Editing The Razor's Edge (section)

== Influences and critical reception ==
[[File:RazorsEdgeNew.jpg|thumb|1946 hardcover edition promoting the [[The Razor's Edge (1946 film)|first film adaptation]]]]
Maugham, like [[Hermann Hesse]], anticipated a fresh embrace of [[Eastern world|Eastern culture]] by Americans and Europeans almost a decade before the [[Beat generation|Beats]] were to popularise it.  (Americans had explored Eastern philosophy before these authors, in the nineteenth century through the [[Transcendentalists]], [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|Theosophists]], the visit of [[Vivekananda]] in 1893, and then [[Paramahansa Yogananda|Yogananda]]'s move to the US in 1920.) Maugham visited [[Sri Ramana Ashram]], where he had a direct interaction with [[Ramana Maharshi]] in [[Tamil Nadu]], India in 1938.<ref>Talk 550. 15 October 1938. ''Talks with Ramana Maharshi''. Inner Directions Press. {{ISBN|978-1-878019-00-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Eastern promise|url=http://www.livemint.com/2008/05/17000630/Hidden-camera.html?d=1|newspaper=[[Mint (newspaper)|Mint]]|date=17 May 2008}}</ref> Maugham's suggestion that he "invented nothing" was a source of annoyance for [[Christopher Isherwood]], who helped him translate the verse (1.3.14) from the [[Katha Upanishad]] for the novel's epigraph – उत्तिष्ठ जाग्रत प्राप्य वरान्निबोधत| क्षुरस्य धारा निशिता दुरत्यया दुर्गं पथस्तत्कवयो वदन्ति|| (uttiṣṭha jāgrata prāpya varān nibodhata| kṣurasya dhārā niśitā duratyayā durga pathas tat kavayo vadanti|| ) – which means "Rise, wake up, seek the wise and realize. The path is difficult to cross like the sharpened edge of the razor (knife), so say the wise."

Many thought Isherwood, who had built his own literary reputation by then and was studying [[Indian philosophy]], was the basis for the book's hero.<ref name="Time">"Fable of Beasts & Men". ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]''.  5 November 1945.</ref> Isherwood went so far as to write to ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' denying this speculation.<ref name="Isherwood">Isherwood's letter to ''Time'' is cited in Christopher Isherwood, ''My Guru and His Disciple'', page 183.</ref> It has been suggested that [[Guy Hague]] was an important influence in the character of Darrell, although it now appears that he was not at Ramanasramam when Maugham visited.<ref name="Godman 1988">Godman, David (1988) [http://davidgodman.org/rteach/smaugham.shtml ''Somerset Maugham and The Razor's Edge''] http://davidgodman.org</ref> The English poet and translator Lewis Thompson is thought to be a more likely candidate.<ref>Thompson, Lewis, and Lannoy, Richard (ed) (2011), ''Fathomless Heart: The Spiritual and Philosophical Reflections of an English Poet-Sage'', p. 1, North Atlantic Books</ref> David Haberman has pointed out that [[Krishna Prem|Ronald Nixon]], an Englishman who took monastic vows and became known as Krishna Prem, served as a fighter pilot in the First World War and experienced a crisis of meaninglessness that was "strikingly similar" to that experienced by Larry.<ref name=haberman93>{{cite journal|last=Haberman|first=David L.|title=A cross‐cultural adventure: The transformation of Ronald Nixon|journal=Religion|date=1 July 1993|volume=23|issue=3|pages=217–227|doi=10.1006/reli.1993.1020|publisher=Routledge|issn=0048-721X}}  Haberman states that Nixon's "direct experiences with the death and destruction of warfare filled him with a sense of futility and meaninglessness (strikingly similar to the experience of Larry in Sommerset Maugham's ''The Razor's Edge'')" (p. 283).</ref>

Another distinct possibility for influence is raised by the anglicised American, British MP [[Henry Channon|Chips Channon]] in his diaries.<ref name="Chips 1944">sPress. {{ISBN|978-1-257-02549-7}}.  Channon, Henry (1967).  Rhodes James, Robert, ed. ''Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon''. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. {{ISBN|978-1-85799-493-3}}.</ref> During a trip to New York in August 1944, Channon wrote "I saw much of Somerset Maugham, who never before was a friend. He has put me into a book, 'the Razor's Edge' and when I dined with him, I asked him why he had done it, and he explained, with some embarrassment, that he had split me into three characters, and then written a book about all three. So I am Elliott Templeton, Larry, himself the hero of the book, and another: however I am flattered, and the book is a masterpiece ...".