The Influence of a Book or a Movie in Our Life
When I was about fifteen, I read Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham and I was mesmerized. At the time, I was living in a town of a 1,000 residents in western Colorado where my father was a minister. My older sister, Alice, had died in an automobile accident and I was struggling to make sense of that age old question: “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
I don’t remember now how I got my hands on Of Human Bondage or why I started reading it, but once I did, I couldn’t put it down.
For those of you who have never read it, it is perhaps Maugham’s best work. It is the life story of Philip Carey and his search for meaning in life. After Carey’s parents die, he is sent to live with his uncle, a vicar in a small village. The family is extremely religious.
I remember reading the book late into the night, thinking about Philip as if he were a close friend, and then hurrying home after school to discover what was happening to him.
About one-third into the story, I took a red ink pen and began underlining passages that spoke to me. What the author was writing was right on target, he was describing my feelings at the time of anger at God, disillusionment, frustration, love. Even though the book had been published in 1915, decades before I was born, the book described my feelings and me.
I kept Of Human Bondage and when I eventually went to college, moved out on my own and got married, it was one of the few books from my teenage years that I took with me.
When I was in my early 30s, I noticed it in my bookcase one night and took it down one evening to look over. I remembered how much it had influenced me so I started reading it and, once again, became enthralled with the story.
And then something strange happened.
I got to the sentences that I had underlined in red ink — the ones that were so eye-opening to me when I had been fifteen — and I read them and then re-read them. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember why they had been so
I don’t remember now how I got my hands on Of Human Bondage or why I started reading it, but once I did, I couldn’t put it down.
For those of you who have never read it, it is perhaps Maugham’s best work. It is the life story of Philip Carey and his search for meaning in life. After Carey’s parents die, he is sent to live with his uncle, a vicar in a small village. The family is extremely religious.
I remember reading the book late into the night, thinking about Philip as if he were a close friend, and then hurrying home after school to discover what was happening to him.
About one-third into the story, I took a red ink pen and began underlining passages that spoke to me. What the author was writing was right on target, he was describing my feelings at the time of anger at God, disillusionment, frustration, love. Even though the book had been published in 1915, decades before I was born, the book described my feelings and me.
I kept Of Human Bondage and when I eventually went to college, moved out on my own and got married, it was one of the few books from my teenage years that I took with me.
When I was in my early 30s, I noticed it in my bookcase one night and took it down one evening to look over. I remembered how much it had influenced me so I started reading it and, once again, became enthralled with the story.
And then something strange happened.
I got to the sentences that I had underlined in red ink — the ones that were so eye-opening to me when I had been fifteen — and I read them and then re-read them. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember why they had been so