Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
Published 1915 · 641 pages · 258,952 words · about 17 hours at an average pace · Coming-of-Age, Literary Fiction, Memoir & Autobiography
How hard is Of Human Bondage to read?
Of Human Bondage scores 46 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 48 out of 100
- Maugham writes clear, cultivated English without ostentation. The vocabulary reflects educated but not rarefied discourse. Accessibility was Maugham's goal—he succeeds.
- Sentence structure: 45 out of 100
- Well-crafted sentences that carry readers forward without demanding rereading. Maugham values clarity above all. The prose is professional, polished, transparent.
- Abstraction: 52 out of 100
- Philip's search for meaning addresses large questions—art, God, love, death—but through specific experiences. Maugham grounds philosophy in particular situations.
- Information density: 50 out of 100
- A long novel covering many years, but Maugham paces events comfortably. The autobiographical material unfolds without crowding. Readers settle into Philip's life.
- Narrative indirection: 45 out of 100
- Maugham tells Philip's story directly, with authorial insight into his protagonist's blindnesses. What Philip can't see, the narrative makes visible. Limited indirection.
- Symbolic density: 42 out of 100
- Philip's clubfoot carries symbolic weight—his sense of difference and damage. But Maugham generally works realistically. The novel earns its meanings through accumulation.
- Ironic distance: 55 out of 100
- Maugham views Philip's obsession with Mildred with painful clarity. The gap between what Philip wants to believe and what he actually experiences generates bitter irony.
- Resolution withholding: 45 out of 100
- Philip achieves hard-won acceptance of life's meaninglessness and human limitation. The resolution is philosophical rather than romantic—earned, not comforting.
- Structural complexity: 38 out of 100
- Straightforward chronological autobiography. No structural experiment. Maugham's craft shows in proportion and pacing, not formal innovation.
How Of Human Bondage is regarded
Of Human Bondage holds a literary regard score of 48 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.