The Shackles of Life (Two Volumes)

Everyone has their own pains and shackles in life. When we encounter problems and difficulties, we feel that these shackles are as heavy as a thousand pounds, weighing us down and making us unable to breathe. No amount of mental pressure and mental shackles are of any use to us, and in many cases they even have negative effects. We can only keep our feet on the ground and believe that we can achieve personal growth and progress through persistent efforts and unremitting struggle. Only by being kind to yourself and others can you complete your life more easily and happily.

This is a big book that took me a long time to read. The protagonist Philip suffered a bleak childhood, but after entering society, he continued to pursue the true meaning of his life on his own path. Maugham also pointed out in the book that enjoyment is not the meaning of life. For Philip, while constantly pursuing meaning, he is also constantly suffering, but some fixed standards such as "truth, goodness and beauty" can free him from the constraints of life. Of course, I don't think this book can provide people with the answer to the meaning of life. The final answer still has to come back to everyone's life.

Philip experienced many hardships since he was a child, and finally reconciled completely with the world at the age of thirty. Looking back on the past, Philip's parents died when he was young and he was physically disabled. Fortunately, he met a kind aunt and his uncle was not too bad. Even so, he was dependent on someone else. After going to school, I was bullied by my classmates because of my physical disability. Because of my sensitive, withdrawn and fragile character developed from childhood experiences, I later gave up Oxford to study accounting. Since I had no talent, I switched to painting, and because I had no talent for painting, I switched to medicine. Unfortunately, he encountered the biggest shackle in life - Mildred. He couldn't love her, so he spent most of his father's inheritance and delayed his studies. After being betrayed by Mildred many times, he finally spent all his family property and ended up living on the street. He had tasted the warmth and hardship of the world, and even his friends and uncles left him. In the end, he had to give up his studies and took up the lowest job, as he said - you must sweat to make a living.

It is based on the real life experience of the author Maugham in his early years. The protagonist Philip was born lame and his parents died, so he was fostered in his uncle's house since he was a child. As a young boy, Philip was often bullied and ridiculed because of his lameness. As he grew up, he decided to leave school and find the meaning of life. But his trial has just begun. Family, love, art, and ideals, he is going around in circles in confusion. He failed in painting and turned to medicine, but almost wasted his life because of people who were false to him. At the critical moment, Philip got rid of the shackles that bound him and found the meaning of life.

It's quite interesting. I don't know how to evaluate it. I feel that there are many shackles in life. Live fearlessly and bravely. This book gave me a rich perspective and helped me understand that I also have these troubles!

This can be said to be one of the Western works that contains elements of the Nine Pessimisms. Although it is a bit pessimistic, it does not affect the value of the content written in it, and the author discusses it from a relatively objective perspective. The reason why many people don't think so about the various difficulties and helplessness in our lives is because we use a lot of entertainment and external situations to cover up this loneliness and helplessness. We don't want to face it. If it sounds good, it's just to enjoy ourselves, and if it sounds bad, it's escaping from reality.

This book is very real, and the author portrays the experience and character of the protagonist Philip very delicately. The difficulties he faced made me empathize with him and I could understand his struggles. The author Maugham is really amazing, he made me see all kinds of life in the book. I think this book is not only suitable for reading by myself, but also suitable for reading with children, so that they can understand the difficulty of life early.

After reading this book, I fell in love with Maugham

The complexity and changeability of human nature are vividly described in this book. Some people don't understand it, and some hate it, but these are all living beings.