From the first pages of The Painted Veil, I immediately recognize the young, voluptuous main character Kitty Fain. I’ve met a lot of “Kitties” in my life.  Clearly, she is very pretty and confident, but inside she is crumbling like a cookie.  She hides it well; no one can possibly suspect the depth of her sadness. Kitty comes from an upper-class family. Her father is always on the cusp of landing an important position in British foreign service, and her mother is an ambitious socialite.   Her father is very reserved and quiet.  Her mother is loud and pushy.  I’m not sure of the love Kitty has for her family, but she has no problems with loneliness – she collects and discards lovers like postcards.  She’s always in for a good time, that is until she reaches the age of twenty-five, when she notices this  “crumbling” feeling overtake her.  She feels the pressure from inside and out to marry.  Will she ever fall in love?  It hasn’t happened yet. Not even close.  What is wrong with her? 

I don’t remember reading much about Somerset Maugham’s homelife when I was in college, but it’s been about forty years for me, and things have changed in our world since.  At the time Somerset wrote The Painted Veil, he may have been referred to as a “closet homosexual.”  Fortunately, for our society and culture, that term is fading away.  Famous authors are now free to speak about their sexuality.  Not so long ago – this is in the Sixties I’m talking about – Somerset felt the need to request all his friends to BURN any letters they may have had from him in their possession.  This was shortly before his death.  Somerset was born in 1874 and died in 1965, and in this time he earned the respect and admiration from readers and writers across the world. But, he also once lived in era in Britain where it was against the law to be homosexual.  He was alive and in his twenties when literary icon Oscar Wilde was jailed for an open affair with another man.  Of course, the consequences of this trial, sent a lot of men Somerset’s generation running into loveless relationships and failed marriages.  No one wanted to end up persecuted and scandalized like Oscar Wilde.  Not Somerset.

Why am I bringing this up?  Somerset spent a lifetime keeping his sexuality secret. His loveless marriage to a rich socialite (of course)  was a disaster. His family life was a misery. A meaningful  love life was impossible.  In The Painted Veil, the author enters Kitty into the saddest of all marriages.  It’s something Somerset knows intimately.  At age 25, Kitty married a doctor who she barely knew.  He was awkward, clumsy.  And, what a complete BORE!  When he proposed to her, like on the second or third time he ever spoke with her, she said, “You could have knocked me down with a feather.”  This guy would be the Last Guy she would ever dream about. Nevertheless, Kitty decides to take his offer.  Her younger sister has just married.  Kitty has no real education to speak of.  No future.  She can’t handle going back to live under the same roof with her mother.  Walter, her surprise suitor, is a little bit shy and dull, but he is a successful bacteriologist stationed in Shanghai, China.   It’s clear he loves her, but she just doesn’t feel it. She thinks, maybe she’ll grow into it.  She better take this chance before it’s too late.

It's no surprise, then, that Kitty begins to CHEAT on her husband once they leave for China.  Walter appears more devoted to his job than his wife.   This pisses Kitty off, and she finds herself falling for a married man who works in the Chinese embassy.   What is this anyways?  Her entire identity has been reduced to being the wife of a government scientist.  Everyone respects her husband, but no one cares to know her.  Walter tells her not to worry about it.  He says, “It doesn’t really matter you know.”  That’s it.   That’s why I like this novel. Instead of my hating Kitty for her behavior, I feel sympathy for her.  Her husband treats her like an object under one of his laboratory microscopes.  He’s a cold, calculating lover.  From early on I root for any relief and/or happiness that comes Kitty’s way.  I hate Walter.  Somerset is a genius at setting the tension of the story.  Walter is an asshole.  He used his position as a doctor to pressure Kitty into marriage.  He’s a smart guy.  He recognized her desperation when he saw it.

I can’t go on without giving way the plot to this novel.  But Walter comes to hate his wife.  Kitty’s affair with Charlie, a man who holds higher social standing than he does, must burn in his heart.  For such a mild-mannered professional, Walter shows his dark side when he wants to.  I expected rage, violence, and yes, murder.  But Walter’s got a better idea.  He wants to torture her first.  He volunteers to work in the middle of a deathly cholera epidemic, and he’s going to take her with him.  That’s a TWIST I didn’t see coming.  Kitty hates Walter as much as Walter hates her.  When she flees to her lover Charlie's arms, he turns to stone.  He wants nothing to do with her.  Kitty finds herself between a rock and a hard place.  Her life has been stripped of all meaning.  Suddenly, a dangerous, suicidal journey to the depths of the jungle doesn’t seem so bad.  I’m inspired by the way Somerset brought this story to an end.  Kitty goes with her husband to this far-off disease-infested place called Mei-tan-fu.  If she doesn’t, her husband will divorce her.  At her age, she believes that is not an option.  She dutifully  takes her medicine – punishment for her behavior. While her husband treats cholera victims, she works in a convent with surviving children.  I LOVE this book.  Walter’s quest for revenge is BRUTAL, but Kitty’s  determination to redeem herself may be greater.

 Somerset Maugham has a deep understanding of the women he writes of.  He must have known the sadness of her upbringing and the misery of her marriage.  This guy was such a stick!  But of instead of hating Kitty for her selfishness and self-absorption, I see layers upon layers of fear and humility.  Before reading The Painted Veil, I didn’t know Kitty as well as I thought I did.