Larry, traumatized by personal loss in WWII, rejects his fiancee Isabel and her rich uncle Elliott Templeton, who come to represent the empty lifestyle of comfortable but spiritually void individuals. Larry goes on a quest, much like that of Odysseus or Beowulf, discovering that he is always out of place, whether in a French coal mine or seeking the face of God in a Benedictine monastery. Ultimately, in Bombay, he realizes spiritual truth in the Hindustan philosophy of Advaita. Ironically, Larry's displacement is resolved by a religious sect known for their isolationism.
Larry returns from his spiritual retreat, which prompts Maugham to elevate his character above ordinary mortal concerns. While Templeton and those in Larry's circle are destroyed in the stock market crash, and Isabel seeks comfort in marriage to a millionaire, Larry is able to demonstrate his own self-actualization in healing Isabel's husband through hypnotism. He also attempts to rescue and reform Sophie, an old lover who tragically lost her family. Larry's spiritual search has brought him to a place of openly giving of himself, even if his attempts fail or are rebuffed.
The most ingenious element is Maugham's device of using multiple characters to recount Larry's story at various points. Maugham noted in his introduction that the book is largely autobiographical, and Maugham himself turns up as a character. His presence is essential, since Larry reveals his spiritual story to the author in a central conversation reminiscent of the film "My Dinner with Andre." The reader pieces together Larry's quest slowly, and it is only in this final discussion that everything about the character is made clear.
Maugham himself begins the novel with "more misgiving" than any other work; the book's "razor edge" is the difficult path to salvation, and perhaps that sort of self-seeking and self-revealing was what made Maugham apprehensive. He did create a universal character in Larry Darrell, one whose displacement and achieved self-actualization were emblematic of the "lost" generation of Fitzgerald, and whose character's complexity needed multiple voices to capture.