ETA: My upshot of this book is that Maugham took the fact that being kind and helpful to other makes us feel good, and turned that into a treatise on why humanity is ultimately egotistical and meaningless. I think he's wrong. I think this is a dumb edgelord stance and I would be a lot happier with a book that came to a conclusion along the lines of, hey, isn't it magnificent that as a society we have conditioned ourselves into feeling good about helping others? Isn't that just the best thing about humanity?

I don't know how to feel about this book. I enjoyed reading it, I think, but at the same time it was an unpleasant story about unpleasant people. I get the impression I am supposed to sympathise with Philip, but I don't particularly. He is largely miserable and treats others terribly. I suppose it is a very apt portrayal of human nature in that it thematises some of the ugliest of humanity, like Philip's wish for his uncle to die, or the way he treats pretty much every woman he's involved with - with utmost egomania which is nonetheless eminently understandable and certainly strikes a chord.

But then, Philip is perhaps also meant to showcase the best of humanity in his work as a doctor, and I really don't see that. Partly it's because while his uglier, more self-centered thoughts are shown, his suitability and helpfulness as a doctor is just told. Perhaps he's supposed to also be shown as kind and caring in his acts towards Fanny Price and Mildred - but again, I don't see it. For one, it seems like he's just gratifying his own ego by being kind to them because he needs to be liked, and for another, the raging hatred of women throughout the text makes it impossible to take it at face value.

There's the endless virgin-whore stuff spanning the text - Philip's Aunt is virtuous and kind, her friend Emily is not as chaste and therefor silly and stupid. Fanny is pure and virginal, if repulsive, and thus remembered fondly, and Mildred is at first a virgin and then so thoroughly portrayed as a whore she becomes unattractive to Philip (and - spoilers - an actively disease-ridden prostitute). And as for poor Sally, he skips right over viewing her as an attractive life partner and sees her as a mother. I'm also not convinced Philip loves anyone at all, especially not Mildred. He thinks of it as love, sure, but a basis of mutual attraction and respect is utterly lacking, on both sides. He doesn't care about Mildred's feelings, he doesn't respect her, he repeatedly expresses contempt for everything she is and does, but because he still wants to bang her, he describes this as love. Sally, he doesn't even purport to love, he just wants the stability she represents.

While the men in the text are frequently also described as contemptible in one way or other, they always are given redeeming characteristics, enduring friendship and affection for each other etc. But while the sadness and ugliness of humanity is given full view in this book, the tries to elevate Philip's life into meaningfulness and value don't work for me. Perhaps that's the point, because the book goes on for a while about the meaninglessness of life, but it also left me sorely feeling like the author is maybe missing a large part of what makes us like other people and want to spend time with them. And also that not every human kindness is motivated so directly by self-interest or cash. It's just a deeply cynical world view and hard to take for 600+ pages.

I also began to feel like the central theme of this book is not in fact the doomed affair with Mildred, but rather an examination of poverty. It starts with an intense romanticising of poverty (portrayed with La Boheme) in the Paris section, but to be honest none of these people (except Fanny) are poor. They get by; they go out to eat and drink every damn day. They're fine, mostly. Particularly on the nose in these sections are the parts where Philip starts to realise that actual poverty is a threat for him and that maybe art isn't his future and is given advice by multiple characters that runs down to "if you can choose to not be poor, maybe do that." Again, though, it falls flat for me, because the next 300 or so pages follow Philip losing money left and right with the reader fully aware it will end in tragedy, and then it does - and he doesn't seem to really learn much from it. Not sensible spending habits, not avoiding random travel that always disappoints him etc., not even swallowing his pride and asking for help.

That really sticks out to me, because it's just so patronising to the actual poor who are described later on in the midwifery chapters etc. Philip is actually poor and hungry for about a week, but not even desperate enough to ask anyone for help or admit how bad his situation is, and he gets a job almost immediately after. It's degrading to him, because he's a "gentleman" or whatever, but then he immediately gets advancement and people remarking on his superiority because he is a gentleman. I don't get it. Am I supposed to feel sorry for Philip? Am I supposed to think his birth means he shouldn't suffer any indignities like....working for a living in a job he deems below his dignity? Isn't that attitude what he censures Mildred for? I suppose at least he actually works, unlike her, but still. I feel like there's a point being made here about poverty and the romanticisation thereof versus the reality of poverty. That point, to me, is very muddied and incomprehensible, and possibly flat out wrong.