The Razor's Edge, W.Somerset Maugham

Beneath the Skin (Razor's Edge remix) - Collide 

Tr. Spa-Eng from a review by Olenska

 This novel by W.Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) is the very essence of the search for the meaning of life. Its main character, Larry Darrell, a well-off young man from a good family, is sent as a pilot to participate in World War I. There he loses his best friend when this tries to save his life. To the cruelty of war and inhumanity of its consequences, a drastic change occurs in his thinking. He then undertakes a spiritual quest abandoning not only Isabel, his fiancée, but all the precepts and gears that move Western society, the desire for competition, the power of money and contempt to individualism.
 Larry begins to read convulsively seeking answers. He becomes an introverted man, but deeply human and sensitive. He will work in a mine, will travel through Europe knowing all kinds of characters and searching for the long-awaited inner peace he did not totally find; until he reaches the very heart of India, where after studying Eastern philosophy and learning the Brahmins' healing art, he returns to Western society meeting again his former fiancée, who, despite having remade her life with Gray Maturin, with whom she has had two daughters, has never forgotten him. But this meeting will have unexpected consequences for all when Isabel discovers the presence, along with Larry, of Sophie, a former youth classmate.

 The film adaptation of this novel was made into a film in 1946 by Edmund Goulding and starring Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney and Anne Baxter, receiving four nominations, including Best Film and receiving the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Anne Baxter.