Maugham W
Список книг автора Maugham WThe Moon and Sixpence - The Original Classic Edition
It has been noted many times that artists are usually not the most pleasant human beings to be around; Maughams novel is, among other things, a compelling examination of why this is so. The obsessed artist who dominates this book, Charles Strickland (based on the notorious Paul Gauguin), walks away from his cushy middle-class existence in England to pursue his dream to paint, amid frightful poverty, in France. Strickland is an unforgettable character, an inarticulate, brutishly sensual creature, callously indifferent to his fellow man and even his own health, who lives only to record his private visions on canvas. <p> It would be a mistake to read this novel as an inspiring tale of the triumph of the spirit. Strickland is an appalling human being–but the world itself, Maugham seems to say, is a cruel, forbidding place. The author toys with the (strongly Nietzschean) idea that men like Charles Strickland may somehow be closer to the mad pulse of life, and cannot therefore be dismissed as mere egotists. The moralists among us, the book suggests, are simply shrinking violets if not outright hypocrites. It is not a very cheery conception of humanity (and arguably not an accurate one), but the questions Maugham raises are fascinating. Aside from that, hes a wonderful storyteller. This book is a real page turner. <p> When he first meets Charles Strickland, a London stockbroker, the young narrator of this novel thinks of him as good, honest, dull, and plain. When Strickland suddenly abandons his wife and children and takes off for Paris, however, the narrator decides he is a cad. Though he has had no training, Strickland has decided to become an artist, a drive so strong that he is willing to sacrifice everything toward that end. Anti-social, and feeling no obligation to observe even the smallest social decencies, Strickland becomes increasingly boorish as he practices his art. Eventually, he makes his way to Tahiti, where he marries, moves to a remote cottage, and spends the rest of his life devoted to his painting. <p> Basing the novel loosely on the life of Paul Gauguin, Maugham creates an involving and often exciting story. His narrator is a writer who feels impelled, after Stricklands death and posthumous success, to set down his memories of his early interactions with Strickland in London and Paris. Because the narrator never saw Strickland after he left Paris, he depends on his meetings with a ship captain and a woman in Papeete for information about Strickland after Stricklands arrival in Tahiti. The ship captain is described as a story-teller who may be spinning tall tales, a constant reminder to the reader that this is fiction, and not a biography of Gauguin. <p> By depicting Strickland as a dull, plain man suddenly gripped by an obsession so overwhelming that nothing else matters to him, Maugham involves the reader in his actions, which even the narrator claims not to understand. The least convincing aspect of Stricklands characterization is the narrators observation that Strickland is completely indifferent to his wife of seventeen years and his children. No confrontation between Strickland and his wife appears, and one wonders if perhaps Maugham found himself unable to depict such an abandonment realistically. The story moves quickly, however, and whatever is sacrificed in the characterization is more than recouped in the plot and its development. <p> Straightforward in its story line, the novel is romantic in its depiction of the artist in the grip of an obsession, his subsequent abandonment of civilization and return to nature, his suffering of a long and terminal illness (during which he paints his masterpiece), and the fate of this creation. Good, old-fashioned story-telling at its best, this uncomplicated story, written in 1919, still has broad appeal.
Human Bondage - The Original Classic Edition
What Buddhist burst of contemplation led to this great novel written by that technician, W Somerset Maugham? Of all the great books of the 20th century, which one could compare with its raw nerve and sinew? Here are no word games, no playing with the chronology, no obfuscation. With the limpid prose that had become his trademark, Maugham took us by the most direct route into his own private inferno. <p> What in his hero Philip Carey was a clubfoot was for Maugham a painful stammer. What was Careys public school at Tercanbury was Maughams Canterbury. And, what is most interesting, what were Careys tortured amours with the opposite sex were Maughams tortured amours with the same sex. Yet with all the translation going on, the intensity of the feelings was transferred intact. The pain of Philips on-again off-again relationship with Mildred has few equals in the literature of self-torture and self-delusion, ranking with Swanns pursuit of Odette de Crecy. <p> OF HUMAN BONDAGE is a big book. There are hundreds of characters; and many of the lesser characters are memorable. The ineffectual dilettante Hayward, the skeptical poet Cronshaw, the icily bland Mildred, the despairing artist Fanny Price, the treacherous Griffiths – even the walk-on role of grumpy old Dr. South comes alive in the last few pages of the novel. <p> The settings are equally diffuse: London, the English countryside, Heidelberg, Paris, a Channel fishing village, and – an amusing canard – Toledo in Spain. (Carey is always dreaming of going there, but he never does.) <p> When one is young, life looks like a triumphant progress through love, fame, and wealth. There appears, however, to be an inherent weakness in the organism; and it tends to go astray more than it does forward. We give ourselves to uncaring people; we constantly meet with reverses; we see our childhood dreams trampled by money-grubbing and the quiet desperation of which Thoreau wrote. <p> And yet there is a spring that runs through us all. Even when it is dammed up, as Philip Careys so often is, it can break out and rush forward, carrying everything in its path. When it happens deus-ex-machina style in BONDAGE, we are exhilarated (if not convinced). Maugham lets us down easily. He is too great and generous a writer to leave us in despair. <p> Maughams own story turned out well: he died rich, at an advanced age, and full of honors. His books are still in print and read by millions. What is more, Maugham, particularly in OF HUMAN BONDAGE, showed us what lay beneath the unperturbable veneer: We saw the skull beneath the skin.