The Razor's Edge

Isabel lives a charmed life. Once again, she has been saved from the necessity of hardship. First, she married Gray, who wrapped her in wealth and comfort. Then, when Gray lost his money, Elliott took over, giving her everything she could want—which she accepts with equanimity. Now that she has inherited the bulk of Elliott’s estate, Isabel is wealthier than ever. Gray will be able to buy his way into a new business, and Isabel will essentially take over Elliott’s life where he left off—moving in the upper echelon of society.

Father Ensheim’s promise that imitating belief will lead to genuine belief fails because Larry isn’t looking for belief. He is looking for understanding. He would rather have an uncomfortable truth than a comforting but baseless assurance. If anything, the monks’ explanations for the existence of evil raise more questions and make God seem no better—if not worse—than humankind. Larry can’t accept answers that rationalize contradictions rather than addressing them. He reasons like a scientist—or a child—in that he begins at first principles and takes nothing for granted. If a conclusion doesn’t explain all the evidence, he rejects it and looks for a better answer.

Larry’s invitation to the woman in Seville is the first time the reader sees Larry initiating a sexual encounter. As Larry tells the story to Maugham, he never gives this woman (whom he calls a “girl”) a name, which suggests that she meant very little to him. He is fond of her, but like his relationship with Suzanne, it is a physical convenience rather than intimate connection. Although he describes the woman as an animal, he isn’t being intentionally dehumanizing. He means that she is earthy, deeply connected to the world and the body. Under this notion—which may be based less on the woman herself than on Larry’s subjective, poeticized conjecture—she represents the opposite of Larry’s search for spiritual truth. Perhaps Larry was experimenting with the possibility of intimacy. If so, he seems to have deliberately chosen someone who couldn’t love him because she was already in love with someone else. It was a safe experiment, but it was destined to fail, and Larry may have wanted it to do so. Intimacy is something he consistently avoids.

Maugham paints a bleak picture of some other patrons in the café, none of whom appear truly happy, especially the man who is mocked by his two partners, and the sex worker whose procurer abuses her. This is the backdrop of Larry’s remark about the futility of seeking comfort outside one’s own soul. Perhaps this is how Larry sees Christianity—as a loveless relationship that leaves him emptier and lonelier than before. If so, the other characters don’t share his experience. Elliott may not have been exactly uplifted by his piety, but it satisfied his need for a sense of consequence. Other characters approach religion with a practical indifference. They believe, but unlike Larry, they are satisfied with answers and are unconcerned with questions.

Even after having achieved enlightenment, Larry still has no answer to the problem of evil, but with a sense of union with all creation, he is able to let go of the question and embrace experience. Passion for life makes suffering endurable. Larry has spent his life in pursuit of an answer only to find that there is no answer, and in the end, he didn’t need one.

Larry, having been all over Europe and beyond in his quest, is now ready to go back and discover the vast nation he came from, getting to know its people and bringing them something of the enlightenment he found. Talking with Maugham, his narration reveals him wandering the country as a kind of messianic figure bringing enlightenment to those who seek it, although Larry, in his modesty, would never see himself in those terms. He has apparently learned the lesson Sophie was there to teach him—that he can only be present and allow others to come to him, never force enlightenment on them.