotages the marriage by tempting Sophie with vodka, and Sophie is eventually found murdered
after she falls in a prey to her old living. Instead of apologizing for her actions, Isabel is happy
and planted the vodka in Sophie’s bag and she even says she would do it again. She grows to be
a beautiful woman with a successful husband and all the riches she wanted. She is also cold in
heart and never ends up with the true object of her love, Larry.


Another character that embodies the theme of “the duality of people” is Sophie. In
Sophie, Maugham introduces a character whose true nature is never clearly defined. She seemed
a normal loving wife before the car accident, but she turns to the dark side of life afterward. She
is always a bad person inside. Isabel thinks that, while Larry remembers the sweet, sensitive girls
that used to read poetry. Interestingly Maugham notes how Sophie looks plain when they first
meet at a dinner in Chicago, and yet looks attractive when she is drunk and wearing too much of
make up at the seedy bar in Paris. Later she looks unattractive at a lunch while trying to kick out
her drug and alcohol habit, but she looks attractive again when Maugham runs into her in
Toulouse, where she has taken up her old- destructive ways. It’s as if the “evil” part of Sophie’s
life makes her happy, while the “good” makes her plain and unattractive. Like others, Sophie is
good and bad. Duality is just more obvious in her than in others.
Kosti is the latest character to exemplify the theme of the duality of man. Kosti is a large
brute, who cheats at cards and immediately plans on seducing Becker’s wife. At the same time
he is also a student of philosophy. Whenever Larry brings up Kosti’s love for philosophy, Kosti
changes the subject and refuses to talk about it. Also Kosti’s true background is not clear. Kosti

says that he is an ex-military officer who upset his superiors and was forced to flee. Other
workers at the camp say he was thrown out for his behaviour. Thus Isabel, Elliot, Kosti and
Sophie are victims of a dual vision of good and bad.

===
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The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham - Audiobook - Audible.com.au

The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham - Audiobook - Audible.com.au



Sample

The Razor's Edge
By: W. Somerset Maugham
Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 02-12-2012
Language: English
Publisher: Audible Studios
4.8 out of 5 stars4.8 (40 ratings)


Non-member price: $28.87

Member price: $14.95 or 1 Credit
Buy Now for $14.95
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Publisher's Summary


Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brilliant characters: his fiancée Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions; and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob.

The most ambitious of Maugham's novels, this is also one in which Maugham himself plays a considerable part as he wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates.

William Somerset Maugham (25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author of the 1930s. Maugham was orphaned by the age of ten, but after an unhappy childhood, he flourished when he moved to London to study medicine as a young man, giving him plenty of inspiration for his literary ambitions. His first novel, Liza Of Lambeth, sold out in a matter of weeks, prompting Maugham to leave medicine and embark on a 65-year career as a man of letters. By 1914 he was famous, with ten successful plays produced and ten novels published. In 1917, he was asked by the British Secret Intelligence Service (now MI6) to undertake a special mission in Russia; an experience which would go on to inspire Ashenden, a collection of short stories about a gentlemanly spy that influenced Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. Maugham’s most famous works include Of Human Bondage, a semiautobiographical novel, The Moon and Sixpence, Cakes and Ale and The Razor's Edge. His writing has inspired a string of over 35 film adaptations and has influenced many notable authors, including Anthony Burgess, George Orwell and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
©1944 Somerset Maugham (P)2012 Audible Ltd



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What listeners say about The Razor's EdgeAverage Customer Ratings
Overall 5 out of 5 stars4.8 out of 5.0
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Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars4.7 out of 5.0
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Story 4.5 out of 5 stars4.7 out of 5.0
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5 out of 5 stars
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davidm
26-06-2015

A fascinating view of a time long past

This is my first reading of a book by Maugham. It transported me. The characterisation was brilliant. All of the characters, especially the main character, Larry, were described with obvious insight. The eastern point of view, the essence of Hinduism and its implications for the west, was captured succinctly by the author. The narration suited the story and contributed to my immersion. The themes are now more vital and current than at the time of writing. It is fascinating to follow Larry's journey in both the physical and spiritual landscapes, a journey followed, of course, by many in subsequent generations.


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Lee
28-12-2014

Loved the characters

This book shows that nothing has changed in human nature despite wars, depression and financial crashes. I loved the possibility of freedom that is shown in Larry's character and the realistic way the other characters have been portrayed, relevant even in today's society.
I found myself pondering life in all sorts of ways, and couldn't wait to get back to it if I had to turn it off.


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Albear
07-10-2021

A classic brought to life.

It’s impressive that a 100-year old book is still relevant today. This family and friends saga spanning World War I and the depression and the growth of America and Europe is deservedly a classic. It raises some interesting moral and ethical dilemmas and is only occasionally bogged down by overly long mystical musings.


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Anonymous User
27-03-2020

Wonderful

An interesting story, beautifully written and superbly read. Going back for another. Maugham is masterful.


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The Razor’s Edge : Summary | Book Reviews

The Razor’s Edge : Summary | Book Reviews




April 14, 2012

The Razor’s Edge : Summary
Posted by safeisrisky under Books, Philosophy
1 Comment




It has been a long time since I have read any fiction book. So, thought of reading one, on this weekend to take a break from stats, programming and the usual routine. It took me about 9 hours to read the entire book and I must say that there was not a single instance during those 9 hours that I felt like taking a break. So, the book has a smooth flow of prose with just enough characters that you don’t lose the story or get bored anywhere. The plot has about 15 characters , including one played by the author himself, Somerset Maugham but not all 15 characters get the same footage(obviously) .The protagonist of the story is Laurence Larry Darrell who goes on a spiritual quest and the book tries to weave a story around that quest. The other 13 characters come and go in with varying periodicity through out the book. Besides Larry, the main characters in the story are Isabel who loves Larry but ends up marrying Gray Maturin, Elliott Templeton, Isabel’s uncle whose sole purpose in life is to socialize and be at parties, Sophie MacDonald, a poetess turned whore turned dope addict, whom Larry almost ends up getting married, but thanks to a Isabel’s devious plan, never does so.

The story starts off with Larry being engaged to Isabel. After a stint in the army, Larry is a changed man. He wants to understand about God, Evil, role of knowledge in salvation and whole lot of things that any spiritually inclined person would seek. The difference though is that many of us, answer or seek answers to these questions, while keeping a day job, holding the responsibilities of a spouse, a parent etc. Not Larry. He has no intention to work and he tries to argue with Isabel, that in his meager income they can live a decent life. Despite Isabel deeply in love with Larry, she rejects him. I guess for some people, economic considerations weigh far more than matters of the heart, when it comes to settling down with somebody. Isabel gets married to a business magnet,Gray Maturin. Larry then goes on a quest that takes him to Germany, Spain and India. He finally gets some clarity after staying in India at an Ashram for a few years and meeting some spiritually inclined people in India.

The book does have a dose of aspects from Hinduism like karma, renunciation, rebirth, etc. But the author makes it clear that he never intends of summarizing or even talking at length about such aspects in his book. He is clear about his role, i.e a storyteller. I must say he has played his role as a character and as an author with perfection , as he make spiritual elements, the various locations , a dozen characters as props to show the conversion of an atheist Larry to a devout spiritual person by the end of the book. No wonder this book is rated as one of the finest works of Somerset Maugham. However the movie adaption met with a commercial failure.

Some quotes / conversation that I found interesting amongst the various characters in the novel are :

  • I have been reading Spinoza the last month or two. It fills me with exultation. It’s like landing from your plane on a great plateau in the mountains. Solitude, and an air so pure that it goes to your head like wine and you feel like million dollars
  • What are you do going to do with all this unnecessary knowledge which you call wisdom ? If I ever acquire wisdom I suppose I shall be wise enough to know what to do with it
  • I wish I could make you see how much fuller the life I offer you is than anything you have a conception of. I wish I could make you see how exciting the life of spirit is and how rich in experience. It’s illimitable. It’s such a happy life. There’s only one thing like it, when you are up in a plane by yourself, high, high and only infinity surrounds you.You are intoxicated by the boundless space. You feel such a sense of exhilaration that you wouldn’t exchange it for all the power and glory in the world.
  • Unfortunately sometimes one can’t do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy
  • What’s the good of knowledge if you are not going to do anything with it ? Perhaps it will be sufficient satisfaction merely to know, as it’s a sufficient satisfaction to an artist to product a work of art. And perhaps its only a step towards something further
  • Love isn’t a good sailor and it languishes on a sea voyage. You will be surprised when you have the Atlantic between you and Larry to find how slight the pang is that before you sailed seemed intolerable
  • Most people when they are in love invent every kind of reason to persuade themselves that its only sensible to do what they want. I suppose that’s why there are so many disastrous marriages
  • I had not the heart to laugh at Elliott any more, he seemed to me a profoundly pathetic object. Society was what he lived for, a party was the breath of his nostrils, not to be asked to one was an affront, to be alone was a mortification; and, an old man now, he was desperately afraid. It made me sad to think how silly, useless and trivial his life had been. It mattered very little now that he had gone to so many parties and had hobnobbed with all those princes, dukes, and counts. They have forgotten him already.
  • Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose
  • Advaita doesn’t ask you to take anything on trust; it asks only that you should have a passionate craving to know Reality. It states that you can experience God as surely as you can experience joy or pain.
  • In later ages the sages of India in recognition of human infirmity admitted that salvation may be won by the way of love and the way of works, but they never denied that the noblest way, though the hardest, is the way of knowledge, for its instrument is the most precious faculty of man, his reason
  • We are all greater than we know and the wisdom is the means to freedom. For Salvation, it is not essential to retire from the world , but only renounce the self. Work done with no selfish interest purifies the mind and that duties are opportunities afforded to man to sink his separate self and become one with the universal self.
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