![]() The characters are vibrant and easily imagined. She and Walter live in Mei-tan-fu while he studies the disease and she volunteers at a nearby convent. She improves, but her initial commentary dates the book. Though Kitty’s character shows flashes of modern feminism, her initial impressions of Chinese people are racist. He believes he can be helpful as a bacteriologist and physician, but he also wants to punish both Kitty and himself. In the aftermath of her affair, Kitty is forced to choose between divorcing Walter or following him into the midst of a cholera epidemic. Of course it was Walter, Kitty’s husband. “Walter,” she whispered, her lips trembling. ![]() “Well, perhaps it was the amah or one of the boys.” ![]() Notwithstanding the darkness of the shuttered room he saw her face on a sudden distraught with terror. It might be unfair, but unless I’m told otherwise, I expect that old books will have a slow, meandering style. I don’t think, for example, that Maugham was trying to be a jerk when he used “idiot” to describe a child with hydrocephaly. Somerset Maugham surprised me by how modern it felt until I happened upon a word or phrase that’s not used anymore, or now means something different. ![]()
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