This book is 110 years old and more relevant than anything I’ve read recently. I read this 600-page Bildungsroman within three months and did not want it to end. There is no joy in finishing one book after the other when you can savour the protagonist’s experiences slowly, and that’s when you’re fully invested in his journey.
Each phase of Philip Carey’s life applies to you and me, whether it’s getting through school as an outsider or making poor decisions.
Who hasn’t been blinded by their heart for unfathomable reasons? You can’t help but choose what you think you deserve. So why trust your gut when you can choose to feel intensively bad?
Philip wants to know the meaning of life, and his friend says, “The answer is meaningless unless you discover it for yourself.”
Young and hopeful, he completely misses the answer to his question and begins to pursue the meaning of life in a Persian carpet.
I thoroughly enjoyed his moments of internal anger and shame. He wants to “jab a chisel” into people’s necks when they talk about his club foot.
After multiple career changes, he becomes aware of money being of “grotesque importance” and how it contributes to the (finally) uselessness of life. “Pain, disease, and unhappiness weighed down the scale so heavily…” he becomes conscious of the “transitoriness of life.”
But the truth is that whatever choice you make, you will gain something from it, though it may not always fulfil your desires.
Oh, and throughout the middle of the book, he pursues a piece of shit of a narcissist whom you simply want to kill. (I’m not wasting my review on that thing.)
I loved the map of London throughout the book as it pins almost all the places I used to visit. It created a bit of homesickness.
The last page left me sad and helpless. I couldn’t care less about the choice that he makes.
Or perhaps I missed the point of “…can’t let accidents disturb the patterns of one’s life…you have to make the most of it…alone.”
Oh, and R.I.P. Fanny Price. I feel you. And most of Philip.
