Maugham mastered all the techniques necessary to be an excellent writer. The book flowed easily pulling the reader deeper and deeper into the story, the detailed descriptions allowing the characters to rise alive and unique from the story. The strength Maugham used to pull the reader into the story, however, created a few hundred unbearably emotionally taxing pages. Philip's unrequited, obsessive love for Mildred felt akin to smashing one's head repeatedly into a brick wall, and as a frustrated reader I couldn't help thinking "if I was able to intervene we could have concluded this whole frustrating episode much earlier...". Despite this dark central theme, Maugham helped Philip escape from this 'bondage', ironically finding happiness with a kind, wholesome English woman. This unexpected conclusion surprised me by transforming a celebration of the intensity of human emotion and freedom of life without societal constraints into a tribute to the strength of the bourgeois English lifestyle. The stages of Philip's life, the flirtation with the artist's lifestyle in Paris, absolute poverty in his hometown of London, and his ultimate return to medical school to pursue the profession of his deceased father, creates a rich self-discovery story that is almost unsettling in its imitation of reality. Every decision Maugham gives Philip in Of Human Bondage is controversial (his first straying from social convention is just as surprising as his eventual return) and thus in pushing the reader to question Philip's actions pushes one to question one's own.