2022 is rapidly becoming the year of the long audio book. The narration of Of Human Bondage takes 24 hours and 51 minutes, and it is a bit of a mystery as to why I listened to the end. To say I wasn’t enamoured with David McCallion’s delivery is a bit of an understatement. And yet in places his dull, flat voice matched the tedious conversations over interminable cups of tea. What really irritated though was the female voices. Both Aunt Louisa and Mildred sounded as though they had just come from a Benny Hill sketch. And yet I kept going … Was it my incredulity that a search for meaning in life resulting in so much mundanity could be considered one of the 100 greatest novels of the twentieth century?

(There’s a fairly detailed plot synopsis on wikipedia, which I suggest you might want to read if you’re unacquainted with the novel before reading on.)

I am a sucker for a bildungsroman, even when they are very long and I was to shake the protagonist! My goodness, the mistakes Philip Carey makes … again, and again, and again! Being careless and overgenerous with his modest, yet adequate inheritance. Getting carried away by his emotions, speaking before engaging his brain gets him into one fine pickle after another. Who hasn’t fallen in love with the wrong person? Yet the majority of people, upon realising that that person is neither good nor good for them, exit stage left when given the chance. Philip is betrayed by the vulgar, uncouth and immoral Mildred, not once, but twice. Each time her behaviour becomes more brazen, yet he allows her back into his life, when she comes begging for help. Inevitably more torment ensues. Thankfully, and it seems cruel to say this, Mildred, finally forced into and choosing to remain in a life of prostitution, sinks low enough for Philip to take his final leave.

This infatuation with Mildred is not the only thing that prevents Philip from finding happiness. His clubfoot is both an actual and symbolic bondage, one which makes him a target for the bullies at boarding school. The suffering from this causes him to lose faith in God, and that sets him at loggerheads with his adoptive uncle and aunt, a vicar and his wife, who wish to steer him towards a life in the church. Yet Philip determines to take a gap year in Germany before taking up an apprenticeship in accountancy at his uncle’s instigation. Then he changes course to attend art school in Paris. Not that his moderate talents warrant this. Finally he determines to follow in his dead father’s footsteps and becomes a medical student. All this time living off and squandering his modest inheritance on friends in real need and that truly dreadful woman, who takes the most shameless advantage of him.

Philip who since his school days has been searching for absolute freedom begins to realise that it is a mirage. Man is not free to do as he will, especially when he has no money. That is a particularly hard lesson when he loses what little remains to him on a bad speculation. The supreme irony is that the road out of poverty and to his medical qualification is dependent on the inheritance he receives from the uncle, the one he broke free from so arrogantly in earlier years, and who refused to help him when he was at his lowest ebb. This time with a little money in his pocket he behaves more maturely and with purpose. He has also worked out who his true friends are. As for the meaning of life: that is all to do with the patterns in a Persian carpet, or rather the pattern a man weaves in his own Persian carpet of life. Some of his acquaintances, by weaving incredibly complex patterns have, to put it bluntly, come a cropper and so Philip, after all the chaos of his life so far, determines that “the simplest pattern, that in which a man was born, worked, married, had children, and died, was likewise the most perfect”. And that is the path he is about to embark on at the age of 30.

Having listened to the final credits on the audio, I retrieved the Folio Society edition that has waited on my shelves for a decade. Just to look at the illustrations before putting it up for sale. Then, just like Philip Carey, who often says one thing and does another, I put it back. Because a) it’s a beauty and b) it seems I’ve got that bit about freedom all wrong! According to this paper, Philip’s journey leads to the conclusion that one can overcome his weak points and surpass human bondages by exerting his will and reason.

I need a proper read obviously, but before I do that, I’ll watch the classic movie. It’s just under 90 minutes long!