Painted Veil: W. Somerset Maugham

"Lift Not The Painted Veil Which Those Who Live Call Life."

Brought out amid ridiculous protests of impersonation this book talks about the silly but difficult thing called life. Sometimes charm and tact wins over intelligence, honesty and even love.

"It was incredible that over there, up country, only 600 miles away, men, women and children had been dying like flies" while Kitty who had just been back from there, after having lost her husband to cholera dined with the Townsends and talked about if so and so had gone home and if so and so got cured from the fracture.

Kitty Fane is a pretty young lady but empty headed and shallow. She is married to Walter, a biologist who is intelligent, capable and madly in love with Kitty. But he couldn't win her affections because she thought him cold and proud. She deceives him and the husband's vengeance is in a strange way in which he rather avenged himself for loving her.

The book mentions a little about faith, a lot about cholera and introduces a good variety of persons differing in terms of character and their outlook for life. At no point it is a bore and the story has got some twists that turn in a slow pace that you will always get time to guess correctly.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention.. the book has been made into a movie twice, with the same name

Quote for the day

"Some people are fortunate enough to reject, accept, resign or lay down their lives at the bidding of traditional authority. She could envy them. But in her case the traditional answers would be of no use to her individuality"
Virginia Wolf about Katherine Hilbery

Day and Night : Virginia Wolf

Virginia Wolf wrote not only for the sake of writing, but wrote condemning social menaces, with an urge and incentive to bring about a change. Her rage against conventional line of thought is evident in the book. The rules of conduct that are set before women are criticized and put to discussion frequently.

Moreover it explores the psychology and infinitesimal possibilities of vulnerable and inconsistent human mind. Different views on life and love is laid before us. Issues like women's suffrage are discussed. It says about how some people imagine things and make their life miserable, how some people have such fantabulous concepts about love that they fail to recognize their own feelings, whether those feelings are just a delusion or not, can marriage and love coexist etc etc.

Though the book is not so engrossing and ends with doubt over the happiness of the protagonist it is much much more than just a delight to read. Extreme feelings are wonderfuly and believably stated in words. The book is like a poetry in motion.