Of Human Bondage: Philip Deserves Better

After writing that last post on Of Human Bondage, I felt pretty bad.  I wasn't really fair to the book or Somerset Maugham. Also:  I read the foreword.

The cover art is the best thing about my copy.

I know, I know, I should have read the foreword to begin with, but I never read forewords or introductions to novels.  Anyways, from the foreword it seems that the book is loosely autobiographical.  After reading that, I surprisingly hated the book more.

Mr Maugham, Mr Maugham, Mr Maugham!  Why the self-loathing?

Poor Philip! He's orphaned and spends his childhood living in the austere environment of his aunt and uncle's home.   No one really loves him, even though his Aunt Louisa is rather fond of him.  He's just a sad lonely boy.

He gets sent to a good school, but he has a club foot and gets tormented for it.  He finally strikes up a friendship with a boy, falls in love with him (the book doesn't say that outright, but you can tell).  Then gets all inexplicably (to himself) jealous after their relationship "cools down".  
 
He's dissatisfied with his life and doesn't want to go to Oxford just because he's supposed to.  He runs off to Germany instead, where he falls in love with Hayward (the book doesn't say that outright, but you can tell).

Then he has to go home. He becomes an accountant (or something) and hates it.  Then he decides to move to Paris to paint.  He's an OK painter, but he's not spectacular.  After Fanny Price commits suicide, he decides that he's not going to be stupid and be a suffering bad artist; he's going to become a doctor.

And that's where I stopped reading.  Because Mr Maugham, he is full of recrimination and lack of sympathy for poor Philip.  He takes every opportunity to tell us how Philip is being a moron because he's young, naive, and not the sharpest tool in the shed.

The whole book is "Philip is young, stupid and doesn't realize that everyone around him is just bullshitting him.  He's impressed because he's a simple.  And, like most youth, he's an obstinant hot-head who lets his emotions get the better of him."

Now, I don't mind reading autobiographies where people look back on their lives critically, but this is supposed to be a work of fiction.  Yes, it's loosely based on Somerset Maugham's life, and I'm sure he looked back on his life (Philip's life) and realized he had been, well, stupid.   But how am I, the reader, supposed to feel anything for Philip when the author/narrator is telling me that the guy's a loser?

I feel bad for Philip that no one --  not even the narrator, who ostensibly thinks Philip's story is worth telling -- thinks that he is anything but sad and pathetic.

Are we not supposed to like Philip?  Is this like those paintings that are ugly, but you're supposed to find beauty in ugliness?   Or is this some kind of manifesto of self-loathing on the part of Somerset Maugham? 

I don't know.

But I know that I can't feel interested in the protagonist's life if the narrator/author thinks the protagonist is a loser who is barely deserving of our contempt.