Quest Narrative in Razor's Edge

 Larry Darrell in Maugham's Razor's Edge is an enigmatic figure. Perhaps it is best described as a seeker who has a journey that cannot be foretold. Instead of settling down to a respectable job and marriage, he chooses instead to "loaf" in Paris. And it is here that we have a quest narrative quite different from one in which Fate (or destiny) is clearly set out (as in the two paths, virtue and pleasure, that Heracles needs to choose from). It is none other than the quest for a path itself, which makes this quest somewhat of a meta-narrative on the nature of quests themselves.

   I truly believe that this novel is a post-structural one, whose protagonist is similar to Walker Percy's protagonists-- many of whom are "loafers" in their own right. These stories contain a void or a blank space in their center, and it's for the readers to puzzle on where that blank space points to. I wouldn't exactly say that these characters are "anti-heroes" since calling them as such creates only an antithesis to a worn formula: instead, I would think of them as characters looking for the path to story, yet questioning the very foundation of the path itself. Larry is offset by the sight of dead bodies in the war he survived, but this sight could be something else--the sight of someone succumbing to an illness, for example. The point is that the death he witnesses during the war points to a void that can't be storied. It takes him beyond the point of story--since stories themselves somehow require the consolation (and security) of a path well-trodden and guaranteed to take us somewhere, to not be too abrupt as to end too soon, and to "teach us all a lesson", as it were.

    At that point, it doesn't matter whether Larry finds the path, as his realization truly is that there is no path. But this is not the end of this novel, only its starting point, as characters come to terms with his realization in different ways. And it is certainly a reminder that one person's stark realization impacts the social mannerisms of a well-trodden world.