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Jan 03, 2008

Jessica rated it:

I agree whole-heartedly with other reviewers -- the movie was better! I saw the movie first and loved it. It is a brilliant and beautiful love story -- and who can resist Edward Norton's stoic, yet smoldering interpretation of Walter.

You can appreciate the movie better once you read the book and get to know the characters as they were originally intended. The movie does a good job of interpreting those characters honestly and uses dialogue verbatim from the book. But, in the movie, More...

5 comments like (19 people liked it)

Jun 28, 2010

Hannah rated it:

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19 comments like (11 people liked it)

Apr 17, 2009

Martine rated it:

What do you do when you discover that the wife you love despite the fact that she is shallow as hell and obviously despises you is having an affair? For Walter Fane, a bacteriologist working in early-twentieth-century colonial Hong Kong, the choice is easy. Either he will divorce his wife, which will disgrace her and leave her destitute (she was never taught to work or be independent, having always been expected to make a brilliant marriage), or, as a penance, she will have to accompany him on a More...

3 comments like (18 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Bookshop rated it:

My friend, who was visiting from Singapore, brought with her several books to read along the way and this was one of them. She said it was good and I was intrigued by this "Vintage chick-lit".

It turned out that she was right. Unlike the chick-lit of our age, it does have a moral message. Prior to reading this book, I read a chick-lit written by a Brit and it made me so sick with boredom: fat, plain, average Jane meets ordinary but oh-so-gentlemanly John who in the end turns More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Oct 01, 2008

Ruth rated it:

I read this as an audiobook, right after The Abstinence Teacher and Special Topics in Calamity Physics, both of which were so poorly written I couldn't finish them. Coming into Somerset Maughm's lucid prose was like being let out of a cage.

4 comments like (13 people liked it)

Apr 24, 2008

Rose rated it:

The film would have you believe that The Painted Veil is about the relationship between a man, Walter Fane, and his young wife, Kitty, but the novel centers on Kitty. At 25, Kitty Fane makes the mistake of her life when, in a panic at the thought of her younger sister marrying before she does, Kitty marries the next available suitor. Walter, a serious and dedicated bacteriologist, is a terrible match for impulsive and frivolous Kitty. They move to China, where Walter spends his days working as a More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Brian rated it:

I read this book shortly after I finished reading Maugham's "Of Human Bondage," and not too long after seeing (twice) the movie version starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts. I found the story very interesting and the plot intriguing. I also found the differences between the film and book fascinating. I actually preferred the way the film version played out, relative to the main character Kitty Fain, the part played by Naomi Watts. Kitty has her faults but also finds redemption in More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Jul 18, 2008

Nikki rated it:

The setting is 1920's Hong Kong and China. Young Kitty Fane is a spoiled and self-righteous brat that I hated in the beginning. She marries a man that loves her more deeply than her shallow soul could comprehend simply to not be outdone by her younger sister. She betrays her husband and he gives her a choice; they can either divorce, or she can travel with him to a remote area of china where the Cholera epidemic is raging. When shunned by the lover she thought would marry her, she decides t More...

11 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Caroline rated it:

This is the first W. Somerset Maugham novel that I have read and did so with my book group. We all loved it. The central characters are British and the story takes place in Hong Kong and in a cholera-infested region of mainland China in the 1920's. Maugham's writing style is somewhat spare,but the characters are richly drawn and the plot was engrossing and never predictable. This book is not among Maugham's best known works, but it made me want to read more (e.g., "Of Human Bondage," More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Jul 10, 2008

Cameron rated it:

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2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 24, 2008

Lucy rated it:

Kitty is a beautiful young woman, raised by her shallow and socially aggressive mother to be equally shallow and ambitious. In spite of her beauty, Kitty finds herself unmarried at the age of 25 and losing her place as her mother's beloved when her much younger and less attractive sister, Doris, becomes engaged to a baron. Embarrassed by her sister's superior match, desperate to leave the disappointed glare of her mother and panicked that another decent offer won't come her way, she says "y More...

5 comments like (7 people liked it)

Sep 23, 2008

Rebecca rated it:

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0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 11, 2008

Kelly rated it:

To be honest it was only the last few chapters of this book that really redeemed it for me and pushed it up to three stars from two. Before that, had it not been for a lovely turn of phrase now and then, and the articulate expression of the writing, I really might have thought this done by a /fantastically/ average old fashioned romance novel writer. The story is a quite run-of-the-mill morality tale, one that fills our shelves even more vapidly nowadays in the chick-lit genre. Shallow, frivolou More...

6 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 08, 2010

Annalisa rated it:

I will probably never say this again: the movie was better than the book. Most of the movie follows the book, taking out unimportant sidetracks, up until the point Kitty slides back from her character development into the same narcissistic girl she's always been. I thought the range of emotions through infidelity were well done and her moments of understanding about other characters good, but then Maugham takes that potential for growth away and I lost my sympathy for her. Had the book followed More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 27, 2011

Ilaria rated it:

E’ proprio vero, non si può scegliere chi amare.
Lo sa bene Kitty, che dopo aver sposato Walter si accorge che non lo ama e non lo ha mai amato.

Ambientato nel 1920 a Hong Kong e in Inghilterra, racconta la storia di Kitty, una ragazza ambiziosa che finisce per sposare un uomo che appena conosce, solo perché vuole sposarsi prima della sorella. Walter, a suo modo,la ama molto, è gentile e onesto, ma Kitty non ricambia i suoi sentimenti e ha una relazione con un politico.
Dop More...

7 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 14, 2011

g rated it:

Vain, flighty socialite Kitty cheats on her husband, bacteriologist Walter, soon after they are married--one of those colossally stupid pairings, fueled by unmanageable lust on his end and fear of spinsterhood on hers. Walter, bless his heart, is the kind of rational scientist by day who falls to pieces over a pretty lady, reduced to cringe-worthy puerility by his infatuation. Kitty can't take Walter seriously as a lover; having given himself so helplessly, Walter is wounded beyond reason by Kit More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 29, 2008

Michelle rated it:

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1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Mar 11, 2008

Jackie rated it:

"Because he had dressed a doll in gorgeous robes and set her in a sanctuary to worship her, and then discovered that the doll was filled with sawdust he could neither forgive himself nor her. His soul was lacerated. It was all make-believe that he had lived on, and when the truth shattered it he thought reality itself was shattered. It was true enough, he would not forgive her because her could not forgive himself.
She thought that she heard him give a faint sigh and she shot a rap More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 18, 2008

Sonia rated it:

An English society girl, feeling the pressure to be married, weds a stiff scientist who takes her to China, where she has an affair with a British colonist. When the husband finds out, he forces her to go with him to a cholera-infested village in need of medical help. At first she hates him for it, but then she starts to see him in a new light (hey, he's brave and he's helping all these people). She also sees a different side of life from the hardships of the village, and helping at the orpha More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 07, 2009

Evalyn rated it:

Very readable, the language flows, the story is interesting and the setting is exotic. That said, I'm still pondering the meaning or the conclusion the reader is supposed to gain by the ending. Kitty seems to be searching for the great secret of life, something she feels the nuns know and others know, but she can't seem to figure it out. Because of the nuns, I figured it was a spiritual revelation she was seeking but then by the end it appears she was simply seeking a life of peace and quiet. More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 27, 2012

Anya rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 17, 2007

Erin rated it:

It took me awhile after I finished this book to decide how I really felt about it. It's beautifully written and refreshingly realistic. This is no fairy princess story so if that's what your expecting, look elsewhere. But I learned a lot about myself and my own nature through reading this book, kindof like I do when I read Austen or Bronte. I think it just ended a little bit too abruptly for me. I needed one more chapter to assure me that things really would turn out OK or something. But other t More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 19, 2012

Trisha rated it:

"Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920's, it is the story of the beautiful but love-starved Kitty Fane. When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to the heart of cholera epidemic. Stripped of the British society of her youth and the society she fought so hard to attain in Hong Kong, she is compelled by her awakening conscience to reassess her life and learn how to love."

First, let me say that this was definitely not an uplifting book More...

0 comments like

Jan 08, 2012

jerksuke rated it:

I remember seeing the film when it first came out and against my better judgement rather liked it. When I realized it was Maugham who wrote the book I was eager to read it but it disappointed.

I really love the story, the whole idea of Fane giving Kitty that ultimatum at the start and his later confession, to no great surprise that he wanted the trip they took to kill her. It's such a good concept and the possibilities for what these characters could have been were so great. That said, More...

0 comments like

Dec 04, 2011

Alvi rated it:

I personally really enjoyed "The Painted Veil" - Kitty, amoral as she often is, is first and foremost human; she is flawed and makes mistakes. But the whole point of the ending, as I read it, is that Kitty *isn't* a 'burden' to her father; for the first time in her life she is sworn to love someone and *earn* their love in return

The characters are realistic, I think, in that they epitomise many human flaws, which in a way might make them distasteful to the readers. The char More...

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Sep 17, 2011

Anne (Booklady) rated it:

W. Somerset Maugham's love life was paradoxical, especially since he had many affairs with both men and women during his lifetime. He wrote: "I have most loved people who cared little or nothing for me and when people have loved me I have been embarrassed... In order not to hurt their feelings, I have often acted a passion I did not feel." Therefore, it is not wondrous that Dante’s character, Pia, should inspire one of my favorite stories, THE PAINTED VEIL.

In 1925 Engla More...

0 comments like

Sep 10, 2011

Jen, Sinatra fan rated it:

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0 comments like

Aug 13, 2011

Elizabetha rated it:

Kitty una chica de la clase alta Inglesa, completamente vacía y vana se casa sin amor con un Bacteriólogo que trabaja en Hong Kong, Walter Fane,quien es un completo misterio para ella .Nunca podrá saber que destino la espera en aquellas tierras ni la tragedia que su propia indolencia provocará.

Es un libro excelente , pero no pato para depresivos.

Está contado desde el punto de vista de la , para mi, insoportable Kitty, por lo que la mayoría de los personajes se mueven en sombr More...

0 comments like

Jul 04, 2011

Lia rated it:

Frankly speaking, I thought the film was better. I know that's very anti-book of me to say and many avid readers of novels cringe when people admit to that, but this was one of the few cases for me where that was true. I saw the film first, which adds to my bias, but I have the irregular advantage of being able to say I liked the book too, simply in a different manner.
SPOILERS!!!
The novel is the third-person account of Kitty Fane, a spoiled and unsympathetic girl who marries a man sh More...

0 comments like

Jul 04, 2011

Jaclyn rated it:

The Painted Veil is the story of Kitty Fane, a young English doctor's wife who accompanies her husband to Hong Kong. Kitty's husband, Walter, is desperately in love with her and she's just more than a little bit bored by him. While in Hong Kong Kitty begins an affair with a government official who appears to be everything her husband isn't - popular, fun, and sociable. Of course, Kitty's affair can't possibly stay a secret, and when Walter finds out he gives her a choice: either come with him More...

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