Novel: The Razor's Edge

Overview
W. Somerset Maugham frames The Razor's Edge as a witness to a small circle of Americans whose lives diverge after World War I, balancing the comforts of wealth against a hunger for spiritual meaning. Moving between Chicago, Paris, and the south of France, the novel tracks the decades-long orbit of Larry Darrell, a quiet veteran marked by trauma, and the friends who cannot understand his refusal of conventional success. The title comes from the Katha Upanishad, evoking a path to liberation as narrow and perilous as a razor’s edge.

Frame and Characters
Maugham appears as narrator, a genial observer welcomed into the drawing rooms and cafés of his subjects. Isabel Bradley, lively and beautiful, expects to marry Larry and live well. Her uncle, Elliott Templeton, is an exquisite snob and generous patron, a fixture of European high society. Gray Maturin, solid and good-natured, is a banker shaped for prosperity. Sophie MacDonald, a tender friend from Chicago, hovers at the margins until tragedy alters her course. Larry, outwardly unambitious, declares that surviving the war has shifted his values; he seeks to “loaf and read,” a provocation to those who equate adulthood with money and position.

Larry’s Quest and Isabel’s Choice
When Larry announces he will delay marriage and go to Europe to think, Isabel refuses a life of uncertainty and ends their engagement. Larry takes a garret in Paris, studies at libraries and the Sorbonne, labors in a mine to test himself, and reads across traditions. His search culminates in India, where an ashram and a Himalayan retreat lead to a moment of illumination, not as spectacle but as a quiet clarity that dissolves fear and attachment. He returns serene and unpossessive, resolved to live simply and work with his hands if necessary.

Crash, Charity, and Contrasts
Meanwhile Isabel marries Gray, and Elliott continues his elegant campaign for invitations and distinction. The 1929 crash ruins the Maturins; Gray is stricken with incapacitating headaches and anxiety. Larry’s unobtrusive compassion and techniques learned in India free Gray from his pain, and Larry refuses payment or praise. The episode crystallizes the novel’s central contrast: worldly success, so vulnerable to events, and an inward freedom that cannot be seized or bought.

Sophie’s Descent and Isabel’s Jealousy
Sophie, once married and happy, loses husband and child in an accident and drifts into addiction and the demimonde. Larry finds her in Paris, battered but reachable, and decides to marry her as an act of love and rescue. Isabel, still drawn to Larry despite her marriage, engineers a seemingly innocent lapse that tempts Sophie back into drinking. The relapse destroys the engagement; Sophie disappears and is later found murdered on the Mediterranean coast, a victim of the life from which Larry could not fully retrieve her. The episode exposes both Isabel’s ruthlessness cloaked in charm and the fragility of grace under pressure.

Elliott’s Last Curtain and the Razor’s Edge
Elliott’s final scene, longing for one more coveted invitation as he lies dying, distills Maugham’s ironies about vanity and kindness. Offered a fabricated social consolation, he dies content, his pieties and pretensions intact yet oddly touching. Afterward, Larry announces he will return to America to live on little, perhaps doing manual work, certain that meaning lies in ordinary life once fear and craving are shed. Isabel remains with Gray and her world, chastened but unrepentant. The narrator closes on the novel’s quiet wager: happiness may belong not to those who accumulate, but to the one who walks the narrow path without flinching.