The Razor's Edge

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The Razor's Edge is a 1944 novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Its epigraph reads, "The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard. —Katha-Upanishad".

The Razor's Edge tells the story of an American, Larry Darrell, who returns to Chicago after his experience in World War I disinclined to assume a conventional role in American society: "he had had a hard time and had been twice, though not severely, wounded". He becomes engaged to a woman, Isabel Bradley, whose relations and peers all want to enjoy the prosperity of the twenties and can not understand his antipathy toward work. His plan to go to Paris and loaf is met unenthusiastically, though his fiancée professes to be prepared to wait for his return.

Somerset Maugham tells the tale as an observer and friend of Isabel Bradley's uncle, Elliott Templeton, an expatriate Parisian snob. Maugham picks up Larry's story years later when Isabel comes to Paris to live with her uncle; she has married a friend of Larry's, a large man by the name of Gray Maturin, and they are broke from the stock market crash of 1929. During their stay they see much of Larry who tells them of his life and travels and how after five years in India, two spent with a saintly Yogi in an ashram, he has found peace.

Despite Isabel's marriage, she remains in love with Larry. When another childhood friend, Sophie Macdonald, enters the picture and Larry proposes to marry her, Isabel is aghast. Her effort to destroy the relationship drives the rest of the novel.

Maugham included an introduction in the book that suggested his story was based on actual people, and there has been speculation on who might have served as models for Maugham's characters. It has often been suggested, for example, that the character of Darrell was based on a man named Guy Hague, though there are also [other opinions]. Of Darrell, Maugham muses in that introduction:

"The man I am writing about is not famous. It may be that he never will be. It may be that when his life at last comes to an end he will leave no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water. But it may be that the way of life that he has chosen for himself and the peculiar strength and sweetness of his character may have an ever-growing influence over his fellow men so that, long after his death perhaps, it may be realized that there lived in this age a very remarkable creature."

It is proposed that Maugham has created a character that is essentially the protoype for the counterculture American "hero". Darrell has a whole list of qualities which put him in the role of progenitor for the modern beat, hippie or slacker of later generations. Darrell has an internal motivation these labels may not fit, but his rejection of societal norms and pursuit of his personal vision strikes a chord with these later archetypes. Maugham is prescient in seeing this individual vision as an important driver in American culture and seems to acknowledge it as a defining national characteristic through his characterization of Darell. This is surely one of Maugham's best novels.

Film versions

The book has twice been made into a movie. The first film version was released in 1946 and stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter and Clifton Webb. It was directed by Edmund Goulding. The remake was released in 1984 and stars Bill Murray, Theresa Russell, Catherine Hicks, Denholm Elliott and James Keach. It was directed by John Byrum.

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