Release from Human Bondage (Spoiler Alert!)

I finished "Of Human Bondage" his morning, after a long reading session yesterday on a coast-to-coast plane trip.

As I predicated, Mildred returned (no, no Philip, don't do it!). She'd been dumped by Philip's old friend and was supporting herself and her baby by walking the streets of London as a prostitute. Philip takes her and her baby in, even though he can ill afford it, and she lives in an extra room in his apartment, supported by Philip. She half-heartedly looks for a real job, but doesn't try too hard. Philip enjoys her company, and is really into her kid, but claims his feelings for her are gone, and won't have sex with her, even though she offers it in payment for his kindness. She tells Philip that she's realized he's the only gentleman she has ever really known. They squabble and argue, have little in common, and Mildred continues to milk Philip of money. She tries harder and harder to get Philip to have sex with her, but he says he's no longer interested in her that way. Mildred seems interested in Philip now only when he doesn't want her any more. Hmmm, how many of us have experienced THAT? This eventually drives her into a rage, and when he returns home one night, he finds she's torn up the apartment, destroyed or vandalized everything he owns, and has left him (again). You think this guy would have learned! Well, I tried to warn him.

Anyway, since the episode with Mildred cost him much of his remaining inheritance, he takes the rest and makes a bet in the stock market. This doesn't go well, and now he's really screwed, as he doesn't have the money to continue his medical studies. He has to drop out of medical school after his uncle, the Vicar, refuses to lend him any money. He then lives in abject poverty for awhile, working in a department store. After a year or two his uncle dies, leaving him with enough money to finish his medical training. He finds he's good at medicine, and is good with the patients...his experience with poverty helps him relate to the poor and ill.

He runs into Mildred one more time...she sends him a letter and asks to see him. He finds she's once again a prostitute, and has some kind of disease which she seeks his help with. I can't figure out what she has...TB, or some sort of STD? Nonetheless it seems quite serious. Philip gives her medicine, and never sees her again, leaving her to her fate. We also learn her baby has died. So that is that. Philip, finally, seems to be over her.

The book ends rather unexpectedly. Philip ends up having a fling with the young daughter of a friend. He says he doesn't love her, but is clearly attached to her. When he learns she is pregnant, he decides to chuck his dream of traveling the world as a ship's doctor to settle down with her, raise a family, and practice medicine. He convinces himself this is a noble sacrifice, even though he's bumming he won't be able to be a solitary world traveler, as he longed to do for so long. Yet, when his girlfriend tells him she's not pregnant after all, and he's free again to think of travel, he becomes dejected and realizes that he really does want to marry her and settle down. So he asks her to marry him and she accepts, and they all will live happily ever after. Or will they? Her answer to his proposal of marriage is with the words "If you like". This is exactly what Mildred would say. His girlfriend (Sally) clearly is interested in him, and mothers him, but is somewhat detached. While it's clear she's not another Mildred, and Philip is not obsessed with her as he was with Mildred, I wonder where all this will leave them in a few years.

And why does Philip decide to marry her and throw away his dreams of being free from human bondage? I couldn't decide at first if this seemed false or not. But it seems to me that Philip realizes that he is longing for family, for a closeness that he's never really had since his mother died. He won't have the adventure that he would have had traveling the world, but he'll be happy. He won't have the destructive passion and intensity he felt for Mildred, but he will have a good life. Kind of like the life he might have had with Norah had he not been so obsessed with Mildred at the time (although Sally is younger and more attractive physically than Norah). Kind of like the life that many of us middle class folks end up living. And it isn't so bad...in fact, it can be pretty damn good. Well, until you hit 46, and freak out, and start reading and blogging about all the books you should read before you die.