In these trying times, we are beset by more than a virus. A brazen con man occupies the Oval Office, lying, cheating and stealing in plain sight while his enablers abet his crimes or, pretending nothing's wrong, look the other way. Trusted institutions have been hijacked by scoundrels who care about nothing but their own political and financial advancement. Even as millions lose their jobs and thousands of small businesses fail, the stock market soars. Hatred spews like sewage from social media spigots whose owners cling like the Swiss to their neutrality; people of color are murdered by men sworn to uphold the law; the old and the sick are jeopardized in the maskless name of personal liberty; science is mocked and facts denied. In times like these, one can hardly be blamed for turning away from the helter skelter chaos to seek meaning elsewhere.

I therefore find at least a little comfort, however cold, in being reminded that we are hardly the first to turn away. In The Razor's Edge, published in 1944, W. Somerset Maugham tells the story of Larry Darrell, a WWI aviator who, upon returning from the war, calmly rejects a lucrative career and a charming, well-heeled fiance in order to seek life's higher meaning.

At first, Larry's friends and fiance are patient and understanding, attributing to wartime trauma his stubbornly gentle disinterest in the life he has always been expected to embrace. But as time goes on, their patience gives way to an incredulous dismay; how could he -- how could anyone -- turn away from material wealth and elevated social status? Or from a clever and attractive young woman and her family of means? When pressed, Larry declines to explain; while he does not expressly condemn the feast that everyone seeks to lay before him, it becomes clear that he has no intention of taking his place at the table. Finally, he turns down the job, breaks it off with his fiance and, through wide reading and a series of menial jobs, seeks meaning elsewhere, eventually traveling to India to study at the feet of a Hindu ascetic.

Maugham paints himself into The Razor's Edge as a very visible narrator, a friend of the fiance's family to whom the confused young woman turns for guidance when Larry fails to respond to the charms that have always served her well. In this role Maugham is at first suspicious, wondering what Larry is really up to. But he comes to recognize that Larry's quest is sincere, and grounded in questions that deserve answers, even if those answers are elusive. In the end, Maugham may be unable to identify fully with Larry's need to find a spiritual truth more satisfying than that offered up by the empty Western materialism he rejects, but he admires the courage, grace and perseverance with which the young man pursues a life of greater meaning.

Maugham's prose, which experienced readers would recognize as that of an Englishman even were it written in Arabic or Sanskrit, is a little old-fashioned, but it is also fluid, graceful and evocative, and rarely does Maugham lapse into cliche. The tone of worldly skepticism that he brings to the novel undoubtedly mirrors that of many readers, who may not be blamed for exhibiting impatience with the initial passivity with which Larry confronts his crisis of the soul. But even if Maugham's spiritual skepticism isn't entirely dispelled, it is at least suspended, the author's broadened perspective ultimately catalyzing our own.

For anyone interested in exploring alternatives to the grasping materialism that Larry Darrell would argue keeps us from ever achieving true freedom, this is a good introduction. And for anyone who wishes to spend a few hours in the pleasant company of a writer who observes closely and writes in a style that still has the power to enthrall, this is a good book as well.