June 2014: W. Somerset Maugham

Starting off the summer with W. Somerset Maugham. You know the drill, tell us what you've read by him, and what you'd recommend (or not!), and what your plans are! :)

It's been almost a decade since I first read anything Maugham. I had read in quick succession The Razor's Edge and Cakes and Ale, thoroughly enjoying both of them. Ever since then, I've been meaning to get around to Of Human Bondage, especially given that that title is arguably his best known work. If by some miracle I have extra time, I might also try The Painted Veil.

I'm ashamed to admit I've only read Of Human Bondage, twice. The first time just because, the second time some years later as I was assigned to write an article on it for (I think) the Cyclopedia of Literary Places. In that volume, the essays talked about the stories but focused on the significance of the geographic places within the stories.

I really must read The Razor's Edge. I've own my dang copy for probably 20 years and still haven't read it!

I read him for pleasure during university days, but whatever I read is forgotten. I suspect it was his short stories. I often stand and stare at his books in bookshops, hovering on the edge of a purchase, and have been thinking of Of Human Bondage but will weigh up the degree of miserableness (though encouraging to see that amysisson has got through it twice). Will also check against the other titles, and see what would fit in nicely after the Naipaul.

>4 Oandthegang:

Not only did I get through it twice, when it came up on the list of possible choices to get assigned, I deliberately chose to write that essay on it. I don't know why, but that book really appeals to me. I think it's in part due to where the main character arrives, emotionally speaking, in the end.

(My other two books for the Literary Places project were Sister Carrie by Dreiser, another book I love, and My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin, which I despised just as much the second time. I'd read it while studying in Australia, hated it, and assumed I was the problem. I wasn't.)

I discovered today that I have a copy of Maugham's Then and Now on my bookshelves, so I'll also try to tackle that one.

I was on the edge of choosing my Maugham yesterday, but he is currently in Vintage, and the print seems rather peculiar. Perhaps I need an eye test, but in the meantime I will see if I can rustle up a more readable edition.

A lot of his work is available via Project Gutenberg. If you have an e-reader you can use, you can change the font to whatever size you need. :)

I read Of Human Bondage a few years ago and wasn't taken with it. I think I'll give Cakes and Ale a try this time around.

I've just bought Cakes and Ale and am enjoying it very much. I've also bought The Gentleman In The Parlour to sample his non-fiction writing.

Really like this author. I will reread Of Human Bondage

Considering that I'm so far behind myself, I probably shouldn't even ask this BUT - do we have an author picked out for July ? I kind of lost track ...

>12 sweetiegherkin: The group kind of went pretty quiet, and since I've been busy playing on other sites I just kind of let it. We can attempt to bring some life back, maybe, if folks want to?

I'd like to bring it back, even though my participation for the reads are hit and miss. July is a lost cause and probably August. But maybe we could do nominations for authors for the last quarter of the year?

Oh, and incidentally I did read Cakes and Ale during June, but didn't post here because that was during an LT slump for me. Happily I liked it a lot more than Of Human Bondage and I will gladly read another Maugham in the future.

Liza of Lambeth
Finished reading: 25 April 2014



Liza of Lambeth, Somerset Maugham debut novel is a bit of a pot boiler, however, it is interesting to readers of the author's work as, in essence, in already contains the theme of his opus magnum of human bondage.

This short novel tells the story of Liza in a melodramatic way. Set in a poor part of London, Liza and her friends and relatives belong to the working class, living in poverty and raising large families. Although Liza has a quick flirt with Tom, she is much more attracted to Jim, who seduces her are involves her in an adulturous relationship. The growing jealousie of Jim's wife frightens Liza, but Jim's confidence gives her a false sense of security. However, Jim's wife confronts Liza, shaming her in public. Despite everything, Tom still loves Liza, but Liza feels she is doomed, as she is pregnant with Jim's child. Jim turns on his wife, beating her, which frightens Liza even more, although wife beatings are shown to be a common occurrance in the novel. In the end, Liza dies after a miscarriage.

Liza of Lambeth is a melodramatic portrayal of life in poverty-stricken London at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. In the working class milieu of the novel, the men are mainly portrayed as brutes, while the women are passive and frail, and subjected to their passions. The novel is clearly related to the atmosphere in the plays of George Bernard Shaw and the naturalist novel on the continent, such as Zola.

The novel is deterministic in the sense that it suggests that the women have no choice. Liza is driven to her doom following her passion for Jim, and shame seems to keep her from reaching out to Tom, whose helping hand is streched out no matter what happens. Jim's wife holds on to her husband despite his adulterous behaviour and beating her. The novel seems to suggest that her loyalty to her husband is more than matrimonial duty, and that despite all, she probably still loves him.

Although the novel displays interesting aspects, particularly in relation to later work by the author, the reading of Liza of Lambeth is not immediately rewarding. The pervasive Cockney accent makes the novel a bit difficult to read.



Other books I have read by W. Somerset Maugham:
Of human bondage
The painted veil
Up at the villa
The moon and sixpence
Points of view
The vagrant mood
The narrow corner

Interesting, not sure that it'd be something very appealing to me. Thanks for the review!

>16 edwinbcn:, 17 Ditto. You have read a lot of Maugham, Edwin. Do you happen to have any reviews or comments on the other titles?

Yes, I believe I suggested Maugham.

Over the past few months (April, June July), I read 3 works by Maugham, but I have been so busy with my work, and experienced access problems to LT, that I was unable to write and post reviews, particularly from the middle of June.

I have 5 more reviews of works previously read, which I can post, and still hope to write another 2 more, for those I read last month.

I will try to post them over the weekend.

>17 .Monkey.: / 18: Indeed, Liza of Lambeth was not so interesting. In July last year, I bought a big stack of works by Somerset Maugham, which, with what I already had, means I have almost all his works. I am gradually chipping away at them.

Most books are moderately interesting, some contain some really fine passages, and a few are very, very good.

Yes, please post more of the reviews, I'd love to see your thoughts on them! :)

Points of view
Finished reading: 22 September 2013



In his life time W. Somerset Maugham was celebrated for his plays, while posterity mainly remembers him for his novels and short stories. Maugham is not specifically remembered for his essays. Indeed, he wrote but few, and these were mainly written and published in his later life.

His success as a novelist had brought W. Somerset Maugham considerable personal wealth, so that in 1926 he bought a villa in the south of France. Conceived while he was in his late seventies, the essays in Points of view were written as diversions, or as the author put it "{i}t has given me pleasure to do so". The Vintage edition does not mention whether the essays were published in magazines or newspapers. The essays are characterized by a highly personal style, as it seems, less with publication in mind, and more to satisfy the author's personal needs.

In the first essay "The Three Novels of a Poet" Maugham reminiscences on his youth in Europe when he learnt German at school, and came to love Heidelberg and the novels of Goethe. The essays is a very personal reception of Goethe's life and work, described as characteristic for its time and describing the movement of Romanticism and the literary and cultural scene of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, discussing Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (English: The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (English:Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship) (1796) and Die Wahlverwandtschaften) (English:The Elective Affinities) (1809).

The next essay "The Saint" is based on experience gathered during Maugham's visit to India in 1936. It describes the religious culture of India, based in a description of a holy man, the Maharshi Venkataraman. While Indian religion has entered the cultural awareness of many well-educated Westerners since the 1970s, Maugham's experience in the 1930s must have been exotic, while his description of the essay in Points of view in 1958, must have been at least as refreshing. Nonetheless, the piece stands out somewhat awkwardly in a collection of essays that is mainly focused on the reception of Western literature.

The most interesting essay seems to be the third, entitled "Prose and Dr. Tillotson". The essay deals with the life and works of John Tillotson who worked and lived as a clergyman during the English Civil War period and the Restoration. The essay is somewhat muddled, beginning with a false start, and the third part being the most readable. On the whole, however, this essay, while somewhat difficult, is most rewarding.

Himself a successful author in the genre of the short story, the next essay, "The Short Story" describes the work of a number of masters of the genre, who were already famous in Maugham's time, such as Anton Chekhov, Guy de Maupassant and Katherine Mansfield. In the final essay, Maugham ponders on "Three Journalists" and their work, that is to says authors who journalise, i.e. "keep a journal". The authors described in detail in this essays are Edmund de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt, Jules Renard and Paul Léautaud. There are asides to other literary figures during that period in French literature, such as Alphonse Daudet and André Gide.

Points of view offers a very mixed lot of essays, which readers are invited to enjoy as the author did while writing them, viz. leisurely, as a diversion. The organisation of this collection of essays seems to have exactly that reader in mind, starting with a light course on German literature, for entremeses a short piece of something exotic, a substantial main course in the form of the essay about John Tillotson. If the essay on "The Short Story" is a vintage wine, then "Three Journalists" can be taken as a cheese board, with three chunks and some lighter crumbs.



Other books I have read by W. Somerset Maugham:
The moon and sixpence
Up at the villa
The painted veil
Of human bondage

The vagrant mood
Finished reading: 23 September 2013



Like the essays in Points of view (1958), the essays in The vagrant mood were written in W. Somerset Maugham later life, and bear characteristics of being written leisurely, based on reminiscences of an author who is looking back on a long and interesting life.

In the first essay, "Augustus", Maugham describes the life and fate of Augustus Hare, "the last Victorian" who appears as quite a dandy. Maugham had met and befriended Augustus Hare as a young man and was obviously fascinated by this peculiar descendant of pedigree.

In a similar vein, the last essay "Some Novelists I Have Known" describes authors Maugham met in his life time, particularly in his later life. There are some very enjoyable anecdotes about Henry James, H.G. Wells and Arnold Bennett.

The second essay in the collection describes Maugham's appreciation and the life of the Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán. The next three essays are about letters, "The Decline and Fall of the Detective Story", "After Reading Burke" and "Reflections on a Certain Book".

The vagrant mood seems particularly interesting for readers with an interest in the late Victorian and Edwardian period, the epoch W. Somerset Maugham himself was active, as it contains his observations and reflections of the literary and cultural scene at that time.



Other books I have read by W. Somerset Maugham:
Points of view
The moon and sixpence
Up at the villa
The painted veil
Of human bondage

The narrow corner
Finished reading: 9 December 2013



Published in 1932, W.Somerset Maugham novel The narrow corner harks back to the author's experiences in the Far East. The novel features some remarkably beautiful and sensuous descriptions of life in China, the beauty of the land and the people, and the purity and devotion of the main character's Chinese boy. In those days, having a "Chinese boy" was a very standard part of the expat's lifesyle, and the "boy" referred to a young male manservant, who would serve the Master from sun-up to late night, preparing tea, cooking meals, boiling water for shaving and preparing opium pipes, etc. For Somerset Maugham who was extremely discrete regarding his own personal life and privacy, it has been suggested that the tender descriptions of the "Chinese boy" in The narrow corner are a reflection of his interest in Asian men.

The plot of The narrow corner are reminiscent of novels by Jack London while the setting, cruising the Malayan archipelago, where the Dutch were the colonial masters, may remind readers of the novels of Joseph Conrad.

The narrow corner starts out slowly, with Dr. Saunders being called upon by an old Chinese relation to leave Fuzhou and come to operate on his eyes offering to pay him extremely well. After the operation, Dr. Saunders is stuck on the island, and when Captain Nichols, with the young Australian Fred Blake in tow arrives, he is tempted to offer for passage on their vessel. Captain Nichols is a bit of a boastful character, and unreliable at not just that, while Fred hides a dark secret. When the three of them put in at another island. On the island, under Dutch rule, Dr Saunders will wait for the Dutch packet boat Princess Jualiana , which can take him to a larger island. They mix with the local resident foreigners, a mixed bag of oddballs, and the handsome Blake falls in love with the daughter of an eccentric Englishman called Frith. Their presence and Blake's involvement with Louise leads to the suicide of the Danish Erik Christessen.

While not spectacular, and the plot development in the second part of the novel being a bit obscure, The narrow corner is a beautifully written novel, that might interest quite a few readers.

All the novels and short stories, as well as essays by W.Somerset Maugham were re-issued in new editions by Vintage in 2001. All book covers are styled in the art deco style of the Roaring Twenties, which unfortunately means that the cover for The narrow corner would give interested readers a completely wrong idea about the content and style of the novel.



Other books I have read by W.Somerset Maugham:
The vagrant mood
Points of view
The moon and sixpence
Up at the villa
The painted veil
Of human bondage

The moon and sixpence
Finished reading: 6 February 2013



The moon and sixpence is a novel about artistic genius: it aims to show rather than tell what true genius is.

The novel is said to be loosely based on the life of Paul Gauguin, but this is really rather immaterial and unimportant. There is no need to look into Gauguin's life. It is more likely that the novel contains a mixture of elements which Somerset Maugham was able to observe and absorb in the artistic milieu of the first quarter of the twentieth century, particularly in Paris. Gauguin lived there about a decade or two before Maugham, but surely Paris of the 1910s and 20s was a hotbed of artists, painters and writers, who were finding a way to express themselves, struggling to stay alive. Various other writers were influenced by Nietzsche's philosophy which suggested that among the herd of common men there were some individuals who were extraordinary, supermen, whose mindset and morals were entirely original and distinct from the ordinary plebs.

In The moon and sixpence the main character, Charles Strickland, abruptly deserts his family to pursue a career as an artist. He gives up a sheltered and financially secure life for the poverty and uncertainties of a career in a field he has neither a background, experience or even recognition. The moment Strickland abandons his old lifestyle, he still needs to learn painting, and throughout the story, none but one other artist recognizes the quality of his work.

Strickland's deserted wife asks the author to follow Strickland to Paris and report on his life there, an assignment the author takes up and extends into writing a full, albeit fragmented biography of Strickland's subsequent life, till his death in the Pacific islands region.

The most important chapters of the novel are chapters 41 through 43, which interpret and explore the contrasts between Strickland and the other characters. In the preceding chapters, Strickland is shown living a completely irrational and immoral life.

Dirk Stroeve is Dutch painter, financially secure and successful, painting conventional pieces, which are much in demand. He is portrayed as utterly sentimental, and a deeply decent and good man, the only person to recognize Strickland's talent. He saves Strickland's life and is rewarded by Strickland absconding with his wife Blanche. However, Strickland cares nothing for Blanche, who ends her life through suicide.

Charles Strickland bears strong resemblance with the main character of The fountainhead by Ayn Rand, a novel which, while published in 1943, spiritually belongs to the same period.

Strickland takes what he wants or needs and discards what he no longer fancies. His life is an example of the shredding of convention. His moral standards are on an entirely different plane, and cannot be understood by common, ordinary people. "I don't care a twopenny damn what you think about me" is what he says (p. 420).

The extraordinary genius of Strickland is illustrated by contrast with the other characters, who are displayed as humble and imperfect. The (unnamed) author (and narrator) is portrayed as a moderately successful author. ("He spoke to me as if I were a child that needed to be distracted" p. 420) Ironically, the wife Strickland leaves, is shown to pick up her life and set up independently running a business, but naturally, running a business, administrating and accounting is ultimately seen as unimaginative, grey and bland. Stroeve is shown to be immature, sentimental and artistically mediocre, while Blanche is portrayed as the ultimate looser, a stunningly beautiful wife who has wasted her life on an ugly man, is seduced by a strong and powerful man, and is subsequently too weak to shape her life, resorting to suicide. Strickland's morals would surely suggest that these people deserve no better.

Rejecting the herd mentality, Strickland has given up materialism and become like "a disembodied spirit" (p. 421), a great idealist (p. 430). He had a vision (ibid.)

Much of the author's admiration, and exaltation emerges post-facto. The last part of the book is of little import, it reports the motions the narrator went through to trace down and talk with witnesses, to complete the biography of Charles Strickland. These witnesses have very little useful information to tell him. The author / narrator regrets that he never bought any of Strickland's paintings, realizing that at the time he, also, was not able to recognize the revolutionary genius. In his assessment, "Strickland was an odious man, but I still think he was a great one. (p. 431)

{Note: Page numbers are to the edition of Shanghai: Yiwen Press (2012) 上海:译文出版社 (2012), which is preceded by the translation of the novel into Chinese. The English original version of the novel is printed on pp. 279 - 493}



Other books I have read by W. Somerset Maugham:
Of human bondage
The painted veil
Up at the villa

Up at the villa
Finished reading: 6 April 2012



What makes a beautiful woman odious, especially to a politician whose star is rising?

The events of the story, quite simple and a joy to read, are ideal to set the stage for chapter eight. That chapter belongs to the best I have ever read, in the sense that the conversation is entirely plausible.



Other books I have read by W.Somerset Maugham:
Of human bondage
The painted veil

The painted veil
Finished reading: 21 September 2011



I had been reading The red thread by Nicolas Jose for many weeks, and finished reading The painted veil by Somerset Maugham in one sitting on the same day. These books are in almost every way opposites. The painted veil is set in colonial China, depicting superficial, adulterous relationships among expats. The story of The painted veil is very superficial and can be read in a breeze.



Other books I have read by W. Somerset Maugham:
Of human bondage

054. The gentleman in the parlour
Finished reading: 6 May 2014



Many of Somerset Maugham novels and short stories were written against the backdrop of the Far East, often in very sensuous descriptions. After the First World War, Maugham travelled extensively in India, Southeast asia, the Pacific, China and Hong Kong. His travels in the Pacific found their way into The moon and sixpence, and more extensively in the beautiful, but less well-known novel The narrow corner, which is set in the region of the South China Sea, between China and Malaysia, the landscape of Joseph Conrad, so to speak. Impressions of his travels in China and Hong Kong were captured in On a Chinese screen, published in 1922, which later formed the basis for The Casuarina tree. In the same year, 1922, Maugham travelled throuh Burma and Thailand.

However, although Maugham had kept a journal of his trip through Burma and Thailand, no books appeared based on or inspired by this journey. Maugham was at the height of his career, and settled in the south of France. The gentleman in the parlour was not written until seven years later, and published in 1930. It is often described as Maugham's best sample of travel writing, his other works of travelling literature being limited to the collection of vignettes in On a Chinese screem and Don Fernando, which records his travels through Spain. It seems an exaggeration to describe or consider Somerset Maugham as a travel writer of the same stature as Graham Greene. It is true Maugham travelled a lot, but he produced very little travel writing. Both in scope, volume and treatment, Maugham's travel writing takes up a marginal position.

While Graham Greene's travel writing, at times seems uninspired, as, for instance in The lawless roads, which was a commissioned travelogue of a journey through Mexico (one can hear Greene's grumbling discontent throughout), Maugham has taken a lighter approach to his travel writings. Thus, The gentleman in the parlour is almost in equal measure a mixture of fact and fiction.

As a writer of world class stature, it is obvious that Maugham's publishers would accept any type of work from the master's hand. The gentleman in the parlour is a travelogue, but the narrative of the journey is interspersed with prose fragments, which were written or even published earlier. Characters and experiences have been fictionalized, as noted by Paul Theroux in the introduction to the edition in Vintage Books. Nonetheless, the books forms a unity of travel writing.

Maugham writes very well, and the largest part of the trip being in Burma, The gentleman in the parlour abounds in descriptions of the people, the Shans, and their culture, and the landscape in that country. Burma was a British colony at that time, so Maugham's writing may have been considered of educational value at the time. Fact, fiction and Maugham's ruminations, often mindfully glancing back at the old country over his shoulder, lent The gentleman in the parlour as much the air of an essay, and a travelogue.

Theroux notes that in The gentleman in the parlour Maugham is extremely discrete, and that his gay travel companion was actually completely left out of the narrative. This observation seems to completely miss the point that The gentleman in the parlour must be read as an idealized colonial fairy-tale, not a real-life memoir of the emancipated gay author that Maugham was (not).



Other books I have read by W. Somerset Maugham:
Of human bondage
The painted veil
Up at the villa
The moon and sixpence
Points of view
The vagrant mood
The narrow corner