The Painted Veil (W. Somerset Maugham)

I picked this book for one reason, and one reason only: because I love the movie. Naomi Watts and Edward Norton delivered superb performance, the depiction of interior China was beautiful, and the story was romantic. And I don’t use the word “romantic” lightly, mind you. Bearing that in mind, imagine how I felt when I realized the book was crucially different from its motion picture counterpart.

The main character is a young woman named Kitty. She was almost past marriageable age (twenty-five years old!), and to make matters worse, her younger--and less beautiful--sister had just gotten engaged. So, Kitty did what every sensible woman would do under the circumstances: she jumped the gun with the first guy who proposed! Enter Walter Fane, an uptight “man of science” serving in the colony of Tching-Yen (Hong Kong upon first publication, but under the threat of libel from someone of the same name, it became a fictitious colony instead).

The problem is, Kitty was the kind of person who couldn’t see a man beyond his charm and good looks, of which Walter had none. Little wonder that she fell for the dashing Assistant Colonial Secretary, Charles Townsend. They had an affair, Walter found out, and then came the ultimatum: either he filed for divorce on the ground of adultery, or she came with him to Mei-tan-fu, a remote town ransacked by cholera epidemic. In the end, Kitty had no choice but to go with the latter option, just like Walter knew she would (because Townsend’s just fooling around with her, in any case): this would be her punishment.

It is at this point that the movie deviated from the original work. Away from the world, movie-Kitty and Walter saw each other in a way that they never had before, and found it in themselves to forgive each other. In the book, what happened, I think, was some sort of self discovery. It didn’t bring happiness to the couple, though.

And while we’re talking about unhappiness, I have to say that I’m not quite sure what Walter wanted to convey on his deathbed. He said, “The dog it was that died,” which is a reference to Oliver Goldsmith’s An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog. It strikes me not as words of regret, more like recognizing and accepting the inevitable--his futile love and Kitty’s flaws. (Does it make any sense?)

To me, Kitty’s understanding of herself was a pivotal point in the book. She’s shallow, and she acknowledged and accepted that. I imagine that’s how things work in real life most of the time. You don’t go to a secluded place and suddenly reform your “wicked” ways, but sometimes you do get to see yourself for what you really are. Yes, the movie is sweet, but the book is more poignant because the characters didn’t change. There’s no love and forgiveness, only regret.