The Painted Veil - Somerset Maugham

Somerset Maugham (Library of Congress)

The Twenties are definitely a fascinating decade to me. It took me some time to go beyond Francis Scott Fitzgerald and read Somerset Maugham (1874-1965). His name always triggered my curiosity, but I didn't know anything about him. I felt a bit intimidated, the kind of feeling I got before reading Kerouac or Steinbeck, even though these writers have nothing to do with each other. or  Born in France, Somerset Maugham was en English writer, most known for his masterpieces The Razor's Edge, The Magician and Of Human Bondage. Although I'm not a fan of doing so, I came to his novels after having watched a movie. However, his way of writing made me forget all about the movie I had seen. The Painted Veil takes place in China. Kitty is a 25 years old spoiled English woman, who married bacteriologist Walter Fane and came to Hong Kong where he works. She is used to be the center of attention, especially men's attention. But although her husband is madly in love with her, she gives him nothing but despise and think a shy and uninteresting person. She embarks on an affair with socialite governor-to-be Charles Townsend, a well-off and married vain man. Walter finds out about the affair and gives Kitty an ultimatum: he'll divorce her if she refuses to accompany him on a mission to save a whole population from the dreadful cholera epidemic sweeping there. Let down by her lover, Kitty has no choice but that of following her husband. Once locked in the modest house they inhabit in a lost valley of China, she sees Walter as a whole new person, and understands the aim of his work. She realises how vain her life has been before, as she sees him through new eyes, and she finally falls in love with him - and with China. But amidst the cholera epidemic, Walter won't forgive her so easily...

About the movie:
In 2006, a beautiful (although inaccurate) adaptation was directed by John Curran. Naomi Watts (Kitty) and Edward Norton (Walter) played intense characters, driven by beautiful sets and a captivating music by French composer Alexandre Desplat (Harry Potter, The Queen, The King's Speech...). Although the director took some liberties with the novel, especially by adding a more suitable-to-Hollywood end, and by swipping Hong Kong for Shanghai, the overall atmosphere depicted by Maugham is quite respected.