The Short Stories of Somerset Maugham

Tags

book blog, book club, online book club, Richmond upon Thames book club, short stories

Somerset Maugham was an English writer who was born in Paris in 1874 and died in Nice in 1965. Tragedy struck at the early age of ten when both his parents died and he was taken in by an uncle who was cold towards the boy. He rejected the encouragement to follow the family tradition of going into the Law and studied to become a doctor instead. But after the success of his first novel, he gave medicine up and took to full-time writing and became one of the most popular and highest-paid authors in the 1930s.

********

Kay:

Although listed as my choice in our plan, I can’t really claim the credit for revisiting this fine author. His name and short stories came up during a recent Zoom meeting and a number of people remembered reading his short stories – for which he is famous – including me, and thus I made a note for our next plan.

I bought one collection (the 4^th) on Kindle but unfortunately haven’t had time to read more than one. However, one was enough to remind me of what an extraordinary and wonderful writer Maugham was.

It was my mother who introduced him to me in my teens. She admired his writing and there were lots of his books in our house. I remember only that I read many and became quite addicted but it was all a long time ago and I don’t remember any in name or detail.

Knowing I had little time to read them right now, I googled to find which were considered Maugham’s best short stories and one, The Letter, was in the collection I’d bought.  It may be short but is in fact 32pp so took a little time to read.

First published in 1926 and set in Singapore, it’s actually based on the true-life story of a headmaster’s wife – in Kuala Lumpur – who was convicted of murder for killing a male friend in 1911, but was eventually pardoned. The Letter opens in a Singapore on a busy road: ‘every chauffeur blew his horn; rickshaws threaded their nimble path amid the throng, and panting coolies found breath to yell at one another’. Immediately, this fabulous writing takes us right into the heart of early 20^th century Singapore.

A lawyer, Mr Joyce, is pondering the case of Leslie Crosbie, the wife of rubber planter Robert, who has been accused of murdering one of their friends, Geoff Hammond, in self-defence. One a night when Robert was away in Singapore, apparently Hammond turned up unexpectedly, came in for a drink and then declared his love for her and tried to rape her. Throughout Joyce and the police’s questioning, being held in gaol, Leslie remains her usual cool, calm self. She has a story she sticks to; the ‘facts’ never changing. Mr Joyce assures her husband that she is bound to be acquitted. But then his Chinese clerk, an ‘industrious, obliging and of exemplary character’ brings him a copy of a letter, in which Leslie begs Hammond to come to her while Robert is away. It is clear they are lovers.

Joyce confronts Leslie who at first denies she wrote it, but then ‘Was it his fancy that, as she made this remark, her black pupils were filled on a sudden, for the fraction of a second, with a dull red light?’ The plot twists and turns: the clerk implies his friend, who has the letter, will accept a payment – a large payment–  for it (and no doubt take a cut). Robert has to be told why he must find this large sum of money quickly, to save his wife from being hanged; Joyce changes the details, saying Leslie had only asked Hammond to come to help organise a gift for her husband (her initial ‘story’ to him). Robert seems at first taken in but then picks up on a small detail and ‘Then something seemed to dawn in that slow intelligence of his’ and he understands the truth. Robert pays the money and saves his wife but confronts her with what he knows, leaving her at the end to stay with the Joyces while he goes away.

Maugham’s writing is detailed in the most beautiful way, conveying with a mastery of words all the little moments that come together to make sense of the world, his characters, something that has happened. He shows how the smallest thing can change everything. I was reminded what a wonderful writer he is and it’s interesting that even with the passing of a few decades since I last read him, and the stories being almost a century old, his writing shows no sign of age (despite its settings) and I look forward to reading more of these stories.

*********

Ted:

Thank you Kay for introducing me to this great author who is a brilliant storyteller. It is amazing that his sad lonely childhood eventually translated into a life of such energy and creativity. I read stories from both his Best Short Stories and Collected Short Stories Volume 1. His work has a great sense of place and I loved some of the exotic tropical locations set in Samoa, Polynesia and Malaysia. His descriptions of different characters reveals such an acute power of observation and often his stories contain a deeper message.  Rain, set in Samoa, demonstrates the missionaries’ lack of respect for the culture and beliefs of the natives. The devastating ending also shows their hypocrisy towards prostitution. The Letter, set on a plantation in Malasia was about the uncovering of a brutal crime of passion. Totally gripping! The Book-Bag, the author is wandering about Malaya with his bag of books and equates his need for books on his travels to the addict’s need for drugs! He receives an invitation to attend a water festival and stays at the home of an Englishman he previously only knew by name. From the outset there is something odd and unsettled about his host who borrows a biography of Lord Byron [clue] from his book-bag. The next day they have a discussion about Byron’s relationship with his sister Aurora Leigh from which point unfolds the disturbing story of a local planter Tim Hardy and his sister Olive….so many wonderful stories.

********

Margaret:

I consumed the writings of Somerset Maugham in my early teens, availing myself of my mother’s library card to gain access to  “grown up books”, having already devoured the contents of the children’s library. I still remember my keen pleasure in those well-crafted stories. I particularly loved the fact that he wrote so much – what a relief to know that there were so many novels and short stories still to come!

I can recommend “The Lotus Eater” as a wonderful picture of the way in which the pleasures of a lotus-eating life will eventually sap the character of a person originally possessed of resolution and vigour. The long enervating decline of the main character here was exactly what the ancients warned about with regard to the first Lotus Eaters. The original decision on the part of our hero, to retire early and enjoy South Sea island life, and, further, to commit suicide when his money ran out, was presented as perfectly rational originally. But as as the money ran out and his will proved to be unequal to his decision, his life spiralled miserably into the pathos of decline, poverty, ruin and a wretched death. Tragic inevitability is the very stuff of drama.

Possibly the most famous of Maugham’s stories is the tale of Sadie Thomson, in “Rain”. Filmed more than once, here again we have the element of inevitability. But this story looks at hypocrisy, misogyny, Freudian repression, English middle-class self-deception. The action takes place during an almost biblical rainstorm  – what a gift the filmmakers! When I read this as a callow teenager, I revelled in the horrible missionary couple who were ready to bring the louche Sadie Thomson to an understanding of the error of her immoral ways. I loved the repressed sexuality that infused the action, and the muddle-headed Christianity, combined with the unacknowledged lust that consumed the pastor. And again, as so often with Maugham, the English middle class was under a searching microscope.

Although there may be an old-fashioned air to these stories nowadays, and perhaps accusations of melodrama, his many fans will attest to the story-telling skills of Maugham, which covered areas of secret agents and spying, novels and plays, all focussing on the human condition. The titles alone are a come-on.

Thanks, Kay, for suggesting these stories, because, over the years, I have often returned to this master storyteller.

********

Christine B:

I have taken my comments from W. Somerset Maugham’s Volume One, first published in 1951.

I think the  stories have weathered well through seventy years, they have a wide range and variety from very short stories of three pages to Rain, the longest of forty pages.

Rain may be dated if read by young readers but I hope that it would be a good reminder about our Colonial past – my grandson in Australia is including History through the Twentieth Century for ‘A Level’. The story, written in 1920, opens with Dr. Macphail and his wife taking a journey by boat to Apia where he will work for a year, after two years at the Front in the First World War. Their fellow passengers are missionaries, the Davidsons. Neatly and seamlessly Maugham  explains their background,, drawing one into the story.  The quality and originality is superb, ‘When he came on deck next morning they were close to land. He looked at it with greedy eyes.’ The Davidson’s are Evangelists and and Mrs. Davidson, particularly, has ‘extreme alertness’ in condemning the lifestyle of the ‘natives’ – ‘The first thing to do was to put down the dancing’.  ‘I was not averse to it myself when I was a young man’. Dr. Macphail replied. The scene  changes when a very different kind of fellow lodger, Miss Thompson, joins them on the boat. Mr. Davidson is ‘a man of unflinching courage’ and, as the story develops the conflict between very different people is powerful and makes riveting and heart breaking reading.

Other stories are The Luncheon, one of the the funniest stories ever written, I always read it whenever I need cheering up. Home was a story set in a Somerset farm, with two brothers, both of whom had loved the same girl many years ago. The final line is ‘the fact is I was never quite sure that I’d married the right one’. The Three Fat Women of Antibes is also very funny, a lesson in friendship. The Happy Couple, yet again, has great originality, with a Judge who can’t stop judging.

How wonderful that there  are many more to look forward.

********

Advertisement

Poems about Gardens

Tags

book blog, book club, poetry, Richmond upon Thames book club

Our theme for this month’s poetry is ‘gardens’, which might include ‘flowers’ and ‘gardening’.

Kay:

I suggested this theme for our poetry choice this month because during the 16 months of Covid lockdowns and restrictions, those of us lucky enough to have gardens have found them particularly valuable. Not only are they places to meet ‘outside’ but gardening can be therapeutic, healing, soothing, and it can also bring joy and hope as we watch our plantings and efforts come to life and thrive. I thought of gardens in a positive and happy way. However, I first came across some rather melancholy poems, such as my first two, but then sought out something a bit more joyful to end with!

 

New Feet Within My Garden Go by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

New feet within my garden go –
New fingers stir the sod –
A Troubadour upon the Elm
Betrays the solitude.

New children play upon the green –
New Weary sleep below –
And still the pensive Spring returns –
And still the punctual snow!

Emily Dickinson was apparently better known as a gardener than a poet when she was alive, which I felt made her an essential choice for this poetry theme. This poem explores the idea of one’s garden – my garden – going beyond our own lives and being enjoyed by future generations. Yet while there is at first something joyful in thinking of one’s garden living beyond us, there is a melancholy in this poem too: the Troubadour (a bird) ‘betrays the solitude’, disrupting the peace in the garden; and the Spring is ‘pensive’, as we often witness, coming slowly, then retreating again into winter before emerging again; the ‘New Weary’ are the recently dead who ‘sleep below’.

Lodged by Robert Frost (1874-1963)

The rain to the wind said,
‘You push and I’ll pelt.’
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged – though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.

In this poem Frost is linking the flowers bending and lying low to survive to his own method of survival: ‘I know how the flowers felt.’ Although not ‘joyful’, I think it does convey the idea that gardening can be therapeutic; Frost is able to identify with the garden’s struggles and perhaps feel less alone with his own experiences. And I did feel that last line could be read with a touch of humour.

Garden Magic by Marie Nettleton Carroll
This is the garden’s magic,
That through the sunny hours
The gardener who tends it,
Himself outgrows his flowers.

He grows by gift of patience,
Since he who sows must know
That only in the Lord’s good time
Does any seedling grow.

He learns from buds unfolding,
From each tight leaf unfurled,
That his own heart, expanding,
Is one with all the world.

He bares his head to sunshine,
His bending back a sign
Of grace, and ev’ry shower becomes
His sacramental wine.

And when at last his labors
Bring forth the very stuff
And substance of all beauty
This is reward enough.

I came across this in my search for ‘joyful garden poems’ though couldn’t find out much about the poet, other than she appears to have been American and living in the early 20^th century (a paper cutting records her marriage in 1924). There are distinct religious overtones to this, which I have to confess might have put me off, but I think it captures the way gardening is about more than planting things and keeping the garden tidy. For me personally, gardening is a kind of mindfulness meditation: it slows me down, it takes me into the moment as I look at my plants – how are they doing? Do they need pruning, dead-heading, more water? I think the poem conveys the joyous satisfaction we gain when our garden thrives; it does indeed require at times ‘the gift of patience’ but when the tended and loved garden comes to life then any ‘labors’ are nothing to ‘all the beauty’ which ‘is reward enough’.

********

Christine A:

The first poem is from Ten Poems about Gardens in Candlestick Press Ten Poems series (highly recommended).  This particular poem is about the heritage industry milking Vita and Virginia’s legacy for all it’s worth but somehow, with the offbeat descriptions (bulging veins of clematis) the garden wins out.

Sub Rosa by Maura Dooley

At Sissinghurst we are meant to gasp at
the borders. No one could fail to notice the
bulging veins of clematis shinning up and over
so much powdery red brick. Who could be
unimpressed by the swags of roses, carpets of camomile,
the best Sunday manners of it all? But we came
with our vague ideas of Vita, Virginia, a friendship
under trees. Little of that left here, between
the roped-off library books, a shop exhaling pot-pourri,
scones leaning patiently on loaded plates.

We let ourselves out by the back gate, follow
the Lakeside Walk, till it collapses into nettles,
then fall down too, stretched out beneath
the cleanliness of trees, beside a scummy pool.
Water like pea soup, bright and green, on which
a single grebe is turning, leaving no wake.
Water where, weighed down with sorrows or stones,
the weed might part for you, close over your head silently.
Back in the garden the borders are busy with bees,
the air is humming with autorewinds, china and small change
chatter cosily, passion rots quietly under the rose.

The second poem is from a blog written in response to the theme “about a garden”. The blog’s author spent a year as Leverhulme Poet in Residence at Moorbank, Newcastle University’s Botanic Garden and again I recommend this online anthology for anyone looking for good unusual poems on this topic. The link is here : Anthology | In the poet’s garden (wordpress.com)

Mother’s Hydrangea by Marlynn Rosario

Others flounce in blossom petticoats,

promise ripening flesh.

This one is green,

broad-veined, shear-edged, sappy;

taken from southern clay, holds steady

in the shift of northern sand.

Their fallen petals, pulled

wings, lie in sherbet drifts

while its slow blush spreads,

tinge to tint to blaze.

Hidden iron nails the colour.

Each bloom becomes a bouquet,

housing a kiss of ladybirds,

a throatiness of frogs.

Deepening the length of Autumn, preserved,

its scabbed parchment stays ornamental.

Cut to twiggy bone, it will return,

heads rearing beyond the wall;

casting a dewdropped web,

netting close its shadows.

********

Ted:

Digging by Edward Thomas

I have had an allotment for many years and find this poem so evocative of the scents, smells and feelings associated with gardening. I showed this poem to my lovely neighbour who helped me with the analysis.

The abcb rhyme and slow rhythm provides a subtle musical background to this poem.

The poet achieves many of his effects through the use of sound;

Monosyllabic words that slow the rhythm down … ’scents dead leaves yield’ … ‘When the spade wounds the roots of tree’

The use of consonance, particularly on the ’s’ sound, links certain words throughout the poem … ’scents’, ‘seed’, ‘celery’, ‘smoke’s smell’,  ‘sweetness turns’, ‘sings’, ‘sad songs’.  This has the effect of unifying the poet’s sensory and emotional experience which leads to ‘Sad songs of Autumn mirth’.

A beautiful, simple poem that works on several levels!

Today I think
Only with scents – scents dead leaves yield,
And bracken, and wild carrot’s seed,
And the square mustard field;

Odours that rise
When the spade wounds the roots of tree,
Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,
Rhubarb or celery;

The smoke’s smell, too,
Flowing from where a bonfire burns
The dead, the waste, the dangerous,
And all to sweetness turns.

It is enough
To smell, to crumble the dark earth,
While the robin sings over again
Sad songs of Autumn mirth.

********

Christine B:

My Garden by Thomas Edward Brown (1830-1897)

A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot?

Rose plot,

Fringed pool,

Fern’d and grot –

The veriest school

Of peace; and yet the fool

Contends, that God is not –

Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool?

Nay, but I have a sign;

‘Tis very sure God walks  in mine.

My mother quoted that poem frequently and at last, after having now read it a few times, I think I understand it and I know I like it. The punctuation, jerkiness and variation of the length of lines are strange but I think it works.

Garden Love by Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841-1885)

Every child who has gardening tools, 

Should learn by heart these gardening rules:

He who owns a gardening spade,

Should be able to dig the depth of its blade.

He who owns a gardening rake,

Should know what to leave and what to take.

He who owns a gardening hoe,

Must be sure how he means his strokes to go.

But he who owns a gardening fork,

May make it do all the other tools’ work

Though to shift, or to pot, or annexe what you can,

A trowel’s the  tool for child, woman, or man.

‘‘Twas the bird that sits in the medlar-tree,

Who sang these gardening saws to me.

I love this woman’s poems ,  I’ve read two more garden ones – The Burial of the Linnet and A Friend in the Garden.  Also The Willow-Man and The Dolls’ Wash which makes us realise how similar ordinary lives run along very much in the same way year on year.

My final choice is Thomas Hardy’s poem The Lodging-House Fuchsias. As Clare  Tomalin said ‘he put a human story into a few lines, he was also a novelist with an eye for a plot.’

Mrs. Masters’s fuchsias hung

Higher and broader, and brightly swung,

Bell-like, more and more

Over the narrow garden-path,

Giving the passer a sprinkle-bath

In the morning.

She put up with their pushful ways

And made us tenderly lift their sprays,

Going to her door:

 But when her funeral had to pass

They cut back all the flowery mass

In the morning.

********

The Hiding Game by Naomi Wood

Tags

20th century fiction, book blog, book club, book reviews, Naomi Wood, Novel, online book club, Richmond upon Thames book club

Our choice of novel this month is The Hiding Game by Naomi Wood.

 

Kay:

This book was my suggestion and thus I’m particularly sorry to say it didn’t live up to the promise it held. I’d read some excellent reviews and bought the book on the back of those but also the appeal of its background – the famous Bauhaus art school and the lead up to WWII in Germany. I read a chapter or two when it arrived but then got distracted by work and put it aside. Every time I heard or read about the Bauhaus, I thought, I must go back to that book!

The story follows six friends who arrive as new students at the Bauhaus in 1922. The Bauhaus was founded in 1913 and existed until 1933. It promoted an art and craft movement that featured little emotion or historical background. Near the beginning, the young students are asked to draw a lemon. They all follow a traditional route but the Master Itten is dismissive: ‘How can you draw a lemon without first tasting its flesh? Your whole body is involved in drawing. Your mouth, your gut, your lungs.’

Into this picture of what it means to draw Bauhaus style, we are thrown the tantalising titbits of famous artists of the time, many teaching at the Bauhaus: Klee, Kandinsky, etc. Traditional painting was deemed old fashioned and uninteresting. Paul, the story’s narrator, is a good painter and his ego is hurt by the Master’s dismal of his talent. Thus he is easily seduced to work at night painting kitsch works for extra money by Ernst Steiner who has a team of artists turning out paintings for Americans and others with money, and who praises him. In the background we see the astronomical rise in the prices of everything, even daily bread, as the value of the German money crashes. The other friends criticise Paul for doing this work but then Walter wants to join him, needing extra cash too. Throughout Paul is falling in love with Charlotte and Walter with Jeno and an incident makes him think Jeno too is homosexual. When Charlotte and Jeno go off together, Paul and Walter are distraught, but Walter particularly feels betrayed and his hurt becomes dangerous.

While the book does indeed show us some background to the Bauhaus movement as well as giving witness to the increasing terror inside Germany at this time, the story was fixated on a rather unsatisfactory love story – well two really – and for me became increasingly tedious. I struggled on for a while but eventually gave up.

 

********

 

Ted:

I had high hopes for this book which was a reflection by Paul recalling his time as a member of a group of six student friends at Bauhaus in the 1920s during the rise of National Socialism in Germany. It was more about the love lives of the main characters and less about the artists and the movement. I found it difficult to engage with this slow moving story. For example I found the in’s and out’s of what happened at the bath house quite tedious. I reached page 135 and then gave up. Disappointing!