At the conclusion of our spring discussion of the Maugham novel “The Razors Edge,” an interest was shown in a follow-up discussion of another Maugham novel. Well here it is; the proposed discussion of “The Moon And A Sixpence,” an earlier Maugham novel published in 1919.

Set in the late 19th or early 20th century Maugham creates an English Paul Gauguin like figure named Charles Strickland who without warning suddenly abandons his wife and teenaged children to become an artist first in Paris and later Tahiti. In these places Maugham as narrator unfolds a strange story of Stricklands squalid poverty in pursuit of his art for its own sake with little interest in actually marketing his product, and even less interest in the wife and children he left behind.

The book is available at all libraries and the paperback edition can be purchased from B&N for less than $10.00 by clicking the cover graphic in the heading.

All senior netters are invited to join us in our discussion of this novel which will begin August 1st and be complete by the end of August. Just make a short post here indicating your participation. Commitment by at least 4 or 5 enthusiastic senior netters will make a quorum that will assure the discussion.

Harold, this book is fascinating especially for art lovers. I was struck by Maugham's ability to write about a famous painter from a writer's point of view and we feel the artist's passion for his art that he had always kept under wrap until he just dropped everything to devote all his time to pursue it. We can feel exactly what the different characters feel in their interrelationships.

The writing is superb, the characters well described and the action is packed with suspense and surprise.

Maugham is a masterful storyteller, among the best in his time. In discussing Moon and Sixpence I will be able to learn from those who join us as we will share our ideas together.

Éloïse

You two have offered a book from my past ..I look forward to re reading it from my advanced age...LOL will I find it as good??will I find it sort of out of date ??/in any case I know I will enjoy reading the posts of all.. anna

I'm in. Loved Razor's Edge, expecting a different twist, but more Maugham in Moon and Sixpence with the dynamic duo leading this discussion!

Welcome Annafair and Joan. All we need are a few more participants and this should be a great discussion.

Paul Gauguin so far as I know left only two written documents, “Noa Noa’ and “Intimate Journals” Regarding “Noa Noa” the text that I have is some 31 printed pages in a large format (11” X 14”) in English with some 100 additional pages with color reproductions of Gauguin‘s Tahitian art. I had always assumed the 31 pages were the complete Document.

Now I am not so sure since today I did a goggle search hoping to find it on the web. I was surprised there were no English translations available on the web but there was one web site with the French original. http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/6/4/11646/11646-8.txt This would seem considerable longer than my English translation.

My English translation is in 10 un-titled chapters with an appendix and postscript. I note the French web version is in 11 titled chapters. The English versions tell of his arrival in Tahiti and his interface with the French governor and particularly the native population. This account which contains nothing objectionably explicit, derails his shopping for a suitable teenage bride and a lifestyle quite likely extreme enough to land him in jail in parts of the US today and likely even enough to stretch social convention to the limit even in today’s France.

Eloise and those of you who read French, how about looking at this at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/6/4/11646/11646-8.txt

Also I see now that an English Noa Noa is available from B&N at: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=z734F1eBzR&isbn=0486248593&itm=1 .

The second Paul Guaguin writing that I also have in English is “Intimate Journals.” It is a small format book with some 255 pages including about 50 small black and White Gauguin art illustrations. Again despite its title it is in no way explicit but reads like a stream of consciousness novel detailing life events in both France and the South Pacific. This book in paperback is available from B&N at: : http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=z734F1eBzR&isbn=0486294412&itm=9

Oh GREAT read this on the way home from school when I was a Freshman in High School - I had a thing for Maughan and Conrad just after having finished my love affair with Natty Bumppo- so glad you found the book online...

Harold, I found Noa Noa in French in Google as I couldn't access your link. A Gutenberg ebook.

Reading this you can feel the soul of Gauguin and you can also understand that had he continued to live in the "civilized" world he would not have survived. He is a man in total unity with nature. I will take some time to read all of Noa Noa online. It makes one understand why Gauguin was so intense.

Gauguin was a painter first, a writer second and his book reveals his true nature.

Welcome Joan, Anna and Barbara. Some books never go out of style I guess.

I'm still re-reading parts of The Razor's Edge, both text and forward. Am eager to read The Moon and the Sixpence with this group.

I can't remember reading this one. Although I must have because I fell in love with Maughn's work while in high school, but at any rate count me in for the discussion - in August - right?

Count me in. The Razor's Edge was my first Somerset Maugham and I had wanted to read another.

I have always loved Paul Gauguin's artwork and the art of his impressionist acquaintenances. Gauguin seems like quite a wildman. He certainly lived by his own drummer. I saw some of Gauguin paintings at Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum, America's oldest public art museum. We are lucky to have this wonderful museum so close by.

We also saw some of his works New York's The Metropolitan Museum of Art which has a fabulous website where you can view their permanent and special collections. Here are several links to view some of Gauguin's paintings:

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={C9AAB34A-859E-11D5-93FE-00902786BF44}

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Ordrupgaard/copenhagen_images.htm

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Annenberg_01/annenberg_images.htm

I enjoy reading novels about famous artists. I enjoyed Irving Stone's Lust for Life about Van Gogh and The Agony and the Ecstasy about Michelangelo. This should be fun!

Marni

Welcome Gossett, Scrawler and Marni. What a fantastic group this promises to be and I believe others will join us, especially artists who are familiar with impressionism and will bring to us new knowledge about this movement in painting that changed forever the way painters expressed themselves in their art.

Marni, I read both those two books and loved them. I still remember The Angony and the Extacy very clearly about the life of Michaelangelo.

I am going to try to join in this discussion. I hope that I can concentrate well enough to read this book. It is the kind of book that I really like. What more could you ask for-- it is based on the life of a famous artist and is written by a writer who is one of the most beautiful writers in the English language.

Joan Grimes

Joan G. This is so good to have you with us and as Deacon of a Museum and your yearly trips to France, where you see the originals of those fabulous paintings, the discussion promises to be a memorable one.

I guess that we have a quorum now and we can ask to have this discussion transferred to the "Coming Discussions".

Éloïse

While I was away yesterday I see Barbara, gossett, Scrawler Marni and Joan G have posted their participation. Added to AnnaFair and Joan P who joined previously plus Eloise and my self we seem to have a great group. Welcome one and all!

There is still plenty of room for more. So come on and join the group. The book is just over 200 pages and like all of Maugham's novels easy to read and enjoy. Also the book should be available at all libraries and from B&N for less than $10.00 by clicking the cover graphic in the heading..

I'll join if someone will teach the linkers how to do hot links with this code.

(a href="url")name of link(/a). use < in front of the beginning and > after the url and again around the /a as I have done with parentheses.

It will only print out the name instead of the whole url. otherwise the width of the post makes for much scrolling back and forth. very frustrating. . . Claire

may be read on line.

here is the first chapter

I've just read four chapters and I find it a collasel bore. It's not really about art except for the very beginning, but about English society. but have fun. Thanks Eloise for the invite but I don't think I'll join.

claire

Claire, I am sorry that you find it boring, but several of us find Moon and Sixpence worth being among the classics of literature. Somerset Maugham was not a famous painter himself, but he wanted to write about the unusual life of a consummate artist such as Paul Gauguin and he based his novel on his life. We have the entire book online with a link in the heading.

I invite everyone to join in the discussion, you will be not only among friends, but among art enthusiasts who are eager to talk about famous artists and their work.

The work centers on the psychological aspect of extremely talented people who, in order to pursue their ideals go to extreme behaviors that can be considered offensive to their entourage.

This is a short book, only 217 pages in my pocket book edition and it is a good summer read and a good summer discussion.

Éloïse

Winsum; You gave up too soon! Your judgement paralles mine for the early chapters, But when Stickland suddenly deserts for Paris the story comes togeather fast.

You are correct that this is not about art but about individual people and their lives. Since people are always interesting, and Maugham has a particular talent for telling their story, this becomes an easy and fun book to read. Give it a chance!

wrote as a writer about the artist reflecting all the values of his time and place which have always irritated me. and I did go on through chapter seven. I'ts nice that it can be had on the net so as not to have to chase down a book I wouldn't want. Don't let me bother you people who are looking forward to this. It's just that my good friend suggested that it would be about art and that I might have something to contribute as an artist.I know that this author is dear to many of you. I've never enjoyed his works but you do. . . have fun. . . Claire

P.S. I cherry picked and read chapter twelve when our twenty three year old writer tries to convince Strickland of his folly and Stricklands response after putting up with him patiently and cheerfully finally stated my position as well toward the fictional writer and his stupidity.

"You blasted fool," he said. I could't agree more so why continue. . . I don't like the principle character and he is very well done. what better reason to move on. . . I shouldn't be doing this. . . but Harold made me do it. . . his fault I had to look ahead.

me again Claire

Claire. I perfectly understand your point of view but what I meant when I said it was about art is that Maugham is writing about an artist and how he goes about to satisfy his passion for painting and why he became famous even if he was not recognized during his life.

Perhaps that is what participants will want to discuss, if I am judging this right. Gauguin has not been among my favorite painters, but he obviously has merit and I do want to understand what lies behind the motives of artists like him, where they were born and raised, what family they belonged to and what pushed them to abandon and risk everything for their art.

Éloïse

and I cherry picked some more chapters 29,37 and the last 58. Coincidentally HBO showed a TV movie this afternoon VINCENT AND THEO which I watched with great interest. Gauguin and Vincent shared an apartment in the south of France. Von Guoe (sp) admired Gaugin's work but felt that his admration was not mutual and there were many arguments. The movie suggested that Gaugin was the leaving lover for whom Vincent cut off the lobe of his ear . . ,I've never heard that before.

As for becoming famous although not recognized, during his lifetime he was both, but I'm not able to comment on either as my not having experienced them . . . Claire

I think I would like to join, but am not sure whether my contribution would be worth while. I read the book at least three times (that answers the question whether I liked it or not). I think the book is more about artists than about art. If I am accepted, I would like to explain my point.

Dear Hegeso, everybody is welcome. We don't pick our participants, the participants pick us. We are lucky indeed to have you on board. I read already and will read it again during the discussion which will starts on the first of August.

Éloïse

Maugham is a very interesting author. (How trite can I be?) He never idealizes his characters, but doesn't judge them either; he just understands them, without any illusions.

In my teens, I read a lot of artists' and writers' biographies, and am sorry to say that they were of the 'idealising' kind. However, I don't like the latest trend either, those books which psychoanalyze them. Maugham doesn't belong to either category.

But pray, will somebody tell me why the title "Moon and Sixpence"?

Hegeso. Good question, the answer is in the book and if I could see it, it is not very hard to find but we have to wait for the discussion to start.

Did anyone notice the graphic in the heading? Who do you think it is?

Éloïse

Good question, Eloise. I am sure it is neither Maugham nor Gaugin.

looks an awful lot like this one of Phillip on the cover of OF HUMAN BONDAGE.

same guy? possibly the young Maugham?

I couldnt find a picture ofhim on the net. . . .

Wich seems to be a very interesting and poetic use of language in the bit offered. Ithink I'll look tht up on the net and see about reading it . . . Claire

Yep all Maugham books are available to be read on line. Here is this one Of HUman Bondage

same guy?

claire

Hegeso, who do you think it is if it is neither Maugham and Gauguin?

Claire, Maugham's style is very different from other novelists isn't he? his characters fall in a broad category of people's personality. He doesn't waste time with a woman's beauty or a man's courage, if he writes once about how beautiful a woman is, that's enough and we should remember this in the future. He delves on the abstract to make his reader search for their own assessment of meaning, leaving us panting for more concrete evidence of a character's thoughts and motivation.

I prefer this to a cold and direct approach to characterization. We are obligated to form our own opinion about each one of them, not his own but our own personal fabrication of who a character really is inside.

You will notice that most of the women he describes are not beautiful, most men are not valiant and brave but they have what makes a person interesting, it is the mixture of the good and the bad which creates balance.

I am glad that you might join us. We will be delighted if you do.

Éloïse

OF HUMAN BONDAGE and it's protagonest at this point a very understanding portrait of a nine year old boy deprived of his parents and sent to live with a childless couple in a Vicarage. Now this is an attractive main character while the one in Six Pence is not. . . at least to me.

All his books can be read on line so I will probably dip and compare and if you don't mind my peculiarities including spelling and typos I'm here. . .. Claire

Eloise, I saw Gaugin's self portrait. His face is too characteristic to be ever forgotten. I couldn't detect any of his features on the cover of the book. I also saw several photos of Maugham. It cannot be the same face, even if I take the changes caused by age in consideration.

Why then is the same face on the cover of OF HUMAN BONDAGE as PHILIP? Did you see any portraits of the ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN? I think it has to be Maugham. Claire

--- from a 4th of July retreat to the country returning to a computer that repeatedly locked-up Windows XP with my SBC-Yahoo browser. After repeated lock-ups it now appears to be stable using Internet Explorer.

Winsum, by all means "to each his/her own." Far sure this book gives us much to be critical with. I suspect we will have much comment as we compare the Maugham fictional creation with the historical Paul Gauguin. Winsum do feel free from time to inject your comment as the discussion progresses.

Regarding the historical Paul Gauguin I have an interesting biography of Gauguin centering on his later life in the South Pacific. It is "Paul Gauguin in the South Seas by Bengt Danielsson. Some of you might recognize this author as one of the four man crew of the raft Kon Tiki that in the late 1940's successfully drifted from Peru to one of the Polynesian Islands. He was a Swedish anthropologist in his own right who authored several books on Polynesian anthropology. I re-read a substantial part of the Gauguin book over the holiday.

I didn't remember the author but read Kon Tiki and the sequel ? several times. anthropology? anyhow it was fascinating. I"ll look for his book on Gauguin. . . . thank you.

Hi! If anyone has already shared the information on the back cover of the Penguin edition pictured in the heading here, I'm sorry I missed your post. The back cover identifies the artist...

"The cover shows a self portrait by Frederick Spencer Gore, reproduced by courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London."

Spencer Frederick Gore (1878-1914), Painter. Sitter in 2 portraits, Artist of 1 portrait.
Spencer Frederick Gore (1878-1914), Painter. Artist of 1 portrait, Sitter in 2 portraits.

Spencer Gore, who trained at the Slade, was one of the founder members and president of the group of painters who formalized themselves in 1911 as the Camden Town Group. The immediate stimulus for the group's foundation had been the Post-Impressionist exhibition organised by Roger Fry in 1910. Gore had worked in Paris and Dieppe in 1904-6 and was familiar with the work of Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh. The influence of Post-Impressionism is evident in this self-portrait with its use of broken brushstrokes, simple massing and vibrant yellow. National Portrait Gallery, Frederick Spencer Gore

I am going off at a tangent again. The strange life of Strickland is not quite unique. There was a Hungarian painter who had a somewhat similar career. Here is a URL:http://hungart.euroweb.hu/english/c/csontvar/

You might want to click on his paintings. It would be worth your time.

Harold, glad to see you back and that your computer is in good working order. I have to apologize to you for my assuption that the graphic portrait on the book cover was one of Maugham painted by Gauguin. The reason I wrote that is I looked in Google images under "Maugham by Gauguin" and it came up.

Thunderstorm coming I better log off. I will be back.

and it was Gauguin by Maugham, Sorry.

Thanks to Joan P. we now have the real answer. Now why is Spencer Frederick Gore on the cover of this book I wonder, does it say the reason on the back of the Penguin book?

Here are several PHOTOS OF SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Éloïse

self portrait

self portrait

He has a mustache throughout not the picture in the heading. that has to be maugham. look at the hairline and the ear on PHILIP . the protagonist on the cover of his book OF HUMAN BONDAGE. . .

the combination again side by side Joan I think you're right.

photo

Somerset Maugham was himself an art collector of consequence as his novels The Razor's Edge and Moon and Sixpence indicate. This LINK gives us a nice collection of images of pieces mentioned in his novels.

When we read The Razor's Edge, we also noticed his concern for being 'A la page' in the unfolding of the plot that he wrote in his twenties and Moon and Sixpence in his forties. The following is from the link:

"W. Somerset Maugham was keenly aware of the importance of style. He had made himself into the epitome of an English gentleman using this sense. Reading his works you soon find his knowledge of style and period was encyclopedic. Being a firm believer that one must stay informed and current, he took pains to evolve his own writing style to change with the times. Thus his art collection reflects too, the tastes of the times."

Éloïse

--- somehow the guy whoever he was looks like and artist as in fact he seems to have been. This appearence led me initially to assume it was Gauguin. while I too might wonder why the publisher choose an artist named Frederick Spencer Gore for the cover,it really makes no real difference to us.

I am having a bit of computer problem centering on the fact that suddenly I can not retreive my Norton Antivirus updates. The subscription is good for another 10 months.

I just found Moon and Sixpence on tape in the library. I checked their computer and couldn't find any copies of the book in local libraries, so I'm going to try the tapes and online. Should be different.

Thank you for joining us Horse Lover. I look forward to your participation.

I have a nephew in North Texas who is a vet horse doctor. He an his wife raise horses particularly cutting horses near Terrill TX in the Dallas area. For a number of years Carroll edited and published "America's Cutter." a cutting horse specific magazine.

Here is another self protrait of PAUL GAUGUIN at the Musée D'Orsay in Paris.

Éloïse

Horse lover, Maugham was also working in counter expionage.

Horselover, when I was a child I fell in love with horses even if the only ones I saw were farm horses, then when I started reading about race horses and took a few lessons. I have loved them since then.

I read Of Human Bondage lately to find out more about Somerset Maugham and was struck by that man's dismal early life. As a very successful author who sold some 43 million books, he didn't succeed in finding happiness. His writing, even if a bit somber, still manages to keep us in suspense.

We will put some links in the heading shortly so you can start reading the background material.

I am looking forward to starting this interesting discussion.

Éloïse

Life is so short, why waste it doing things we are not passionate about.

"Life is merely a fraction of a second. An infinitely small amount of time to fulfill our desires, our dreams, our passions.

Paul Gauguin"

Hi,

I loved The Razor's Edge and am looking forward to this discussion next month.

Pamela

We thought that in this discussion those of us who would like to look at a link, not just at the moment it is posted but would like have it on hand without having to go back several posts find it and that is why there is a special spot in the heading called 'WEB RESOURCES'. There you will find links not only about Paul Gauguin or Somerset Maugham, but other interesting items about the artistic movement that changed the way we look at art forever.

Interesting quotes by Somerset Maugham that I found interesting: "There is always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved." from "Of Human Bondage" and " Money is like a sixth sence without which you cannot make a complete us of the other five" and you can see all of them HERE

And he certainly made good us of the wealth he gathered from the 43 million books he sold. Whether that brought him happiness he admits himself that he had not been a happy man.

Éloïse

I urge all of you to check some of the links on the Web Resources link in the heading above. From here you have click access to interesting pre-discussion background material on our subject. Actually as our discussion begins and progresses, I think you will find considerable difference between our fictional artist, Charles Strickland and the historical model Paul Gauguin. But let us reserve comment on these details until the Aug 1st kick-off.

The two spacific Guargan paintings linked on the Web Resource page happen to be two of which I have large full-size prints. Though they hung at the Guadalupe County house, when I moved to the San Antonio apartment last January I relegated them to the closet in favor of actual oil paintings by much lesser local artists. I have now hung them again hopefully to create the proper mood for the discussion.

I was talking with my dad today about reading our Maugham selection. My dad started reminiscing about World War II, as he often does. He told me he was in the Mediterranean in 1944. He and his men were on leave on the French Riviera at San Raphael and St. Tropez. They visited Maugham's house (outside). People in the area told them whose house it was.

I started "reading" my audio book of Moon and Sixpence today as I drove down to visit relatives. Listening to audio books must be a learned art. Especially if you expect to be able to participate in a discussion. I kept finding myself missing a segment because I'd have to focus on not driving off the road or not crashing into a car passing me in my blind spot. I also was confused (happens often) when I moved from tape 1 to tape 2 and it seemed I missed something. At the end of tape 2, the narration said to turn the tape over and listen to the other side. I missed that on tape 1. Never listened to the other side! Kind of changed my perception of the book. And it's really fun changing tapes while you're trying to drive. Talk about making cell phone use in cars illegal. There may have to be something done about audio tape drivers.

Wow he visited Maugham's house - what a nice memory -

Yes, a book on tape is another experience isn't it - I even had a hard time following Harry Potter which when the third book came out I was driving to the coast and thought I would listen rather than read it - ended up having to get the book after all - but trying to put one tape in after the other in order while driving is a trick isn't it - thank goodness I go to the coast on the old highway rather than I-35 where you have to drive at least 75 or you are in everyone's way...

What I do find fun is listening to mysteries on tape and Christmas stories and then I have a couple of tapes of poetry that I listen to over and over again - I even tried some short stories by Welty and just couldn't get it well enough...but Paddington Bear is terrific on tape...

I enjoy Harry Potter far more on audio than reading the books. I never read the books while driving but listen before bed or while doing monotonous household tasks. My friend Ruth is also an avid reader but enjoys Harry Potter on tape also much more than reading the books.

Of Human Bondage. I loved the book but kept wanting to take Philip by the shoulders and shake him! Haven't we all had friends who live in denial in a relationship? Philip lived in denial for so long!

Those of you who like Maugham should try Daphne Du Maurier. She seems to be largely forgotten but her style is wonderful much like Maugham and she draws very good characters just as Maugham does.

When I read Maugham and Du Maurier I mourn the loss of the richness of the English language which has been largely ignored by many modern writers. JK Rowling has a very good style of writing for such a popular author and that is why I probably like her style as much as the story line.

Carolyn

Horselover,

I don't even know why Maugham appeals to women except that his philosophy rings true in many cases. We can't say that he talks a lot about women in his novels, but about the way women affect the life of his characters.

Kiwi,

In Of Human Bondage, a child thrown in the arms of unwilling relatives at the death of his parents, even if the relative is a pastor, cannot overcome his shyness and become a self-confident adult and that is not even mentioning his club-foot which made him the more self-conscious. To make matters worse, the boy was brilliant. Had be been less so, he might have found a way to satisfy his thirst for affection from those who adopted him.

Marni,

The French Riviera is everything they say it is. "La Dacha de Dieu" Gorbachev once said.

Barbara

I have never listened to a book on tape. How is the narration, is it good? I guess both women and men do book narrations, do you have a preference?

Éloïse

I prefer the British readers to be honest except for the American Lorelei King. Lorelei King speaks clearly and has good expression. Too many American readers read too fast. The chap who does the Bill Bryson books on audio is pretty good also but Lorelei King is excellent.

My audio book for this week is a classic. Its Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. The reason I got it was because it was the only CD left on the shelf all the rest were tapes and my tape deck gave up the ghost finally last week. I thrash my tape decks with all the books I listen to. My Christmas present to myself this year will be a new mini system for the living room with a double tape deck.

I have a CD player on my PC as well as in a stereo in my bedroom. I wish they would make a sturdy player just for audio books with a double tape deck only nothing else. A Similar machine in sturdiness as the machines for the blind.

Carolyn

by Tom Clancey on tape was fine. I enjoyed it, but wasn't driving at the time. I wouldn't try to do that. . . .too distracting. . .Claire

Anthony Daniels seems to be the narrator of my audio copy of Moon and Sixpence. Daniels was the voice of C-3PO in Stars Wars. He was the most irritating annoying robot and his voice reflected his personality. Well, his voice on the Moon and Sixpence narration makes me think of C-3PO. It's sort of spoiling it for me. It grates on my nerves.

Traude: My dad said he loved the Riviera although it was wartime when he was there. But he said the beach sand was awful - very stony. I grew up across the street from a New London beach on the Thames River. The sand was luxurious - thick, silky soft, very fine, smooth, white, white, white. I think my family was spoiled.

Well some of us don't have much choice if we are going to continue to read. I now listen to most books since I have had this horrible dry eye syndrome. I try to save my eyes as much as possible. I am so much better since my eye doctor put the plugs in my tear ducts but my eyes still can be very painful if use them alot for reading or stay on the computer too much. They even burn and hurt when I go to a movie. I am just so thankful to have audio books. They are quite expensive though.

Joan Grimes.

I agree with most here that listening to tapes or CDs is just not the same experience as actually "reading" the book. And I think it imprints differently on the mind. Even reading books, or portions of books, on the computer screen is different from actually handling and reading a book.

Yes you are right ,Arthritic_Samurai, but I don't have much choice in the matter if I want to keep up with books.

Joan Grimes

Joan: Although I've been grumbling about my audio book car experience, I'm so glad for you and for others that there are so many audio books available today. People DO get used to them. They give those with eye problems the ability to "read." It's wonderful. As I've mentioned before, my dad is blind and uses the library audio books for the blind program. It is his favorite thing. He is able to enjoy his books as much as anyone, and we discuss our readings together sometimes. He loves the reading and the discussion immensely. The biggest drawback for that program, which is provided free, is that you can only read what is available through the program. It may take quite awhile to get your turn at a new book. And the audio books are very expensive to buy, even more expensive than regular hard back books.

Doesn't it make sense that there should be a special subsidized price for audio books for people with eye problems? I wonder if a seniors group could lobby for something like that.

those dry eyes bothering me right now but tearing. I was told to put drops in them a thousand times a day but that seems to make them worse. I have the size of the text set up high so I can sit back and read, but even then it hurts. I close them and type by touch as I"m doing now and to hellllll with the typos. let people use their imaginations. I do check over lightly at the end with them spell check. . . . claire

Oh Yes, The Hunt for the Red October was terrific on tape and one of my first books on tape - I thought the bit where the subs were so close under water chasing each other better heard on tape than seeing the movie - and I WAS DRIVING -

I find that listening to a book on tape while driving uses a different part of my brain than the part I need to watch the road and it is a terrific way to allow time to be less boring since a part of my brain gets very bored just driving - when I am bored I wax back and forth from being annoyed at all the other drivers to being so busy looking at the scenery I can loose track of the road...music helps but I find a book on tape, especially a mystery or adventure story works and poetry helps also -

Now just a novel - a feel good novel doesn't hold my interest when I am driving - in fact my daughter gave me the Da Vinci Code and that didn't hold my interest - I think mostly because most of the information he was playing around with I had heard back when I was a teen in the Carmelite High School I attended and so there was nothing new --

However all listening to other than music is when I am driving long distance - running around town is different - I am usually reviewing what I have to do that day and with the way this town continues to grow if I do not pay close attention I get confused where I am and think I am into galloping senility scaring myself so bad I have to pull over to check where I am...

I have almost finished reading the book (well, easy, it is perhaps the fourth time). The only thing I want to say now about Maugham: a hypocrit he never was!

Carolyn,

Carolyn, I doubt that here we would have a choice of a narrator though. My English libraries are all so far, about 12 miles through Montreal but I must rent an audio book one day.

Marni, if you found the narration robotic, did you like the book just the same or had you read it before? You are right, in the South of France on the the beaches you have smooth small round rocks instead of sand and I know a lady who goes barefoot on those. Apparently the color of the rocks give the sea its turquoise color that is so beautiful.

Joan, I hope that your dry eye symptom will go away for you. Mine were dry a year ago but I don't have that anymore. Now I only get it after hours on the computer or reading, or when I am very sleepy and tired.

Arthritic Samurai, what an unusual handle, welcome my dear. Are you joining us in this discussion? It’s the first time I see you but I don’t go everywhere either.

Barbara, I guess that driving a lot every day you have to do something more interesting than just watch traffic. I usually just have the radio on when I am driving.

Hegeso, hahaha, Maugham certainly called it like it was, he was no hypocrite as you say.

Éloïse

Eloise: I'm not finding the narration robotic, even though the narrator was the voice of a robot. C-3PO in Star Wars didn't sound like a "traditional" robot - he sounded like an Englishman who was nervous and complaining all the time. So, I'm just identifying the book to the role that the narrator played. I can't help it. I think I'm finally getting into the story, though.

What a fascinating thing - that the stones are what gives the Mediterranean its turquoise color! In all of the pictures and movies I've seen of the Mediterranean, it has such a very distinctive incredibly beautiful blue.

Thanks Eloise. However I don't think my dry eyes will just clear up. I now have plugs in my tear ducts to keep the tears that I do produce in my eyes. When the doctor decides that my cataracts are ready to be removed then the removal might help the dry eyes but I don't know this. I am just speculating. My eyes are better since the plugs were put in but I still cannot read alot or stay on the computer for hours at a time llike I used to do.

Joan Grimes

POST-IMPRESSIONISM - HISTORY ON STAMPS

I had always included Gauguin in the Impressionists and now I can start to understand better why he is called a Post-Impressionist. In the above link, I learned he was the master of Picasso and Matisse. I suppose Bracque and Van Gogh too fall into that category. I want to learn how to distinguish one period one from another.

This discussion will give us a chance to learn more about art I am sure. It's not enough to like it, we want to know why too.

Joan G. I am glad the tear ducts plugs helped, I had never heard of that before.

Éloïse

Impressionism was about using a particular way of applying paint i an effort to capture light. This consisted in putting small specks of colors which were different next to each other to be mixed by the eye at a distance. . . Names escape me at the moment but they are well known. the work with the haystacks for instance at different times of day and even Serat whose style was called Pointellism and included composition belonged to both schools.

Post impressionism, while using the technique in various ways was more into composition and message as in Cezanne and others. Cezanne altered perspective in order to do that, not as interested on LIGHT. try google and see what others have to say. . . . claire

Google gives us a very good explanation here

Eloise: Thanks for the interesting site with the stamps and Gauguin bio. The info of Gauguin's death reminded me of an exhibit of his art I saw at the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art last year (I think last year???) where part of the door from Gauguin's house in the Marquesas was also exhibited. It was apparently purchased by a doctor who was traveling on a ship that stopped there just after Gauguin died. His paintings and even his house were being auctioned off. Below is some info about Gauguin's death:

http://www.trivia-library.com/b/famous-people-cause-of-death-paul-gauguin.htm

I seem to remember National Geographic Magazine perhaps pre WW II or maybe just after the war with an article on traces of Gauguin still (then) to be seen in Tahiti. I'm thinking there were pictures of his children and grand kids and a few of his paintings still in their posession. Does anyone remember such an article?

I just received an email listing exhibits of the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art. (am on mailing list) There is an exhibit of Art of the Marquesas Islands til January. Below is their site to view examples. I imagine Paul Gauguin was greatly influenced by their art.

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={F7F71B3C-A095-4DF6-A7D4-898D79B7A691}

Check out the war club! Wow. Reminds me that we have a native American war club hanging on the wall in our living room. It's fairly frightening. My husband's grandfather, Howard McCormick, spent 2 years living at the Hubble Trading Post in Arizona painting native Americans. We have some interesting items that my mother-in-law left us.

I have my book on order and will be ready by start of class! Looking forward to this discussion...Allie

"One does not become an artist because he can, but because he must!" I don't recall who said this first, but it is true. Being an artist is something one simply is, and is compelled to be or one is never completely satisfied in life. From earliest childhood, I wanted to be an artist and vividly recall wanting to paint the local refinery at night...its huge towers gleaming with lights and wrapped in vapors reflecting those lights...the shining spherical shaped storage tanks shining in the glow like some recently landed ships from outer space! I have since painted thousands of pictures, but never that one. In no way can I measure up to the caliber of an artist such as Gauguin or Monet, but I have striven to be true to my nature at least, and it continues to bring me happiness.

Gossett that is true. My eight year old grandaughter has been obsessed with art since she could toddle. Spends several hours sometimes all day sketching, painting or making things like original dolls that she makes the patterns for and also designs and makes the clothes. I have never seen a child so driven. They have a large hobby room and their mother joins Brooke and her little sister there and all three of them create to their hearts content

Carolyn

AllieMae, If you didn’t read the book before, you will like this book

Harold I looked in Google to see if I could find the National Geographic issue you are talking about but I didn’t have any success so far. I would love to see it.

Winsom, do you think that painters think about their own style of painting or do they just paint according to how they ‘feel’ emotionally. I tried to imagine Gauguin thinking about Post-Impressionism, but perhaps he is the one who invented the word.

Gossett, I would like to see your work and we could put it in the link to enjoy as we go along. That goes for you too Claire and everybody who would like to see their own work up in the link.

Carolyn, your grand daughter will become a famous artist one day if she continues in that direction. My 47 yr old daughter wanted to dance since she was 8 and she studied it, danced in a dance company and retired from it early due to injury but now she writes film scripts, she is always in the creative mode.

Éloïse

Gossett, I'm not sure if Irving Stone was the first to say this...but he said it in Agony and Ecstacy. He didn't say "can" though...he said should Do you see a difference in nuance?
"One does not become an artist because he can should, but because he must."

Eloise, probably the place to check for the article I remember as in the National Geographic will be the "Index of Periodic Litterature." I dont find it on line but will look for it the next time I am at the Library

several years ago I figured i should take some of the art out of the closet and put it where people could see it so I went to geocities and started a web page showing just art. they gave me two mgs memory. Eventually they offered another MG to three and this kept happening until I eventually have eighteen mgs. But they wanted me to expand on the content so I added stories and poems and even music although I've since them removed that from the contents to avoid hassles. The address is here under my handle and sure I'd like to have it more accessible as it would be in the heading.

Claire's Page

private access to the music collection is as follow. they are only midis and old but if not to fussy about sound quality can still bring back memories for many of us. there are pop,folk and classical selections FAVORITE MIDIS

Webmuseum, Paris, describes Paul Gauguin's art as: "Gauguin discovered primitive art, with its flat forms and the violent colors belonging to an untamed nature. And then, with absolute sincerity, he transferred them on canvas." I can imagine that this was Strickland's are as well.

Eloise, thanks for the link to Post-Impressionism-History on Stamps; Winsum, thanks for link to Impressionism vs. Post impressionism; Marni, Thanks for link to info about Gauguin's death. I am learning more than I bargained for...even more than I could have dreamed of! Love all the Posts!

Claire, I love your web page. I will ask to have it put in the link in the heading.

AllieMae, Maugham is not trying very hard at making Strickland's life different from Gauguin, but his attempts immediately makes me want to compare the two. Personally, I have a hard time NOT comparing them and for an Englishman to become a famous artist of Gauguin's calibre just doesn't stick with me.

Why do I tend to believe that the British are not artistically inclined, of course there is Turner and others, I know, but they were so few compared with other famous painters from the Continent. Even the name Strickland rings false to my ears. He was a Stock Broker of all things. My own brother was an accountant before he retired early, suddenly left everything behind and he became a very successful painter, we didn't have a clue that he was artistically inclined.

What is it that stimulates painters in Paris, or in the South of France, it cannot be because of the cuisine, even if it is to die for, is the climate part of the phenomenon? Is Tahiti's climate similar to the South of France? Is it the close proximity of other artists? I am just thinking out loud here. Does anyone know? Or am I just locked in an era and cannot come out of it?

I think Claire would have something to say about that.

Eloise do remember Gauguin too was a stockbroker before he felt the call to become an artist. But in fact there are many differences between the historical Paul Guaguin and the fictional Charles Strickland that we can identify as we pass through the discussion.

Eloise, thank you...hoping to pick up the book today!

and others we just don't know about. the stereotypical English person like an engineer leads us to doubt their artistic interest but it's not definitive. Indeed it produced fine crafts men>women. Poetry is an art form too and there are many of them. What do I know. I just do it. . . my art history background is slightly better than my general one but my interest lie in picking up a brush with a nice stretched piece of paper and having at it. If other artists are around it's nice to learn something from them but one must also not be distracted or influenced by them. . . a trade-off. Claire

Re: "What is it that stimulates painters in Paris, or in the South of France, it cannot be because of the cuisine, even if it is to die for, is the climate part of the phenomenon? Is Tahiti's climate similar to the South of France? Is it the close proximity of other artists?"

I know that proximity of other artists is very important in inspiring artists. There have been many important "artist colonies" where multitudes of hopeful artists have migrated (Old Lyme, CT, Provincetown, MA, Paris and Arles, etc.) Maybe for artists it's like "brainstorming" where you can bounce ideas off one another and one idea leads to another. Many artists try out styles of painting that others excel in.

I know my husband's grandfather lived in an artist's colony in Leonia, New Jersey, where the various artists shared ideas and paintings.

I think most of the contributory causes have been mentioned such as the weather, the scenery rural, coastal and urban, and the fact that colonies of artists developed early that continued to thrive through successive generations. Also the cost of living was quite low during the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, and there was a particularly tolerant social structure willing to put up with what elsewhere might be called flakily and unacceptable, And of course the Wine and absinth was readily available. (By the way, what is absinth? I understand it is now banned even in France).

I suspect most major US cities today have some form of local art colonies. We do in San Antonio with Starving Art Shows on the River Walk several times a year. Also in New Orleans Jackson Square is alive with them. In Texas our artists paint bluebonnet landscape; in California the seem to favor seascapes.

I became interested in absinthe when I heard about the effect it had on the health of Van Gogh. I was startled to see the Olde Absinthe House in New Orleans. Here's some info about absinthe:

"Absinthe is a strong-herbal liqueur distilled with wormwood and anise. It typically contains other aromatic herbs like star anise, anise seed, fennel, licorice, hyssop, veronica, lemon balm, angelica root, dittany, coriander, juniper, and nutmeg. The predominate flavor of absinthe is anise or licorice, which are similar. Traditionally, absinthe is prepared by slowly pouring iced water over a cube of sugar resting on a slotted spoon. The cold water dissolves the sugar and this solution trickles into the glass diluting the green absinthe. Absinthe is not sold in the United States because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not allow the sales of spirited beverages that contain thujone*. Real absinthe is made using wormwood, which contains thujone*. Modern analysis supports the theory that poor manufacturing processe, and adulterants such as antimony trichloride and cupric acetate, present in cheaper varieties of absinthe produced at the turn of century, of being a higher suspect for acute effects such as restlessness, vomiting, vertigo, muscular disorders, and convulsions."

http://www.absinthebuyersguide.com/faq.html#Anchor-47857

Re: thujon:

"In late 19th-century Paris, absinthe was the favored drink of artists and writers. Some say addiction to the emerald-green liqueur drove Vincent Van Gogh to take his own life. Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Pablo Picasso all painted absinthe drinkers, capturing both the drink's popularity and its dark side. Doctors at the time recognized that absinthe can cause convulsions, hallucinations, and psychotic behavior. Now, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago have learned how the drink's toxic component wreaks its neurological effects. They found that the toxin, alpha-thujone, blocks brain receptors for gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA. Without access to GABA, a natural inhibitor of nerve impulses, neurons fire too easily and their signaling goes out of control. Alpha-thujone comes from the herb wormwood, which flavors absinthe."

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20000401/fob4.asp

Marni, thanks for the definition of absinthe. I never tasted it but drinking anything to access is harmful and absinthe surely more so.

Harold, as someone who has often stayed in the South of France I can vouch for the fact that the sunny climate, bright crisp sea air which sharpens the colors of the landscape, is extremely appealing.

I am leaving for a long weekend this morning and the weatherman said it would be nice and sunny and in the seventies. I will visit art exhibits in the Eastern Townships.

Have a nice weekend everyone and thank you all for being in this fantastic discussion, I know I will learn so much.

Éloïse

The Danielsson Biography of Gauguin indicates that Vincent's brother, Theo van Gogh also went mad but does not include details regarding the extent of his illness. This resulted in his being fired from the Goupil gallery. I don't doubt that an impurity prone, strong alcoholic drink like absinthe might contribute to mental illness. Quite possibly Theo was drinking as much as Vincent but of course mental illness is certainly prone to run in families so genetics too must appear in the equation.

I note the Danielsson biography spells the subject beverage "absinth" dropping the "e." Maugham in the novel, and the Web page linked above spells it "Absinthe.” The Microsoft Word spelling checker allows both versions, as does the on-line Webster’s Dictionary. So I guess both versions are ok

While I was researching the 1860s I was shocked to find out that people back than drank and took drugs as if it was candy. Many of the illnesses in people were directly related to what they drank and morphine and other substances that they took. According to my research Mary Lincoln Todd was given morphine for her "female problems" and the very rich used to give "morphine" to children to keep them quiet and so they would sleep at night.

owes it's origins to painters who liked the light and the freer life style, later to the acceptance of the gay community and now a tourist trap. . . The summer life--art show attracts many and there are two major outdor shows for only local partisipants.

No, I'm not local and the kind of art shown there is popular not my thing.

The early landscapes are worth a lot and are shown in ony a few places indoors. I live in San Clemente just down the road which is part of the tourist attraction. The climate is said to be MEDITERRANIAN. Perhaps that does have soething to do with the originators.I've lived in Los Angeles most of my life . . . same area and lately San Juan Capistrano, also a tourist attraction because of the mission. The movie industry came here for year round filming, why not artists for the same reason. . . Personally I find other artists nice to talk to but a distraction when it comes to my own work. . . . Claire

Want to briefly introduce myself. I'm Pam. I live and work in the Dallas, TX area. I belong to Book Chat Central on ezboards so I'm quite familiar with this concept. I'm always surfing looking for new experiences and stumbled on this group. I think I've found a good niche for myself. I hope so. My son, a writer, and I were talking books one day and Somerset Maugham's name came up. He asked if I had ever read A Moon and a Sixpence. I said no. He was shocked! I bought the book but am reading Harry Potter at the moment. Mr. Maugham's Moon book has been put aside. How timely that I've found you!

Pam

I read some of this book on line and decided not to continue, but Eloise likes to have a pet artist in here since MOON is about an artist and I like to gab soooo. anyhow welcome to your niche. . . .Claire

Re: "...I was shocked to find out that people back than drank and took drugs as if it was candy."

Coca cola originally contained cocaine. Ergo the "coca" part of the name. (By the way, for a fun place to go if you're in Atlanta, see the Coke Museum. Coke was invented by a pharmacist in Atlanta.)

I found an "original coca cola recipe" online. Kind of interesting:

http://www.sodamuseum.bigstep.com/generic.jhtml?pid=10

Any participation by you will be welcome. I'm down I-35, 270 miles south of you in San Antonio.

Thank you for the welcome. What a nice treat. Harold, just a hop, skip and jump down the road, Texas style that is.

I remember drinking Coca Cola in high school. Rumor had it that we would all be high as kites if we could find some of the "older" bottles. Silly..... Or maybe not.

Stay inside and read. It's too hot out there to do anything else,

Pam

hello all..

My name is Cathie and I live in north Dallas. I have just learned about this site and did sign up for the Eco book group. I would love to read MOON AND SIXPENCE with y'all too. Where do I sign up?

Vincent Van Gogh had bi polar disorder. I know this because I saw this in literature given to a patient ( a family member) by the local mental health clinic. There was a whole list of famous people who suffered from this disease and Van Gogh was one of them.

Carolyn

So far as we are concern, your signed-up is complete. Next Monday, Aug 1st, just start reading the posts as often as your time permits. Any time you are inclinec to add your comments, questions or answers to other peoples posts, just type your thoughts in the "Type Your Message Here" box at the bottom of the current (Last) page, and click the "Post My Message" button.

It will be great to have you participate; you are most welcome!

Anyone else out are also welcome.

Lovely welcome! Thank you. I looked at MAS yesterday at the used bookstore, and sadly, it doesn't look like something I'd be interested in. So for this month, I think I'll pass. I'm sure that there will be something in the future that appeals more and I'll jump in.

Could you tell me...when do you post the feature for the next month? IOW, when will September's selection be posted?

Scootz, who knows when we start you might want to participate, the book is available online in the heading. It's hard to judge a book just by reading the first few pages, but further on the book starts to have more meaning. If you change your mind, we will be happy to have you among us.

Marnie, "Kola nuts contain caffeine and theobromine, and are famous for their use in 'Cola' soft drinks. Many soft drink manufacturers now use synthetic chemicals that resemble the flavor of kola nuts.

Marnie, That link is very interesting about Coca Cola. Besides cocaine, "Koca" was put in to ward off hunger and for stimulation because it has the same effect as caffeine, nowadays the original coca and the cola are replaced bu chemical agents to try to imitate the same effect the original recipe had. Did you notice the huge amount of sugar it contains.

Harold, those Texas artists usually,tho not always, paint the bluebonnet landscapes because that's what the tourists want to buy...and since they must eat, they have to sell. I'm another Texan but so far to the East, I can see Louisiana from my deck on beautiful Toledo Bend lake. We're a bit cooler here, thanks to the breeze off the water. I do my painting indoors anyhow, as it's usually water color and fighting off bugs while I work doesn't appeal to me! Looking forward to sharing The Moon and the Sixpence with all of you. I loved The Razor's Edge and Maugham's style.

Ah! I may try it, then, if it's available here. can you tell me where you mean it's available "in the heading"? I'm afraid I don't see it. Sorry to be so dense. <cringe>.

Scootz, I know, we all scroll past the heading so fast. Look above for "Moon and Sixpence Online" and click on it, the whole book is there chapter by chapter. It is a short book, you will see that it is not at all about what the author writes in the first chapter.

I am very excited about this book and looking forward to August 1st.

This book, in particular, cannot be judged by its first few chapters. In fact the initial half dozen chapters are just the Author’s way of introducing some of the players in a rather dull English middle class environment. It’s just too much boring descriptions of turn of 19th century society that is scarcely understandable by moderns at this time. The reading begins to get interesting by Chaoter 8 on page 25 in our print book,

In any case it’s your call and if you decide not to participate here another will come along. Just keep watching the main books menu for announcements of new discussions that can come at any time. You will find some you will want to join.

Do you know an East Texas artist named Joyce Fuller? I think she is centered in Port Arthur but is pretty well know even in Houston. Her specialty is East Texas piney woods barn scenes. I have three of her oils. Two are East Texas scenes; one is a bluebonnet landscape in a more central Texas setting

I don't know Joyce Fuller though I have heard her name. The nearest art group to me is in Jasper. However, I don't have much contact with the group and don't know if she is associated with them or not. About the common use of drugs in other days, Laudanam was commonly used for pain, and people didn't seem to be worried about adiction. That's an interesting theory about the Absinthe causing mental troubles and one can't help wondering if that was a part of Van Gogh's problem. It seems to me he had a unique vision of the world and when I look at his work, it seems to me that everything is moving, alive in a sense beyond the usual. In his Starry Night, he comes closer to the real truth than any other artist I know of. He presents the stars as flaming balls of gas, not tiny diamonds in the sky, and in doing so, he creates a feeling of awe....for me, at least. I can only speak for myself. Gauguin is another story of course, and I'm looking forward to learning more about him.

Gossett: I had always loved those starry skies of Van Gogh from seeing prints in books. Years ago, the Brooklyn Museum of Art (1971, I think) pulled together a huge Van Gogh show, pulling in Van Gogh paintings from all over the world. The place was so mobbed that you had to move along in line rather quickly which was annoying. But, it was probably the most amazing art exhibit I have ever seen. To see his starry skies and his sunflowers in person - the real mckoy. Too incredible even to describe.

Laudanum reminds me immediately of Mary Tyrone's silent wanderings at night around the cottage in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. It also reminds me of Dr. Maturin in the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin series. Both Mary Tyrone and Dr. Maturin were laudanum addicts.

Laudanum is a tincture of opium.

Tincture: An alcoholic solution of a medicinal substance.

Here's info about opium and laudanum:

http://www.answers.com/topic/opium

They sold paregoric a mixture is morphine with benzoic acid, camphor, and anise oil at drug stores without a prescription until the early 1950’s. Mothers would use it to rub the gums of their teething children and mixed with water it was given to adults and children for diarrhea. I remember getting it about 1950 when I had a tooth ache.

Vincent Van Gogh did have a mental illness. The mental illness he had often occurs in very creative people and also can cause alcohol and drug abuse. These are taken to try to combat the depression that goes with bipolar illness. This could be the reason for his addiction to absinthe.

Some cough mixtures (pharmacy only medicine) still contain small amounts of morphine. Although because of current drug misuse many of the manufacturers have deleted this ingredient. My pharmacist informed of this.

All this drug is talk is fascinating to me. I've wondered for years about koca, absinthe, laudanum etc and have never found anyone to discuss these things with. Is it because we all read and drug use, at times, becomes an intregal part of either the artists life or the protaginist? What is it?

Also...interesting point re: Van Gogh and his bipolar disorder perhaps being the cause of such beautiful imagages. Just now had a thought. I'm bipolar. I take an antidepressant for it and I'm fine. However! I've always found Van Gogh's images disturbing and at times, frightening. Interesting, no? It's all in the perspective. Went to the Guggenhiem years ago and saw an exhibition of his work. In person, the colors are even more brilliant and awe inspiring. I didn't like it. His images made me feel dizzy. I was 16 or so at the time and had no idea why.

I can't tell you how excited it is to find this group of seniors.

Pam

Horselover, As terrible as it seems when a blow hits you it becomes a test for strength. There are people who are better equipped for overcoming tragedy and those might not be tempted might to turn to drugs as others are. I wonder if age has something to do with this. Everything is a tragedy when we are young if I remember.

Gosset, I read Van Gogh’s biographical novel, by Irving Stone. He was an extremely disturbed man. I don’t know about bipolar disorder too much but schizophrenia was mentioned. Still it didn’t prevent his genius from coming out in his work.

Harold I remember Paregoric was sold over the counter and it was used for calming teething babies. When I had my own kids, it was no longer available. Frost used to make pain medication which clearly mentioned cocaine on the label even in the late 50s. How interesting.

Pam, welcome to our group, we have a slate of interesting participants that I am sure will make for a fabulous discussion.

Éloïse

Those of you who have seen starry night and other works in the real realness are so right. Marney there was a slow moving line at the Los Angeles Museum of Art when it was there and you could hardly see anything over and around all the heads but it was breath taking. . incredible power . . not evident in the prints. . . Claire

It's gratifying that so many turned out to see Vincent's paintings, but I wonder how many were really appreciative of his art, and how many simply were there because of the van Gogh mystique...his unusual life, the fact that his paintings were bringing in huge sums of money unlike anything he could have imagined in his poverty, poor man.

Probably that ear had something to do with it. . . . but they must have learned something in so doing. . . . Calire

by Artist J Beever known for his sidewalk three D paintings etc.

Calire

Claire, that looks like pointillisme painting, is it? Lovely.

I don't think that Maugham used the name Strickland and not Gauguin. S. has many features not found in G. For instance, Gauguin was not inarticulate. The treatment of the main character of the novel reminds me of an anecdote about Matisse (might be apocryphal). Somebody looking at one of his nudes said to him, "a woman doesn't look like that". Matisse answered, "but sir, this is not a woman; it is a picture. Moon and sixpence is a novel. IMHO, a great novel.

whatever we choose to call it the subject here is not the garden or the people but LIGHT. At least that's how I see it. . . . Claire

I just learned of a new internet service located at: http://www.paperbackswap.com/help/hdtw.php

This is a neat idea, especially for those on a limited income. Basically you start out listing 9 books you are willing to swap - usually paperbacks. You will have 3 credits for swapping. Then you just order what you want, and whoever in the club has it will mail it to you. When someone wants one of the books you have listed, you mail it to them and pay the postage yourself (usually $1.42). Currently there is one copy of The Moon and Sixpence listed, so if anyone still wants a hard copy and doesn't have it this is a great way to go.

This seems like something that would be great to post somewhere else on seniornet that would be more widely read, and it would help out a lot of people with their reading budget - especially those who don't get into the used book stores, etc. very often. Most internet used book stores charge $3.49 shippng and handling for even paperbacks, so this is a great way to go!!

Supposedly there might be a yearly membership fee of $10 or so at some time in the future to help pay for the web site, etc., but right now it is free.

On another subject, I just started The Moon and Sixpence. Maugham as usual is engaging and makes you feel like you are right there. This book already reminds me of The Razor's Edge in that it represents the author as an outsider getting to know a person who marches to a different drummer!

My Book has finally come in. I am looking forward to starting day! Will be browsing this evening. Allie

Scamper...thank you so much! Will check it out!! Allie

we have a used book exchange discussion here already. The books are listed with the name and e-mail addy of thee owner and the person who wants it can have it for only the price of mailing it which is paid upon reception. if you/they remember to do it. It's not always done or done on time, but it's a smalll price to pay for the book.

Book ExchangeClaire

Dear Claire and Eloise,

There is, for me, something almost miraculous about discussion. When I first saw the picture I thought, "How very pretty!" Then I read the discussions and went back to the picture and started to notice the LIGHT...

I had taken a course in college about the Impressionists so of course, I had 'heard' much about the LIGHT.

But being involved in this group and so a part of the discussion, even as a 'participant observer', I REALLY started to notice the technique of the artist and the play of darks and lights and shadows and other nuances of this painting.

I just have to say that this was thrilling for me and thank you both and the discussions in general. I am seeing and reading so differently than just a couple of weeks ago. The 'student' in me...the 'explorer' if you will, is still alive and well. This is a good feeling to have just when I had begun to think that perhaps my intellectual life was just a memory! Alliemae

Hegeso.

Exactly, a painting is not a photograph and that is what happened when the Impressionists disturbed old art school with their 'modern' ideas as Winsom was pointed out about LIGHT. Before the Impressionists, paintings were more or less trying to represent what a photograph was and the person looking at the painting was also trying to visualize reality. Matisse explained this when he said: “Sir this is not a woman, it is a painting”.

For those of us who are untrained artists, we ‘want’ to recognize something we know in a painting, not a fantasy and that is why the man said: “it does not look like a woman”. I understand exactly what he meant. I feel the same way about abstract painting, I want the painting to tell me: “It is a woman, a scene, a tree, not just color and form on a canvas.

Scamper,

Thanks for pointing this out, I must buy used books from the US now because I read too much to buy new. Our libraries around where I live all have French books with very few in English.

Alliemae,

I feel the same as you when I ‘discovered’ Seniornet’s Books and Literature. This is where I spend all my time on the Internet. There are so many interesting discussions to stimulate your intellect here. Better than television any day it is like a big house where there is a party going on in every room and you just drop in and join the crowd, you always feel welcome, I find. How long have you joined? I have been here for 6 or 7 years, I forget.

We be starting in just a few days now and I am really excited about it, how about you?

Éloïse

It seems to me that artists who paint abstractly are trying to convey an emotion directly to the viewer without using a particular recognizable subject. Sometimes they succeed, but often not. I think that music does this better than a visual art can do, as music affects our emotions and doesn't need words. As for Impressionism, the movement got painters outside into the light of day, instead of the cold North light of the studio. Also, for the first time, they chose subjects that related to everyday life in lieu of religious subjects or portraits of wealthy patrons. I chose watercolor precisely because of the light quality. Being transparent, wc lets the light shine through the paint and reflect back out from the white of the paper, recreating much the effect of the natural world.

interesting what you have to say about music. I spent a couple of hours at CLASSICAL ARCHIVES last night where for twenty five dollars a year you can download a thousand titles a day or else for free you can do five. Debussy is to music what the impressionists were to art. The use of a whole tone scale is an abstraction. . .makes ordinary themes sound extraordinary. . . see the CHILDRENS CORNER and lets the imagination play. He was a rebel from the start eschewing traditional structures when a student. and Eloise you'll love it that he finally defined himself as a FRENCH COMPOSER. when no one else seemed to get it right. Biography of Debussy

This discussion has so much o the arts that it covers more than just this one book. I'm really enjoying it, dry eyes and all. . .re: abstraction or not I paint ABOUT a subject rather than OF A SUBJECT and recently although in acrylic I use it as I would water color layering it transparently which works well becuase unlike w/c it doesn't PICK UP. . . . becoming woman -- in progress

Claire

When I was 15 I saw the Van Gogh exhibition here in Auckland NZ. The memory has stayed with me still. The brilliance of his colours absolutely thrilled me. I loved it and reluctantly left after some hours because I was on a curfew being only 15.I still love Van Goghs work and so does Nicky my daughter who is the only person in our family to do Art History (over 90% average). Her favorites are Michaelangelo and Van Gogh. Third pick for her is Da Vinci because she was fascinated with his futuristic ideas which today we can see in his drawings.

My favorite paintings have been by the impressionists or post-impressionists. I don't know very much about art. I love to go to certain exhibits and roam around art museums. Sometimes, the art of an earlier painter really catches my eye. My husband and I went to see an exhibit of the work Pieter de Hoogh (also spelled de Hooch), a 17th century Dutch painter, at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford a few years ago. I had never heard of him before. But, my husband is of Dutch heritage and we thought it would be interesting, We loved it! We learned a lot. Turns out, de Hoogh may well have impacted Vermeer.

"The great innovation of De Hooch's painting is the importance which it gives to the middle-class setting, while its most unique quality is the absolutely convincing naturalism of his paintings which rely on the treatment of light and space and the psychological proximity of the figures.....De Hooch's sensibility towards the effect which the representation of space has on the psychological mood of a painting may have influenced Vermeer. Other shared features such as their interest in describing textures and the effects of light on materials, are the result of shared sensibilities which they must have mutually reinforced."

http://essentialvermeer.20m.com/dutch-painters/masters/dehooghbase.htm

De Hoogh died in an insane asylum. So many artists were so very sensitive. Perhaps that is what makes them artists?

Marni

Marni, thanks for that link and yes, his work resembles that of Vermeer and while browsing through the paintings naturally I came upon THE GIRL WITH THE PEARL EARRING that I had the pleasure of seeing the movie 3 times already. It was well made and you felt you really lived in that era.

I invite all to spend some time admiring both works by De Hoogh and Vermeer, it is well worth it.

I just loved that film!!

Hi Eloise, I just started SrNet about mid-July and you know my impressions from above. And your analogy about the party is spot on! I have really felt, ever since I joined, that I am hobnobbing with a group of cultural and artistic friends in a most pleasant environment. I knew there had to be more to being online than just research and chatting!

I have my books now...I am in the Moon and Sixpence and also the Queen Loana groups. I have been reading 'Moon' and so far I am enchanted with the writing. I'm going more slowly than I thought but there is so much to savor, isn't there. Thanks for your warm welcome...Allie

I cannot believe the information I find in this thread alone.

You people are amazing. More fun than an Expedia any day.

I need to retire so I can spend more time with you.....but then I wouldn't be able to afford Barnes and Noble anymore.

Pam

Allie, Thank you for your compliment. I enjoy your posts very much.

and Pam Barnes and Nobles sells used books cheap and sometimes only read once. You mean that you have time to work and come to Books and Literature? I couldn't possibly do both. Thanks for being here it is a pleasure to have your company.

Don't forget all to check our Web Resources where you will find all the links that you have provided us with and as we will be in the discussion we can linger in there also to give a feast to our weary eyes and appreciate works of different schools.

Éloïse

Harold you are asking some very good questions. I could spend so much time in each one of them but I retain this one for a start.

"How would you have liked living under the formal social rules governing popular middle class society in the early 20th century?"

When I read Maugham for the first time I had no idea how that part of society lived and it was a revelation. All the pretense that hides in social conventions, it almost made me laugh but social gatherings such as is described at the beginning of the book did have a purpose and it takes a special type of woman, like Mrs. Strickland, to organize parties where one man meets another and from this casual encounter a whole novel takes form. It amazes me how authors introduce a plot.

Officially we start the discussion only tomorrow, but it's OK if someone wants to post today. I am so happy to have the opportunity to be sharing with you about issues that Somerset Maugham always brings up in his novels.

I'm going to be moving here within the next 45-50 days so, I hope to remain with you all, but if I suddenly disappear I'm proably in a box and I'll see you on the other side.

It is not yet the first of August, so in a hurry, I would like to share some thoughts in general. Many years ago (as with everything in my loooong life) I had a guest, an editor-ghost writer. She asked me, "do you think that great artists are better people than the average?" My answer was more polite than sincere, because I knew her reasons to ask me that question. I said that morality and genius are two independent factors, but when they happen to meet, it is the most wonderful thing in the world. But what I thought was quite different; my opinion was that geniuses are morally worse than the man of the street. Genius means not just talent but also conflict. As far as I stumbled into the life story of great creators, I saw many horrible things. Or, did I think it only because the lives of average people are not so profoundly researched? I don't know, but I think it is more than that.

What we call genius is often only one step from madness I think. After reading a book on a mental illness (which is a genetic problem in our extended family) where Psychiatrists listed famous people who they believed had this illness, I think that the geniuses listed really lived all of their life on the edge. Some of their most creative periods were when they were sickest. Living their life often in fast forward mode meant impaired judgement which often led to what we would call immorality.

These are my thoughts on the subject of the previous post.

Carolyn

Hegeso, About genius Maugham says: "I asked myself whether there was not in his (Strickland) some deep-rooted instinct of creation, which the circumstances of his life had obscured, but which grew relentlessly, as a cancer may grow in the living tissues, till at last it took possession of his whole being and forced him irresistibly to action."

Do you think it is so?

Carolyn, Yes, now that I think of it about a genius. Strange combination of beauty and ugliness which produces beautiful works of art.

Based on my experience I have observed genius in one close professional associate quite free from disturbing internal mental conflicts though in another it was certainly a problem that limited his potential creative output. I guess it is my conclusion is that Genius sometimes but by no means always is associated with some form of mental illness.

In the case considered by our book I think our character Charles Strickland was much mentally disturbed. In this respect I see his condition as being more closely analogous to van Gogh than Gauguin. Van Gogh was so mentally disturbed as to be self-destructive first cutting off his ear and finally shooting himself. It ran in the family evident by the fact that his brother too was affected with a career ending madness.

Gauguin on the other hand, from both the Danielsson biography and his own autobiographical sketch “Noa Noa,” describing the two years of his life comprising his first trip to Tahiti was much more in control of his life. He knew what he had traveled to Tahiti for, and was always-in control as he went about achieving his purpose. Gauguin’s so called abandonment of his wife and children appears to me to be more analogous to a modern couple break-up based on different career paths, then the Charles Strickland’s sudden departure and subsequent career as described in our book. I don’t believe for a second that Gauguin would ever have said of his wife and even his children that “they can go to Hell” as Strickland did in the story. On the contrary, before Gauguin departed Europe he made a trip to Copenhagen to visit his family, and at the end of “Noa Noa” it was (unspecified) “imperative family affairs that call me back” he wrote as the image of his Tahitian Vihina, Tehura on the beach faded from his view.

Eloise, Maugham asked himself...., and I am also asking myself, but my answer would probably be a 'yes'. I can't believe in such radical and abrupt changes. It may seem such for the outsider, who sees only the result. But I can't look into the soul of anybody; I can only guess.

Wives, whose husband leaves them suddenly, say they didn't know at all that their husband was unhappy before he left. The husband will hide his frustration perhaps because he doesn't like to have a row, the woman will ignore even obvious signs because she can't face the idea that it might happen. Mrs Strickland was sure that she was a good wife and that her husband was happy with her.

I have a hard time accepting the fact that a wife can be blind to the obvious until her husband picks up a suitcase and goes out the door and never comes back. When Charles told her he went "to the club", she believed him. Let's not forget that divorce and break-up was not as frequent as it is today. Mrs. Strickland never thought she would ever be divorced. It was just not done then, or was it?

Hi, folks! I am participating in a new way for this book. I used an audio book because that was all the libraries in our vicinity had available. I had some trouble concentrating on the audio while driving. I'm supplementing by using the online book for review and to look up things for our discussion. Should be a bit strange.

Re "observing genius." I don't think I've every had the experience of actually knowing anyone of true genius - talent yes, brilliance yes, but genius....I don't think so.

Here's a definition of genius from the following site:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-19,GGLD:en&oi=defmore&q=define:genius

-someone who has exceptional intellectual ability and originality;

-brilliance: unusual mental ability;

-ace: someone who is dazzlingly skilled in any field;

-exceptional creative ability;

-flair: a natural talent; "he has a flair for mathematics"; "he has a genius for interior decorating"

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

There's quite a difference between these. "A natural talent". ..."a flair..."...well, many people have that and I haven't considered them to have genius. I think of Strickland's and Gauguin's and Van Gogh's genius to be more in the "dazzlingly skilled" and "original" and "exceptional creative ability" areas. When I think of genius, I think of someone like John Nash, the unstable mathematician in "A Beautiful Mind."

ÉLOÏSE and HAROLD, just wanted to check in quickly - late and behind though I am - to assure you I have not forgotten my promise to participate. I am reading right along and will be back. These days I make haste very slowly ...

MARNI, your #157 came just as I finished mine and caused the text on my monitor to veer sharply to the right beyond the margin. Could the long link have anything to do with that, I wonder? BTW, the link produced no text.

Marni when I clicked your link I got the Google Search screen. When I copied your search string, define genius, and let google do its search I got the site I think you intended.

Actually I think psychologists define genius as one who scores 140 or above on their standard IQ test. While it is quite true that people capable of achieving these scores or rare, there are many who can. The first of the two I was referring to in my earlier message was a Harvard graduate who later returned for Law School after scoring 800 out of a possible 800 on the standard Law School Admission Test required for all law school entry applicants.

How would you have liked living under the formal social rules governing popular middle class society in the early 20th century?

I think I can relate to living like that because in a sense I lived through the 1950s and felt the restraint of that era with its comparative early 1900s moral and social restraints. I can see how Strickland working as a "broker" would be like "the man in the gray flannel suit" of the 1950s. Both eras were "symbolically" held in check with what was thought was the "proper way" of doing things. Strickland the artist would be looked down on while Strickland the broker would be to coin a late 1950s phrase "in the groove."

Strickland, like Gauguin, was a stockbroker. In The Razor's Edge, Isabel's husband was a stockbroker. I wonder if that job is of a particular significance to Maugham.

google gives a whole page of them mozart a musical genius but NO EINSTEIN. . . it all depends doesn't it.

Marni when you have a long link please use the following formula encased with these <> rather than the parenthesis which I will use to keep it from printing. . . .as follows.

(a href="the long link here") the name of the link here (/a)

it should come up like this:

google on genius

Claire

when discussing the characteristics of the people and their social habits he said "their lives are part of the social organism, so that they exist in it and by it only" . .. He does that now and then I've read nine chapters so far on line My eyes are giving out for now. more later. . . Claire

Claire: I'm feeling like a dolt with this. I am not following re the long links. What is the difference between "the long link" and "the name of the link"? I thought the "name of the link" was whatever it is in the URL aka "Address" field on the web. Sorry for taking up time on this.

Marni

In message #161 Joan P wrote:

Maugham - as Narrator - seems to empathize a little with Strickland - when he observes that he himself finds "Conventional family life of ordered happiness lacking." He craves a "wilder course, the excitement of the unforeseen." I'd say he is more interested in Strickland's personality than anything else.

I sometimes have trouble with the way Maugham uses some really unconnected third party narrator to unveil the story. In Razor’s Edge he wrote himself into the plot as Mr Maugham. In Moon and a Sixpence I don’t remember the Narrator ever being addressed by a name, yet by the tone and perhaps because of my recent familiarity with Razor’s Edge, I feel Maugham as the author fully intended readers to assume it was he himself telling the story . My problem with this approach is that in order for the narrator character to get the facts he needs he must appear as a terrible prying busybody butting his nose in the private lives of people he barely knows. Isn’t this particularly true in Moon and a Sixpence? Who so soon after an initial introduction, would take on the trip to Paris to interview the run-a-way husband on behalf of a woman he hardly knew? It just seems to me Maugham could have made the narrator a family member or long time friend of the family for a more believable story.

Another annoying consequence of this style narrator is the fact that to keep the narrator current with all the latest details of the developing story Maugham as a last resort relies on the most unlikely coincidental chance meetings. This was certainly the case in Razor’s Edge in which Maugham just happens to meet Larry in a Paris Bar after a 10 year absence and again while cruising the Mediterranean Coasts he stops at a sailor’s bar and finds Sophie who had previously disappeared from her Paris friends..

It was through a series of unlikely coincidences like these that the story is revealed. Such an un-probable series of fortuitous events through which the narrator obtains the necessary intelligence to tell the story, to me seem just too unlikely; yet somehow I seem able to ignore or accept the inconsistency and enjoy the reading of the book

--- generally if you post the entire URL address <http://www.yahoo.com> be it long or short it will show as an interactive (clickable) link to the addressed page. Note however that it must be set off in brackets, not parentheses. Somehow in your post yesterday only a portion of the long link showed as interactive. Effectively the right end portion of the address failed to be interactive. When I clicked the left part it took me to the Google search engine. I correctly guessed that the part left out was the search string that you used, define genius, and when I entered, define genius for a Google search it took me to the site you intended.

The problem that occurred with the URL address you entered was probably related to your use of parentheses rather than brackets. Please in the future don’t be concerned about posting URL addresses but use brackets (or nothing) rather parentheses. They should than appear as interactive clickable links to the site as you intended.

What I found interesting about the narrator, Ashenden, is that he appears to be disapproving of Strickland's action, but at the same time Maugham, the author, is sympathic with the artist. I think, Harold, this dual action of the author/narrator is what is frustrating to the reader. The author seems to be saying that great art justifies ruthless behavior in breaking free of the bonds of society, especially those imposed by women; while Ashenden clearly shows his disapproval and support of those same women.

Just a note about the author: Maugham returned to London in summer 1916 with the intention of marrying Gwendolen Maud Syrie Wellcome, with whom he had been having an affair for almost six years and who had already given birth to his daughter, but her divorce had not yet become final. They were finally married in the United States on May 26, 1917 after Maugham had traveled to the United States and gone on to Hawaii, Tahiti, and American Samona. Maugham continued traveling (going to Malaya, Borneo, the Pacific Islands, and Burma in 1922 and 1923) while his marriage gradually disintegrated. He had preferred homosexual relationships throughout his adult life and never made much of an attempt to be a constant husband. According to Maugham's biographer, "Maugham was blind to Syrie's good qualities. All he could see was that she trapped him into marriage and became an emotional and financial drain."

Since "Moon and Sixpence" was written in 1919, perhaps we can safely say that at least in part it was based to a certain degree on the result of his own marriage.

thankyou for the background on our author and his attitude toward women. It helps me to understand why I don't like him much. . . passive agressive is hard to take in anyone. . . . Claire

Re: These days I make haste very slowly ... How good to hear that expression again...my sister used to always say that to me as I was always rather scattered. Another I heard from a character in a Britcom who had semi-retired, "I am learning to enjoy doing very little, very slowly." Alliemae

Harold: I completely agree with you in your post #167 about the narration. I had some trouble with the narration choice in both Razor's Edge and with Moon. The narrator always immediately becomes everyone's best pal or intimate. They tell him everything. He's in the right place at the right time. Another thing that made it difficult for me was that for the narrator to really tell the events of the story and to describe the characters, their words, and reactions, the narrator had to have a pretty darn good memory. Notice how he remembers absolutely EVERYTHING he was told.

Thanks for the info about the link. Re: "The problem that occurred with the URL address you entered was probably related to your use of parentheses rather than brackets".....I don't use brackets or parenthese at all. In the past, I've simply clicked on the web URL to highlight it, select the Control button and the letter C to copy the URL, and then to paste it in my posting, select the Control button and the letter V to paste.

As far as I know, I've only had trouble twice. But, I'll check for long links in the future and check out the brackets/parenthesis. Thanks!!

Marni

Re the narrators attitude. Although Maugham himself has sympathy with the artists his character who is disapproving reflects the attitude of main stream society of the day. If you think of it like that it helps.

carolyn

Ginny and Harold: I tried to use the formula:

title here

It's not working for me. I need more info, I guess.

You said to type this formula exactly as it is. However, when you do that, how does the system know what the URL is and what the title is?

So I typed the lengthy URL that I copied from the web in place of the words "title here." That didn't work. Then I pasted the lengthy URL in place of the words "paste url here." I typed a title where it says "title here." That didn't work. They came out exactly the same.

title here

When I review my post, I see that the formula you gave comes out just as Title Here. That's no good.

Here's the original lengthy link. Can someone show me specifically with this link how to type the formula, where including this URL, and including the Title:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-19,GGLD:en&oi=defmore&q=define:genius

Am I thick or what???

I just sent you an e-mail with directions but forgot to say. don't type the long URL because even the smallest mistake will give you NOT FOUND 404. INSTEAD COPY IT AND PASTE IT. DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THAT? HIGHLIGHT IT AND GO TO copy IN THE EDIT menu and when you are ready to insert it after the

a href="right here curser there and hitting PASTE in the EDIT menue or if you already know how to do the keyboard commands for COPY and PASTE use them. . . . . . good luck. . . claire

For women who loved their husbands as Mrs. Strickland loved hers would react pretty much the same way as she did today. I don't know why they don't suspect a thing before it happens. I have personally met three women whose husband just up and left one day and I knew their husbands well too. In one case, she too entertained the 'right' people, decorated her house in the fashion of the day, brought up her children correctly and you could always feel that she took pains that everything she did and said was what was expected of her from her entourage. She was a good wife.

Their husband suffered in silence, were bored and were boring. One husband became a successful painter and the only way he could leave his wife without a scene (which he hated) was to pack a small bag and go out the door. Strangely, this man too had never shown any talent or inclination to become a painter, but I think probably it was something hidden inside him that even he did not suspect until his fifties.

Now after several decades, he still paints every day and sells his work, I guess he could only feel 'free' if he left behind his wife and kids, because before that his sense of responsibility was a strong deterrent to his creativity. Painting for some artists is a demanding and jealous mistress who cannot share space in the heart and mind of someone who has been bitten by that passion.

Mrs. Strickland was capable of earning a living and her kids were not left begging. Whether Charles was cruel and a brute was inconsequential to him and being poor even a blessing that helped his creativity.

I read "Life with Picasso" by Françoise Gilot and he was also driven by his art and the women in his life were only accessories, yet they were happy to have been chosen to spend even only a few moments or a few years with him.

Strickland in his first meeting with the narrator tells him: "What poor minds women have got! Love. It's always love. They think a man leaves them only because he want others. Do you think I should be such a fool as to do what I've done for a woman?"

A man's first love is his career and if he finds a woman who supports him in his career he is lucky as his career will thrive.

Marni, What difference do you find in "hearing a book" instead of "reading" it? Does the voice become monotonous after a while? Or does the narrator 'act' out his narration? Interesting, I must try that.

Joan P. I agree with you that if a young man suddenly came to see me and started to lecture me on something as intimate as my marriage, I certainly would show him the door. Sorry, but I don't become intimate immediately with someone I just met, especially if he was barely out of the cradle. But in Maugham's novels, I don't look at it the same way. I see that as something to move the plot along and after a while, I forget about that and get into the story.

Claire, thank you for emailing Marni about HTML. Ginny's explanation is very short and easy to understand. I hope Marni won't have too much of a hard time choosing between all the different explanations.

Harold, when I read "Of Human Bondage" it sort of explains why the author had low self-esteem as a child, but he certainly overcame it later on it seems. Somerset Maugham was a brilliant man who knew what he wanted in life don't you think? But this makes his desire for fame and fortune very obvious.

Scrawler, I like what you said about the narrator appearing to disapprove of Strickland's actions. We will see if he disapproves of him later on in the book. I wonder if he was only pretending to be shocked at everything the painter did for the sake of his promise to Mrs. Strickland to try and bring them back her erring husband.

Éloïse

Mrs. Strickland and I have many things in common - only one of which was the fact I was married to an artist for 28 years. As a very young bride I would watch my husband paint and there were several times I truly thought he was INSANE! I'd come home from a very long day and say "Hi! Honey." and receive a response like a growl or a grumble which alerted me to the fact that he was still alive. I could also see his feet sticking out from under the esael. Also, I put a plate of food at his left and an empty plate came out at his right. I guess we survived so long because I left him alone so he COULD paint. It was the 60s and we both worked long hours for the government, but during his free time he painted.

I might point out that I knew my husband was an artist when I met him. (He gave me the out line: "Want to come up and see my paintings?" And when I got up there - he really did have paintings to show me!) Mrs. Strickland didn't know her husband was creative. Perhaps it was also her own fault that her husband left her. It seems to me that she was so busy enteraining other creative people that she didn't bother to see the artist in front of her. From reading many of Maugham stories I really see a lack of COMMUNICATION between his characters. Perhaps this was also true in his own life.

Sometime in the 1930s Maugham was quoted as saying: "Most people cannot see anything, but I can see what is in front of my nose with extreme clearness; the greatest writers can see through a brick wall. My vision is not so penetrating."

I don't think Mrs Strickland was stupid at all. However she was so bound up in her own interests she could not see what was going in in her relationship with her husband. She did not know him that is plain. Lack of communication is obvious. I remember my young son admired a family he knew very much. He said " Mum they never quarrel" I said "that is abnormal Everyone quarrels because it is a way of communicating and because we are human sometimes the discussions get heated." Nobody was more surprised than my son when the husband of that family just packed his bags and walked out. I remember we had the family for Christmas dinner because of all the upheaval when the father left. It was just on Christmas when he left.

Carolyn

My husband when he was still in high school was measured with an IQ of upwards to 160. It is probably not as high now that he is approaching 60. Yet I would say he has genius but is not a genius. He is quite talented in several areas and has a vast store of knowledge on many different subjects. I sometimes have thought he was ADD because he has always had difficulty multi-tasking - more so as he gets older. He is organizationally disfunctional - can't organize anything at all, not even his desktop or computer. His idea of organization is to leave everything wherever he drops it and expect it to be there 6 months later. Eventually I cave in and help him organize, things get better, and then they get to where he can't function again.

But anything he decides he wants to do he can do better than most people. He is not an artist but plays a mean blues and bluegrass guitar. He can machine tiny screws and design parts for obsolete items. He does superb large format photography. He is allergic to anything that makes money, though - it takes the fun out of it!

So I guess I would disagree that a high IQ makes the kind of genius we are talking about with Strickland. That's a different kind of genius.

Incidentally, on Mrs. Strickland I think we may are being too hard on her. She was obviously fond of her husband and demonstrated that in the early pages of the book. Her dinners for artists were harmless pursuits. I don't think Maugham showed a single aspect of her subject to criticism. We've made the leap that she was so busy with her society dinners that she didn't notice her husband. I didn't see that in the writing at all. Charles was a very retiring and private person - we see that in the rest of the book. He took her completely by surprise, and my sympathies go to her totally. He didn't give her any options, just didn't care about anyone but himself. She is innocent!

I was no apportioning blame in my previous post.Heaven forbid! The woman was better off without a man who was totally driven and totally detached. However she knew nothing about him really which leads me to suspect their relationship was only on the surface. Their was no deep sharing of feelings, aspirations etc. She did not love him really either. She was more distressed regarding her financial situation and what people would think of her not to mention her social standing. Two strangers living together for all those years. Sad!

Yesterday I heard a news report linking a well loved retired news anchor age 80-something to the sister of a popular 70's singer age 50-something. So much for the 35 year age cut-off theory. Me thinks you’re wrong again Mr Maugham.

I judge Strickland not a case of dual personality. He seems more a split (or switched) personality. He started out a typical middle class family man; the hard working breadwinner providing a good living for his family. His change was not entirely spur of a moment. No, he began to plan his change by taking art lessons. His sudden departure for Paris has the earmarks of the now or never escape attempt in a 1940's "B" movie. In this case it was an escape to a new world with a new personality.

In our story the young narrator in his conversation with Strickland finds out that Strickland had showed no art talent or at least that seems to have been the judgment of his fellow students. Here we have another conflict with the Gauguin model. Gauguin too began to paint while he still had his day job as a stockbroker. But Gauguin unlike Strickland had at least some small but significant success like when in 1876 the Salon accepted one of his pictures for exhibition. Somewhere I think I remember reading that the firm where he was employed closed after which Gauguin decided to go full time to painting. For economic reasons his wife then took the Children to her family in Copenhagen. The Gauguin transformation seems to have been well planned by Gauguin and his wife; it was executed in in accordance with the plan in marked contrast to Strickland’s sudden previously unannounced dash across the channel to France. Well at least he did leave a note! .

about what makes an artist act like the stereotypical idea of an unstable, self involved antisocial, immoral being really bugs me, Any stereotype does even the one of his plastic wife. Maughn has dealt in stereotypes here which is why I find the book dull even depressing so far. . . really not worth reading any further.>

Of course I've spent a lifetime as an artist so I"m biased but hopefully not those other things.

It is a little like ADD in that many things compete for interest and interest translates into excitement and effort, but not so scattered that nothing is organized or accomplished. Like Scrawlers husband I play a mean blues guitar, classical piano and voice, as well as make art all traditional media and sculpture and ceramics and write a bit, but with an accent on the art.

I taught folk guitar for nine years which took organization as did the many years I spent in ceramics learning glaze chemistry and the entire procedure from beginning to the release from the kiln which was in my back yard.

I also was married with kids and held out against a difficult marriage until my kids were launched. He was passive aggressive, anal and abusive so it wasn't easy but a part of the personal history of this artist.

see web page for various pursuits as well as a continuing interest in world affairs. Also after an interest in psychology dating back to my teens and a major in it in college . . then there is a continuing interest in the contents of that black box we call a mind, knowing what goes in and what comes out but not what is happening inside. a fascinating mystery it seems for us all.

Artists are just people with lively imaginations and the willingness to follow through in exploring their ideas.

Claire

Winsum- artists in general tend to be gentle people.. Maugham is talking about genius. He is also talking about bohemian society which concentrated I feel a lot more on being outrageous in their morals ( they enjoyed the effect on society) than on the arts. There are not too many in the genius category.

Carolyn

I have never really known an artist. The closest I have come was a college room mate who was an architecture major and more recently a number of local artists who were associated with a program sponsored by the San Antonio Museum of Art when I was a Docent there between 1994 and 1998. Within the limited range of my contact with them they seemed pretty average people not too far removed other more ordinary people I have known. Several of these had achieved sufficient status to sell pictures in local galleries for as much as several thousand dollars. Apparently there were no Strickland’s in the lot.

In 1874 Paul Gauguin saw the first Impressionist exhibition, which completely entranced him and confirmed his desire to become a painter. He spent some 17,000 francs on works by Manet, Monet, Sisley, Pisarro, Renoir and Guillaumin. Pissarro took a special interest in his attempts at painting, emphasizing that he should 'look for the nature that suits your temperament', and in 1876 Gauguin had a landscape in the style of Pissarro accepted at the Salon. In the meantime Pissarro had introduced him to Cezanne.

In 1883-84 the bank that employed him got into difficulties and Gauguin was able to paint every day. He settled for a while in Rouen, partly because Paris was too expensive for a man with five children, partly because he thought it would be full of wealthy patrons who might buy his works. Rouen proved a disappointment, and he joined his wife Mette and children, who had gone back to Denmark, where she had been born. His experience in Denmark was not a happy one and, having returned to Paris, he went to paint in Pont-Aven, a well-known resort for artists.

The big difference between between Strickland and Gauguin was that Gauguin obviously had talent to have a painting accepted by the Salon. Where as Strickland was still in the learning stage. Gauguin also had the support of artists like Pissarro to help him. It seems to me that Gauguin didn't just up and leave his "day job". He was able to paint everyday because the bank had difficulties and so he had more time to paint, but by this time he also had sold several of his paintings. Strickland only sold his paintings out of desperation. Gauguin was not happy in Denmark, but "why" we can only guess at. Perhaps he was unhappy because there were no wealthy patrons who would buy his work.

To be interested and knowledgeable about art and artists is one thing, to experience the act of making art an entirely different one. It's a world in itself which belongs solely to the artist UNLESS he or she is painting for the market, the collectors in which case it become COMMERCIAL art, another thing entirely.

Years ago I did a couple of paintings that way and was roundly called to task for it by my then mentor, Dale Owen, a past director of Choinard Art School in Los Angeles .

Sales and contest winning are not the mark of genius.

Celebrities who paint have great sales because the signature is worth something, and many collectors buy famous art as investments.

I've sold privately and in at least one major show at a major gallery but it means nothing. Art is a private world belonging to the artist. There I've said it twice.

At one time when I became active on the internet I decided that I should get it out of the closet so that it could be seen and set up a web site. I also learned how to make computer art at that time. Geocities asked me to expand the content so there are other things there too because they rewarded my efforts with up to eighteen megs of memory. I still have some I haven't used but give space to others whose work pleases me, in particular Jan Sands poetry.

I hope I made the experience of MAKING art as I have done for a life time, understandable for those who like the creative aspects and appreciate the efforts but don't really understand what it is like to be an artist. . . . Claire

now to fix the typos. (g)

Genius

HA!! Better late than never?? Thank you, everyone for helping me. (I had a couple of extra spaces, I think, that were causing the trouble.)

Elouise: Re listening to the audio tape rather than reading the book....I had difficulty because of distractions. I listened as I was ddriving. It has not been a problem when listening to light books just simply for pleasure. But to be able to participate in a book club discussion, I need to pay more attention and need to be able to go back to something. The narration itself on the audio was not monotonous, although I did not care for the actor's voice. He did try to "act out" the book by changing his voice to create different characters.

My husband's family is filled with generations of artists. I think their talent was in the family genes and was inherited. Probably, also, the artistic environment was passed down. My mother-in-law's grandfather was Peter Newell, a children's book author and illustrator. My mother-in-law's mother married Howard McCormick, a book and magazine illustrator by trade and a painter out of love. They lived in an artists' colony in New Jersey. The art apparently skipped a generation, although I feel that my mother-in-law was an artist in the way she decorated her homes and created meals. My husband is not artistic at all - no interest, either. His brother is a film maker. And his sister is a children's book illustrator, extremely talented. She is deaf. I don't know if that helped her follow her dream. She was also greatly encouraged by her mother to become an artist. My sister-in-law married a painter. He is a very dominating - but usually in a pleasant way - he has a lot of charisma. My only child showed signs of artistic talent in elementary school art classes, but he has not been the slightest bit interested. We encouraged him with music lessons etc., but he just wasn't interested. Who know what it takes. Maybe, like Strickland, he will just decide one way to paint. If that happens, I hope he doesn't turn out like Strickland, the cad.

To me, once Strickland went through "the change," he became a totally despicable character with only one redeeming trait, his artistic genius. Some people fawned over him purely based on recognition of his talent. Some women loved him....were they masochists? It seems to me that he gave them nothing in return.

There are always some women around who feel comfortable being treated like dirt. It usually goes back to childhood. They lived with a neglectful or abusive father and feel comfortable being treated like that. Its something that repeats itself time and time again til someone breaks the cycle.

I have been thinking, thinking, and rethinking as to tell you about my acquaintance with Dali. I think it has nothing to do with Gaugin or Strickland, but he is an artist.

Another thing: I don't think there is any connection at all between IQ and artistic genius. I suspect that Beethoven's IQ was not high. With scientists there is a connection.

And I would like to differentiate between talent and genius.

Leonardo Da Vinci must have had a high IQ because he was both scientist and artist. He also drew many inventions which scientists have actually produced replicas of the drawings and they do work. That is not to say all artists have a High IQ.

Da Vinci was so BRILLIANT!! Last year (I think) I saw a wonderful exhibit of small illustrations by Da Vinci at The Metropolitan in NYC. I was surprised to see that he created a number of war machines and weapons for the Duke of Milan.

Marni

Hi Everyone...I have just re-read the first segment in order to attempt to contribute something about it, especially in reference to the questions, before we start to discuss the second.

I only got this far:

I just thought from the first that Maugham was the narrator. No reason. So I re-read pp. 12 and 13 and didn't see anything flash out at me but still I consider the writer to be the narrator. Would someone pls let me know what I missed in those pages which was the clue?

Scrawler, post #169, who and where is Ashenden? I'm bleary eyed now being in four discussions but I think it may have been you who named him as narrator.

Re: #2...I have not often enjoyed living under any "formal social rules" although now...at this ripe middlin' age I do finally admit the value of some of them. I do believe that civility gets one through many of life's social and even moreso, personal ups and downs. The rules in this book so far remind me of the 1950's, one of my least favorite periods for 'social rules' followed by the 1980's when Werner Erhard ruled the world via the 'yuppies' and everyone...at least most of the people I came in contact with...were well-entrenched into the 'me first/me only', me/my/mine stage of development!

Ah...Chapter VII...As I started to read that first page I felt instinctively that something was missing or vapid...some sort of 'non-interaction' happening in that family. Some lack of deep connection. I don't know if it was the wife's feelings about HER children but I also felt it when the narrator first started going to her home and they were looking at the children's photographs and discussing them.

In fact, during some of the postings when it seemed to me that Strickland was portrayed as dull and then cruel what I got was a woman whose life revolved around her children and her vicarious living amongst artists and I even sensed a kind of relief in her glowing remarks about her husband, that he stayed in the background and was simply a good and kind man.

I think this is when I started to relate these times to the fifties. First job...get the man to marry you...second job, have kids and devote your life to them. Third job...be a non-working housewife/homemaker and either be 'bored and trapped' or make your own life filled with activities that expressed your inner self. Fourth job...subtly let the world know that you adored your husband, no matter how dull he may be whilst this man was out working every day to keep up HER family...and I oftened wondered and do in reading this book, when did men find the time to express their 'inner selves'?

So yes, I did sense a lot in chapter seven that made me not surprised at all when the family broke up. I don't think, though, that I expected it to be in the very next chapter!!

Last two questions later...I'm even starting to bore myself now!!

Alliemae, Ashenden is a collection of stories about a British Agent and Maugham sometimes likes to use this character as a narrator in his novels. ASHENDEN

Like in Razor's Edge and Moon and Sixpence, Maugham is the narrator and it is strange for us readers to mentally associate an author of a novel having a major role in the story, because it is rarely done, but such is Maugham's style that we have become accustomed to it after reading some of his novels. I am a naïve reader and not very inclined to deep analysis unless I am forced to do it as in a discussion because it interferes with my imagination.

Don't be surprised with being bored by the first chapters, Maugham really expects his readers not to drop the book before the end, that comes from being extremely sure of himself, but starting when Strickland goes to Paris we immediately fall into the story where he demonstrates the true character of a future famous painter. Then Mrs. Strickland falls into oblivion.

There is much to see in further reading.

Marni, I too have many artists in my family, dancers, writers painters and they do have a passionate nature that is hard on their entourage sometimes because of their intense purpose in persuing their talent no matter if it is recognized or not. Some of them have multiple talents, a granddaughter is a good ballet dancer but she also excels academically in every subject. At 14 all she wants to do is continue doing what she is doing. Her mother is also very talented.

Éloïse

I think we can all safely assume that very few of us like Strickland on a personal level, but some of us can relate to him on an artistic level. People in real life become, in our minds, what we see them do. This can also be applied to "characters" in a book. But do we really know enough, at this point, to understand Strickland's actions. Do we have the right to judge Strickland. True he leaves his wife and family to further his quest, but what do we really know about his family or about his work as a stockbroker?

I guess what I'm trying to say is what is his motive for his actions? Motive is what gives moral value to a character's acts. What a character does, no matter how awful or how good, is never morally absolute. In real life we may never fully understand a person's motives, but in fiction "motive" goes to the heart of story. This is why people read fiction - to come to an understanding of why other people act the way they do. Maugham is, in my opinion, a great writer because he can take someone like Strickland and make the reader understand why he acts the way he does. A character is what he does, but more important a character is what he "means" to do.

In reading this book I kept looking for an instance when a character would address the narrator directly as “Mr Maugham” as they frequently did in Razor’s Edge. I never found such an instance of his direct address by name in this book, but I drew from the page long paragraph beginning on Page 12 and continuing on page 13 the conclusion that Maugham really intended we would recognize that it was he (the author) who was cast in the role of Narrator. More specifically from the following words at the end of the paragraph in Page 13:

>I will continue (as George Crabbe had done in the 18th century) to write moral stories in rhymed couplets. But ‘I’ should be thrice a fool if I did it for aught but my own entertainment.

The perceived tone of the pronoun ‘I’ in the above quotation seemed to me to support for the idea that Maugham intended that he had cast himself in the role of Narrator. Granted support for this interpretation is not conclusive and in retrospect, I now suppose a better and broader question would have been”

Do you believe W. Somerset Maugham’s decision to continue writing his novels in the old style will result in his work being forgotton by future readers as George Crabbe"s have been forgotton?

Thanks for trying to explain about Maugham and Crabbe. I think I either don't retain all that I read or pass over some of it. At any rate, I just didn't get the reference/comparison re: Crabbe but with practice may become a more critical reader. So far, I just like plots and read the story...

Hi...thought I had responded to your post but don't see my response. Want to thank you for helping me clear up 'my' mystery about Ashenden. Checked out the link looks like I may have more to read...very interesting!

Re: "There is much to see in further reading."

I'll take your word and press on! Stiff upper lip and all that!

But I started reading again this morning and to tell you the truth I've been in an atrocious mood...even after my first coffee! But, I'm going to give it another try. Thanks again, Eloise...

In "Of Human Bondage", Maugham discused the interplay between life and art and in "The Moon and Sixpense" he does the same. According to Anthony Curtis In "British Writers", speaking of "The Moon and Sixpence": "More than any other work of art it has spread the myth of the artist as someone who ruthlessly severs all human claims and emotional ties to be able to follow the dictates of his genius with single-minded commitment."

When the novel first appeared (1919), most people rejected the character Charles Strickland as being too much of a monster to be credible while at the same time they praised Maughn's narrative technique. I think we can safely say that we can still see Charles Strickland as being too much of a "monster" to be credible and yet there is a grain of truth to the statement as far as his social morals are concerned. Even today most of society can't accept a man or woman who abandon their families in order to support their creative talents. Although I think in today's world Mrs. Strickland would have had an easier time caring for herself and her children.

But was Charles Strickland really a monster? After all he was following his dream and don't we encourage our children to follow their dreams. Perhaps what we should encourage our childrent to do is to follow their dreams, but do so with responsibility. Than again if Strickland's attitude towards one and all had been a little different we could accept his actions or at the very lest abide by them. Therefore, we can conclude that it is not the person as such that we dislike, but rather his attitude toward not only to his own life, but to the lives of others that upset us.

Well put Scrawler! I agree wholeheartedly and would like to comment that artists are not the only human beings who abandon family to pursue their own ends. It is one thing I have never been able to understand the severing of the relationship by choice from their children by a parent.

Carolyn

Well, I vote for Strickland as being morally reprehensible. The reason is is disregard for practically all other human beings. He doesn't care a flip for his wife, doesn't care about his children - and he states this baldly. When he moves in with his common law wife, he assures her he will beat her. Now I have respect for his artistry as described by Maugham, but by every one of MY measures for a successful human being Strickland fails. If you treat everyone like they are dirt under your feet, you just don't get my vote as a successful human being - successful artist, maybe, but not successful man.

The only time Strickland shows any humanity at all is when he becomes infected with Leprosy. If he had remained healthy I believe his common law wife would not have rated any more than any other woman who had been in his life.

Carolyn

Scrawler, Do you think that people always have a motive when they do something? Interesting, because I thought that at least one time out of ten people just act on the spur of the moment according to an impulse. When Charles S. started to take painting lessons he didn’t tell his wife about it, most likely because he knew that she would have laughed at his embryonic efforts, being the woman she was, entertaining well known writers instead of obscure artists waiting for recognition. She liked to associate with people who had made it in life, but would she have been proud of showing her husband’s painting to her guests, I wonder?

Doesn’t Maugham depict his characters in the worse possible light though. His protagonist is often dull like Strickland at the beginning, but certainly not at the end. His Razor’s Edge Larry Darrell was also kind of ‘dull’ at first, his female characters are never beautiful, barely attractive. Maugham seldom has enthusiasm for anything, that is not his style of writing and we wonder why his readers keep reading his books. There is something about the plot that is true to life. I keep thinking of something he wrote on page 39, ”I had not yet learnt how contradictory is human nature; I did not know how much pose there is in he sincere, how much baseness in the noble, or how much goodness in the reprobate.”

There is beauty in balance.

Yes Horselover: “As for Mrs. Strickland, she played the part of corporate wife”

Scamper: I don’t think Maugham intended for us to like Strickland and unlike other novelists who take pains to make their main character likable, not Maugham, he takes pains to describe their worse side first, then he builds us his characters to finally, in spite of how he describes them, we find excuses for their bad behavior, if you know what I mean. True, he was a ”successful artist, maybe, but not successful man. “but even then, Strickland, like Gauguin, becomes a famous much loved painter, who made a tremendous impact in the world of art.

Éloïse

Maugham seldom has enthusiasm for anything, that is not his style of writing and we wonder why his readers keep reading his books. There is something about the plot that is true to life. I keep thinking of something he wrote on page 39,

Here again Eloise has raised a central question relative to W.Somerset Mangham’s future permanence in English literature. This has been a reoccurring question coming to my mind after my recent reading Razors Edge and Sixpence. A hundred years from now will his novels still be read as Scott’s, Mary Shelley’s and others or will they have disappeared from public view as has those of George Crabbe and a great host of other writers who enjoyed great popularity in their life time but are forgotten now.? I cannot help but note that Maugham is much less known today just 40 years after his death. If any you know college age people you might ask them if they know of him?

I think all of our actions can relate back to "Motive." Ask yourself why you are sitting typing at your computer, I bet you'll find a "motive" behind your action. I don't think there is anything like a spur of the moment. Whether you realize it or not your subconscious has been working on trying to relay a message through your brain to get you to act on something. Being human, however, sometimes a brick wall has to fall on us before we react.

In writing, an author exaggerates everything in order to make his point. Characters are not real, but they reflect real human action and thought. If I met any of Maugham's characters, except for Larry Duvall in "Razor's Edge", I doubt that I would go out of my way to encourage a relationship with them. But they're not real and so I am able to analyze them so I can understand real relationships with my fellow human beings.

Its a tribute to Maugham that he gets such a reaction from us regarding his characters. He does draw them very well!

Carolyn

"Did Mrs Strickland’s rather successful adaptation to the realities of life as an early 20th century single mother on her own surprise you?"

That happens all the time today, if not then. No, that does not surprise me of Mrs. Strickland, but her trying to avoid mentioning to her old acquaintances her new situation of being a poor, working, single mother, to me does not ring true to life. A poor single mother - I say poor because she now lives in a two-room flat - cannot entertain her old social circle anymore. Ask any single working mother, she doesn't have the time, the money and the energy to be a social butterfly any more because all her energy goes towards earning a living.

She soon would come to realize that what motivates high society does not match her new reality. Working all day at editing and at the same time looking for new customers is tiring for a 40 something woman. When a woman unexpectedly becomes single, her whole life tumbles. The friends the couple used to entertain have vanished in thin air and a new set of friends, a new job, a new house, new challenges immediately materialize that need her immediate attention. No wonder she looked older to the narrator, poor Mrs. Strickland, but adapt she did as most women do. Before Charles left her, she showed her capabilities because she was a gracious and sociable woman, now that she is alone, those qualities stook her in good stead to start a business.

There is no shame in that today, but then, yes I guess.

I think society has a lot to do with how one feels about single mothers. There are still classes of our society today that place a stigma on being a single mother. In Mrs. Strickland's time this stigma was even more so. The same would be true of working moms.

Mrs. Strickland's attitude toward her predicament was very interesting. Her willingness to accept Strickland back at any cost was typical of her class in the time period that the novel took place. She would have been more acceptable of her husband's return if he had run off with another woman. The fact that her husband had run off because of a single-minded artistic quest was as if he had an incurable disease - it was unbelievable.

Re: "...Maugham's (or at least the narrator's) lack of sympathy towards her [Mrs. Strickland]..."

I felt this, too, that the narrator lacked sympathy for Mrs. Strickland, Of course, she is not asking for sympathy. What a shocking upheaval for her in her lifestyle when her stockbroker husband/supporter up and left her and children to fend for themselves. He didn't provide for her to continue in the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed. And this was not a time when it was easy for women to trot out and get a good-paying job. Mrs. Strickland ended up in one of probably very few fields available for most women at that time - typing. Reminds me of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie when mom Amanda Wingfield was trying to get her daughter, Laura, out into a typing career and meet Mr. Right. Mrs. Strickland didn't just type, though; she turned it into a business and had people working for her. Admirable.

Five years after being abandoned by her husband, the Narrator (Maugham) finds Mrs Strickland a successful businesswoman employing four typists and with a reputation of accuracy. She was making money dining with a KC (probable Knights Commander), her son was at Cambridge, and her daughter was a popular debutant

But the Narrator having reported her positive achievements goes on to note observed negative factors that he takes as character changes. These include the fact that she was thinner and more lined, she could not get over the idea that to earn a living was somehow undignified, she was inclined to remind you that by birth she was a Lady, and she would never allow her daughter to go on the stage where she would meet all kinds of people.

Though the Narrator considers these character changes and I suppose the mentioning of these negatives are the grounds for the conclusions expressed here that the Narrator is unsympathetic to Mrs Strickland, I don’t see these as changes at all since the physical marks of aging are the results of the passage of time, and these beliefs were firmly set in her mind since her adolescence and were no way brought on by her forced induction into business.

Though today we might expect a successful woman similarly forced to return the labor force to be proud of her success, it simply was not in Mrs Strickland’s make-up to be able to do so. The Narrator as an honest reporter of the story to us his reader had no choice but to tell us the facts as he saw them both positive and negative. I don’t see honest reporting of the negatives as an indication of being un-sympathetic any more than reporting of the positives were indications of sympathy. I guess though the Narrator’s styling of the negative changes as “character changes” does suggest at least an unsympathetic bias.

I would have to agree with you, Harold. I don't think it was in Mrs. Strickland's nature to be happy about working even though she had made a success of it.

The thing that struck me as if I had been hit with a 2 x 4 was the scene where the narrator asks Mr. Strickland about not taking care of his wife and family and implies that Mrs. Strickland would have to go to work to support her family. Mr. Strickland says: "... It's about time that she did."

When I first read those lines it was the 1950s and it was almost unheard of for our mothers to be working. My mom was the exception. I remember at the time that it was strangely exciting to say that my mother worked because it showed that "we" were somehow different at a time when to be different struck a negative chord. My mother was not happy with me when she found out I had told everyone that she worked. And like Mrs. Strickland, she didn't want it for her daughters. Fortunately for me the 60s were just around the corner.

From Artcyclopedia, we have the POST IMPRESSIONISM MOVEMENT.

The painter Henri de Toulouse Lautrec has always fascinated me, Le Moulin Rouge, Aristide Bruant, Le Lit that I don't remember seeing before where he paints white sheets in many colors.

I always wondered why he also became so famous.

In this link we can read a Jungian concept of ISFP (Introverted Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving

PERSONALITY OF AN ARTIST

Trying to understand Strickland's behavior I want to dig further into artist's personality because they seem to often go against the current of the society they live in. Why are there not many great artist who were good businessman, does it mean that an artist's mind is wired differently? When I see a whole family of artists, they all seem to fall into the same category, they are original, unconventional, not very rich, even poor, loners, yet they appear to be content in their world.

They live apart from the society they live in even within their own family. An artist's wife is often the one managing the family's finances even the one selling her husband's artwork. It is not in an artists nature to work at making other people rich.

They refuse direction, hate to be disturbed while they are in their bubble of inspiration. Creativity is a drug and Strickland was addicted to painting, other human beings were only in the way and he enjoyed nothing more than to be alone, madly painting the picture he saw in his mind.

Women were used when he needed them like a bit of food now and then. Comfort unnecessary, even harmful to his inspiration. I am sure that an artist such as described by Maugham cannot have just become an artist in his late forties, that drug was there hidden perhaps in his subconscious since he was a child and only when he took a brush in his hand did he discover that it was the thing that he had been missing all his life and even he didn't know about it.

Fascinating the lives of great painters.

Éloïse

Workoholics have the same obsessive traits Eloise. They don't really work for the money most of the time but because they have to. I was married to one! He was not into money making schemes but he had to have projects and if he was in the middle of doing something on one of his projects would not come for meals and would work on his project til midnight if I had let him. Its something that drives people from within and they are usually creative people not necessarily working within the art genre.

Carolyn

Re: "...does it mean that an artist's mind is wired differently..."?

Aren't many of them actually "wired" differently? Aren't many artists left-handed? I don't know much about this, but doesn't this mean that the right side of their brain is dominant unlike the majority of people who are left-side dominant?

Marni

Re Question 5 "What was Stroeve’s opinion of Strickland as an Artist and a man? What was Mrs Stroeve’s opinion of him. What Great service did Stroeve do for Strickland and how was he repaid?"

Stroeve was a man who from the onset recognized Strickland's genius. Strickland's character flaws were not as important to Stroeve as the artistic genius. Stroeve took Strickland in when he was starving and sick and had nothing - even when Mrs. Stroeve begged him not to repeatedly.

I think it was quite evident that she had a passion for Strickland and knew she was in big trouble if he were to stay in their home. She pleaded with her husband not to allow it. But, her husband didn't understand it. His primary concern was to save the genius. I expected the kind of trouble that arose. Mrs. Strickland couldn't control her passion and Strickland simply took advantage, the cad (again.) Strickland was simply a taker. To him, art was all. Stroeve got what he deserved in this situation with his wife, the dolt.

Marni

Personally I think Stroeve was better off without his wife. She never loved him, he was just a way out of a bad situation and if it had not been Strickland it would eventually have been someone else. We don't have to give in to all our impulses after all. Stroeve was a compassionate human being and like many of his kind was sorely used.

Carolyn

PS have you noticed that many of Maughams characters are driven by obsession. Think of "of Human Bondage". The main character is obsessed by his passion for a woman to the point of insanity.

Carolyn

I think too that from their first introduction to us readers, the Dirk Stroeve-Blanch relationship meant much more to Dirk than to Blanch although initially we did not get the details of how they met and came together as a couple. When Strickland came into the picture ostensibly Blanch seemed much opposed to Dirk's plan to bring the seriously ill Strickland to their apartment. She repeatedly professed to hate him! Yet somehow after rereading some of the dialog, I too might agree that Blanche's opposition might have resulted from the fact that she was fed up with Dirk and knew she would be vulnerable to Strickland if he was around.

Dirk Stroeve himself, was only a mediocre artist, but he seems to have had great ability in judging other artists art. As has already been mention he was the one who was quick to recognize merit in Strickland’s work. I liked his definitions of great art in Chapter XIX near the Bottom of Page 72. Perhaps he is the one who should have become the stockbroker? With a good income he could have become an art collector and become rich. Or he might have become famous as an art critic.

And Kiwi Lady: Is Tahiti easily accessible to the people of New Zeeland for vacation and recreation?

Yes Harold Tahiti is quite a popular holiday resort for Kiwis and Ozzies. My mum used to go there. Its more expensive than many of the other destinations down here. Fiji and Bali are the favorites these days. However there is political unrest in Fiji so we have been given a travel advisory not to go unless urgent business.

carolyn

Marni, I think you have a valid point. Artists seem to be wired differently, as they "see" in a different way from most people. I've had people tell me they never noticed something that I found either beautiful or fascinating enough that I felt compelled to paint it. However, being compelled doesn't always mean genius or successful artist. There are many more of us Stroeves than Gaugauins.

There are as many differences between Strickland ang Gauguin as there are similarities. The main difference is that Strickland is an Englishman, and what he escapes from is the genteel world of the near-rich in fashionable London, a world manipulated, in his opinion, by women and centered on the tea party, the dinner party, and the drawing room. Maugham had acquired a great distste for this world, which he had frequented when he went to London. His rudeness at social functions became legendary and increased with his age and celebrity, although on home ground among his friends he could be a most charming host. Therefore, "Moon and Sixpence" should be read as a social satire as we all as an apologia for artistic selfishness and intolerance.

Scrawler, I too see considerable difference between the fictional Strickland and the historical Gauguin based on my reading of the Dannielsson biography, “Gauguin in the South Seas” and Gauguin’s own autobiographical “Noa Noa.” Though the Danielsson biography centers on Gauguin in Tahiti, it gives considerable information on his earlier career after he decided to become an artist particularly about Gauguin’s planning for the move to Tahiti, a process that took several years to complete.

“Noa Noa” is a fascinating autobiographical account of Gauguin’s first visit to Tahiti. It concludes with his departure returning to Europe concluding his first South Seas sojourn. I purchased my undated 148 page, large font edition published by the Greenberg Press, New York at a local used book store in the 1970’s. The first part of the text is his account of his experience and interface with the people both European and native Including his liaisons with native women, first a Europeanized Papeete urban woman after which he moved to a rural pristine village across the Island on the south coast where he married the 13 year old Tehura. The second part of the text is Gauguan’s account of native customs and anthropology with the last several pages telling of his departure for his last brief return to Europe. Click Here for a paper back in-print edition now available from B&N

Based on my reading of these books I agree that there is considerable likeness when comparing Gauguin and Strickland as artist so long as you don’t go deeper than noting that both were stockbrokers who rather late in life decided they wanted to be artists and from that point on pursued a singular course that in their judgment best promoted the achievement of their goal. Pursuant to their dreams both after some limited success and much failure died young, but afterwards both in their realm (Strickland fictionally, Gauguin historically) became famous artists.

I think though when comparing the two lives as individual human beings (rather than artists) Gauguin emerges as a far better person than Strickland who to me is really a loathsome person. I think even Maugham as Narrator maintained this view though in the end he seemed more inclined than I to make allowance and exception because of his great creative success. But Gauguin would never have said as Strickland did of his children, “They can Go to Hell.” In contrast Gauguin made a trip to Copenhagen to visit them before departing for Tahiti. Also Gauguin did not just run away and disappear as Strickland did. His separation from his family was more a planned move with the wife and children moving to her family home in Denmark for economic reasons. Gauguin’s justified his liaisons with the 13 year old native as the custom of the country and that age 13 was the equivalent of 18 or 19 in Europe, a defense not likely to find much acceptance in the US today. Yet for me Garguin as a man emerges in my mind as a much better person than Strickland.

"They would grow old insensibly; they would see their son and daughter come to years of reason, marry in due course--the one a pretty girl, future mother of healthy children; the other a handsome, manly fellow, obviously a soldier; and at last, prosperous in their dignified retirement, beloved by their descendants, after a happy, not unuseful life, in the fullness of their age they would sink into the grave."

With this short paragraph, the lives of ordinary people are dismissed as having little value. Yet,in fact,as we see in this story, the artist as well as his public eventually sink into the grave. Is the artist more valuable to society than those who pursue other careers? Does the world need more compassionate people like Dirk Stroeve or more artists like Strickland? What is it that the artist's vision gives to the rest of the population that could give his life a heightened value?

When I first read about the Stroeve's it never occurred to me that the wife was 'protesting too much' but rather that Dirk had a crush on Strickland. Not the same sex crush of the homosexual but of the exuberant, needy, eternal adolescent thinking if you can't be like your hero you can adore him, forgiving him everything and anything.

Some things that confuse me:

1) The narrator and Strickland's relationship as it has developed thus far.

2) Why Strickland is even more hateful to Dirk Stroeve than to anyone else so far, including his wife whom he left so secretively and abruptly. Stroeve certainly seems to bring out more passionate response in Strickland than his own ex-family. Ex:

"Strikland employed not the rapier of sarcasm but the bludgeon of invective."

3) Writer as narrator...the total dichotomy of the narrator's character and the ability of the writer to be 'all of the book".

I'm gutted!

Hard as I tried to go on reading into next week's chapters to possibly shed some light on what has happened, I couldn't--I am in shock I think. I don't begin to grasp this turn of events--my head rejects it...not intellectually or even emotionally...but like a body rejects foreign tissue in a transplant--no thought or judgement involved--merely rejection...

I think I like this book. I know I like this writer.

Re: "Why Strickland is even more hateful to Dirk Stroeve than to anyone else so far..."

It seems to me at this point that the more someone is good to Strickland, the more Strickland despises that person. And Stroeve is portrayed by the narrator as quite a pathetic creature despite his unique talent for recognizing artistic genius. Strickland treats him with utter contempt. But then, who wouldn't feel contempt towards someone who basically hands wife and home over to a despicable cad?

I think Stricklands attitude is personality as much as artistic temperament. I have observed men and women who treat others like dirt even more so if the person they are abusing is self effacing and meek. They do not get satisfaction from anyone who fights back or discards them. They are emotional sadists. Some women seem to be attracted to this sort of man. In the same way some men are attracted to abusive women. Its a sort of sickness in the one who is being abused.

Carolyn

"It seems to me at this point that the more someone is good to Strickland, the more Strickland despises that person." At heart, do you sense that Strickland hates himself. For all sorts of reasons - for having left his wife and children to paint, for one - something he does not feel that he is doing well enough to justify his pursuit. Never happy with his work, when he hears from Stroeve that he is this magnificent genius, he looks down on his judgment - and on the fawning Stroeve. Perhaps when he is cruel to Stroeve, he is really being cruel to himself - a form of self-flaggelation because he knows he is the most despicable of all. The very fact that he doesn't want help from anyone, even when he's dying is proof that he has very low self-esteem.

The relationship between the narrator and Strickland - yes, I'd like to talk more about that. What attracts the narrator (Maugham?) to the likes of Strickland - and why does Strickland so readily accept the narrator's answers to his objections. He likes it when the narrator shows him no pity, doesn't he?

Alliemae, I feel sorry for Blanche, remembering how she used to compliment Stroeve about his pretty pictures. Even Stroeve knew they weren't good - art. What will happen when she does the same with Strickland's? He can't stand positive compliments - doesn't believe them, or doesn't believe the person making them is sincere. I see heartache ahead for Blanche. The question is - will Stroeve be there to catch her when she falls?

Marni, you spoke of left handedness in artists, Leonardo DaVinci, Holbein, Dürer, Cecil Beaton, Raphael, Rambrandt and Michaelangelo, who was embidextrous, were all left handed. I was surprised, good point.

In Human Bondage Carolyn, Philip was also obsessed by a woman not very pretty and not terribly bright. It is a theme that often is at the center of Maugham’s novels.

Gosset, I often go to art exhibits and when I see the price people ask for their work I really am astounded, to the artist it certainly is worth the price, but I find that some paintings could easily have been done by a small child left to paint a canvas according to his whim. The only difference is that Strickland didn’t seem to appreciate his own work as he didn’t feel the need to exhibit it and only Stroeve saw the genius in him.

That only Stroeve could sense this in man’s work, I find this a little far fetched. Naturally Strickland didn’t show it to enough people to really get to know if it was worth anything at all, and he couldn’t care less but Maugham went a little too far here.

Joan P. I agree with you that Charles S. was somewhat deranged, his lack of social skills, his inability to fight illness to the point of letting himself die and his total disregard for anybody else are only a few of the symptoms of depression. Today he would be under treatment and medication for this, but then, a person who acted like him was simply odious. He was not only physically sick but also mentally and perhaps his art needed that dimension, I don’t know.

I find that a man who functions properly as a stockbroker, who needs to excel in the skills of salesmanship, cannot suddenly, at the drop of a hat become like Strickland. Maugham couldn’t have known a stockbroker’s personality very much it seems to me because they are anything but like what Strickland became.

Éloïse

Marni, Carolyn, Joan, Eloise...thanks for shedding some light with your opinions.

Those opinions also seem to clear up just a little my question about the relationship between the narrator and Strickland...look at the difference in their relationship five years after their first meeting!

Eloise, yes...depression...and untreated...

Eloise, re: Strickland as a stockbroker...I once worked in an organization, actually a non-profit, church supported organization where the second in command, in charge of finance was a very 'properly' dressed, mild mannered, personable, church going with the family, gentleman who, in his time off played in a hard rock (as in Alice Cooper) band wearing a Pecos Bill teeshirt which said, "Shoot 'em all--let God sort 'em out!" He was also, even in his daily business life a rather covert misogynist and yet had the ear of all the men in the company and the sympathies and loyalty of all the women...and a wonderful wife and children.

...one never knows, does one...

Joan, I can't feel any sympathy for Blanche just yet...maybe later. Right now I'm just angry at her foolishness and don't know if that's because of the reasons she may have had for marrying Dirk or her 'falling' for Strickland.

Interesting concept this 'FALLING' in love...'FALLING' kind of says it all...

Alliemae

WOW...I love this writer and I like very much the way the story has been developing. I think I get along better with short novels than long ones although I keep having the nagging feeling that there is still much left unsaid both in the characters of the characters and their motivations and will be interested in knowing if by the end of the book I'll feel this resolved.

On the other side of this coin: every time I attempt to read it at any length I come out feeling as if either my 'Chi' is out of whack or else I have indigestion. So I am off to make a cup of chamomile tea.

Oh, the things I do for love!!

I did not get the impression that Strickland was depressed. To me, he just seemed driven, obsessed with his newly-found art. It became his all. No matter what was happening around him, he had the intense need to paint and paint and paint. Periodically, he'd heed natures calls for food, sex, even a bit of conversation. But, he was so obsessed with painting, he didn't even take the time to take care of himself - he let himself get sick even to near death. He didn't work at earning money - didn't care about money except for a means to buy art supplies - didn't even sell his paintings, if I recall correctly. He asked (begged) acquaintances such as the narrator for money without hesitation - and he expected to get it. He took what was given, such as the room at Stroeve's. Strickland was a driven man.

Eloise yes obsession is correct. I did mention that obsession features in Maughams work a lot. Sometimes I think he painted men as the victims more than women in his novels although this novel is a real turn around from others I have read.

carolyn

Does the author convince us that Strickland is a real man and a real artist that we can absorb his traits as part of human beings who live eternally by their work? As I have said in a previous post, authors tend to exaggerate to bring home a point. I personally have never met a creative person that was so callous as Strickland, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist.

We are repelled, not by Strickland's monosyllabic callousness, but by the knowledge that this callousness is seen. But why did the author protray such callousness in his main character? I think it is important to understand this callousness in Strickland. Strickland's callousness represents the conventional brutality used by other novelists of an older generation, the generation which first found in the behavior of artists a theme to be exploited in fiction.

In my last post I said that Maugham's novels were a social satire. In a sense Maugham is also using the callousness of Strickland as a satire of the novelists of an older generation. The difference between earlier novelists and Maugham is that this author uses modern technique to create an illusion of reality.

Perhaps now we can better understand why Maugham created Strickland not like an artist who will starve and suffer for the sake of his artistic ideal, but who in the eyes of the readers also an unlikable human being not only to himself, but to the other persons he encounters.

Scrawler, I'm glad you mentioned the following:

"Does the author convince us that Strickland is a real man and a real artist..."

I have been wondering about this since the first couple of pages. I thought that this was meant to be a fictional book about an artist, modeled on the life of Gauguin. But then I saw the citations at the bottom of the page and looked up Strickland online and there was an artist named Strickland. Not only that but there was that citation on his son's writing about him. I was confused but thought it would reveal itself in the end. I am still confused...

I would not have been surprised had the fictional, Moon and a Sixpence Charles Strickland acquired a web life of a sort with a “Charles Strickland” home page created/(forged) by some Moon and a Sixpence enthusiast. That appears not to be the case. My Google search for Charles Strickland found many real people named Charles Strickland with web wages but the only hits to our fictional character was indirect through Moon and a Sixpence sites. None were represented as beiing our character with a Charles Strickland Home page. On the first search page I think there was only one hit on a Moon and a Sixpence site; all the rest were real people with the same name. But on the second through fifth result pages I thank there was about as many Moon and A Sixpence hits as hits on real people.

I agree that that the Strickland character’s dedication to his art was compulsive to the extent of being mental illness. I suspect that today psychiatrists have a name for the condition and probably a drug treatment protocol to control it.

Maugham was the highest paid author in the world in the 1930s. But despite his popularity, Maugham did not gain serious recognition. This was expressed in his autobiography "The Summing Up" (1938), that he stood 'in the very first row of the secondraters'. Maugham's skill in handling plot has been compared by critics in the manner of Guy de Maupassant. In many novels the surroundings are international and these stories are told in clear, economical style with cynical or resigned undertone. Here's what Maugham said about his work:

"I have never pretended to be anything but a story teller. It has amused me to tell stories and I have told a great many. It is a misfortune for me that the telling of a story just for the sake of the story is not an activity that is in favor with the intelligentsia. I endeavor to bear my misfortunes with fortitude." (from "Creatures of Circumstance, 1947)

I would have to agree with Maugham that the first and formost occupation of any author is to be a story teller. And perhaps as we discuss this novel, we should keep this thought in mind, that even at the end we might neither be satisfied with the story nor understand it fully, but so far it has given us please and I, for one, think it has been time will spent. To me reading any story is like meandering down a long path where I met or observe characters going about their daily lives. And depending on the story its just a nice way to spend an afternoon.

I think Maughams greatest gift was his ability to engage the reader with the characters. Whether we just hate or whether we sympathise with a character he gets us really involved with those characters.

Carolyn

Harold, yes, I see what you mean about the search. I went back and I suppose I thought I saw what I wanted to see.

I'm not familiar with the 'rules' of the novel and when I saw the citations at the bottom (in my ppb edition) of the pages by Leggatt, Edward; Hugo Weitbrecht-Rotholz; Robert Strickland (says it is Strickland's preacher son), I thought they had to be real. I didn't know that a narrator could invent citations as well as the story.

I never learned to dissect a work of fiction. I remember vaguely (I guess from high school) words like 'main character or hero/heroine' or 'protagonist' or 'antagonist' but don't really know all the parts of the novel. If any of you can suggest a book that would familiarize me with those basic points I would appreciate it.

Right now, I'm just wondering when the character, commonly known as the narrator is going to find a life of his own instead of being liason between people he is not particularly close to and their significant others. I have a feeling this might come through in the chapters I am reading now and I'm wondering, did the narrator have to go, as a character in his own right, to these other people in order to 'see' so he could fully narrate the tale? Or does the narrator by nature of her/his position have the right to 'see all' anyway?

I seem to be liking the book a lot better now (after a few days boycott!!)...(smiling)

A little while back I wondered about the relationship between the narrator and Strickland.

After Blanche left Stroeve and during that time and even when she was dying, I noticed a coldness in the narrator that was like Strickland in a way and I wonder if they got along better than Strickland seemed to with other people because they had some similar character traits except that Strickland's were to the extreme and not in a good way.

Does anyone else sense a similarity between these two?

Alliemae, you raise some very deep questions about writing novels and characterizations. Perhaps I can say that authors don't follow rules and write their story their own personal as Maugham did. He put himself at the center of the novel in the three I read so far. Razor’s Edge, Of Human Bondage and The Moon and Sixpence and except for Human Bondage, he was the narrator.

Do you all feel that his characters are believable? Do you ever actually know anyone like Stroeve? like Blanche? Like Strickland? Scrawler said that novelists often exaggerate situations in describing their characters, but because we only see a short time period in their lives, the author will automatically describe their worse side, for instance Blanche could not have been as passive as he describes her, Stroeve not as lovey dovey, Strickland not as obtuse, then why does he dwell on that? What is he trying to convey?

Éloïse

-- let me quickly add that I am no way an experienced interpreter of fiction. All of my Book discussion over the past seven years has been non-fiction mostly related to history. My first fiction project was Maugham’s Razor’s Edge and I got involve after Eloise suggested it. “The Moon and A Sixpence” followed. I admit I am enjoying the experience that is certainly different from non-fiction, but emphatically I too am an amateur when it comes to dissecting a work of fiction.

In regard to the role of the narrator mentioned in the penultimate paragraph of your message # 252, he appears typical as a story telling tool used by Maugham. This was certainly his style in Razors Edge in which He assigned the part to himself appearing as “Mr Maugham” as the narrator telling the story. Of course in that capacity he was just as fictional as the other characters. As I remember Maugham also used a similar narrator to tell this story in “Cake and Ale” and “Of Human Bondage” that I read years ago.

Sometimes I think this writing style makes the narrator appear as a nosey gossip pursuing information on people he hardly knows and often relying on fortuitous chance (unlikely/improbable) meetings to get the information necessary to tell the story. The Narrator appears in Maugham’s stories like the “Chorus” appears in a Greek tragedy and though Maugham’s Narrator as a mortal lacking the divine insight of a Greek Chorus must rely on human sources for his story, the story that emerges is always interesting and easily understandable making them interesting reading for novices like me.

Alliemae:There are thousands of books that you can buy that will help explain the Ins and Outs of writing fiction. I happen to like the following:

"The Writer's Digest Handbook of Novel Writing" Publisher: Writer's Digest Books, Copyright @ 1992

"Characters & Viewpoint" Orson Scott Card Publisher: Writer's Digest Books, Copyright @ 1988

"Theme & Strategy" Ronald B. Tobias Publisher: Writer's Digest Books, Copyright @ 1989

"Plot" Ansen Dibell Publisher: Writer's Digest Books, Copyright @ 1988

"Steering the Craft" Ursula K. Le Guin, Publisher: The Eighth Mountain Press, Copyright @ 1998

"On Writing" Stephen King, Publisher: Scribner, Copyright @ 2000

"The Art & Craft of the Short Story" Rick DeMarinis, Publisher: Story Press, Copyright & 2000

As I was reading Moon and Sixpence and as I'm in the "The Story of Civilization" discussion group I started thinking if by Maugham having Strickland go to foreign lands like Tahiti, he wasn't in a sense rejecting Western civilization. Why do you supose Maugham set most of his novels in foreign lands. What was he seeking in other lands that he couldn't find in England?

First of all, Scrawler, I just realized that something you wrote in post #250 was one of the reasons I was able to get myself back into reading this book when you said:

"To me reading any story is like meandering down a long path where I met or observe characters going about their daily lives. And depending on the story its just a nice way to spend an afternoon."

Suddenly it sounded like pleasure again...not a mad rush to 'understand' everything...first and foremost just enjoy the book!.

I also want to thank you Scrawler (#256), for the book list about 'the novel'...I will check through some of them and see which 'fits' for me. I really appreciated getting that list also because to me it meant if books have been written about this subject I'm not the only one who didn't know...

Eloise and Harold...how helpful you both were.

Eloise (#254), you may be be surprised to hear that I intend to read some more of Maugham's work. I do like the way he uses characters.

Harold (#255), you said "Sometimes I think this writing style makes the narrator appear as a nosey gossip pursuing information on people he hardly knows..." well that would certainly answered my question about Mr. Maugham!!

Again you were all very helpful and supportive and I thank you all.

Alliemae

Eloise, you asked us all some questions about the characters. First of all, I never saw Blanche as really passive "...for instance Blanche could not have been as passive as he describes her..."

Although I didn't know the exact reason for their marriage when Blanche was introduced she always seemed to me rather as a woman who for some painful, unsettling or negative incident in her past was 'feathering her nest' when she let Dirk marry her. Now I can see why she was more comfortable playing it safe with Dirk. But I never found her as passive as described.

I have seen many Dirks. They are frequently people who have to be right, controlling types, but since they feel that people think (or they themselves think) that they are losers, they create situations in which their behavior invites treatment such as from Strickland and Blanche...and the end result is that they are 'right'!

I have never encountered anyone quite like Strickland but milder versions are everywhere, with similar character traits either real, or desired but not given into.

What I am wondering is how many of the characters that Maugham creates are like people he knew and is either trying to figure them out or still venting about.

I also noticed that each of these characters plays a 'game' in the 'Games People Play' sense, some of these games we all play at one time of our lives or another, and I think our feelings about the games we see in these characters measure how aware we are of these 'games' in our own relationships and how well we have resolved or come to terms with them.

I agree with you Alliemae, passive should rather be ‘indifferent’.

Something that strikes me about the way Maugham describes women. At the beginning of chapter XXX the narrator says: ”what I had taken for love was no more than the feminine response to caresses and comfort which in the minds of most women passes for it. It is a passive feeling capable of being roused for any object, as the vine can grow on any tree Do you think that the Narrator really knows how a woman feels? Do women love differently than men? How do you feel about that, was he right? Underlining mine

I can understand that Blanche didn’t love her husband passionately, he rather was a cuddly teddy bear and when Strickland appeared with his electric personality at first she felt compassion for his helplessness, like a mother for a sick unruly child, then she recognized his talent as a painter that he must have demonstrated, but we don’t know that, we only know how Stroeve felt when he learnt that his beloved wife had fallen head over heels in love for the “heel”. Blanche had often heard Stroeve mention the painter’s genius and down deep she knew she was vulnerable to it but tried desperately to tell Stroeve not to bring him to his studio.

Again about women’s love: ”It is an emotion made up of the satisfaction in security, pride of property, the pleasure of being desired, the gratification of a household, and it is only by an amiable vanity that women ascribe to its spiritual value. It is an emotion which is defenseless against passion.” Here again the Narrator reveals what he thinks about women. Could Blanche actually have only felt gratitude for Stroeve because he might have taken her out of a miserable existence in giving her security? The Narrator mentions that she didn’t love Stroeve but was grateful to him, in fact she was only thanking him for his generosity. Underlining mine

I am wondering if men really know what moves women emotionally.

Re: "I am wondering if men really know what moves women emotionally."

I'm not even sure if I, as a woman, could describe what love is to women. What a difficult thing to describe. And there are such different kinds of love. Perhaps Maugham asked women friends to describe what love was to them, or perhaps his own personal experience with women led him to describe it the way he did. "...it is only by an amiable vanity that women ascribe to its spiritual value..." I think this is beyond me.

"...It is an emotion which is defenseless against passion." Now, this is more understandable to me. I imagine many of us have been in situations where our emotions and feelings about someone ruled our actions, controlled our lives, at least for a period of time. Unfortunately for Blanche, rejected by Strickland, her feelings were so overwhelming and devastating to her that she committed suicide in a most hideous and excrutiating manner. Not only was she a masochist, but she apparently felt she had to be tortured. I thought she was a twisted person.

I had to look up the definition of the stuff she swallowed. (I don't have my book anymore and have forgotten the name of it.) But, it is a chemical used as a bleach. I don't think Maugham really described the agony she would have gone through before she finally died.

Marni

I've just read thru the first 175 posts for your discussion - I'll catch up w/ you all soon - but i wanted to recommend a fiction book by Claire Copperstein called "Johanna: a novel of Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger." It's a little book but quite interesting about the adult years of Johanna and the brothers Van Gogh........jean

Everyone the new Week 3 questions are up. It is now time to move forward to consider the unhappy consequence of the Blanch/Strickland relationship and particularly the final meeting between Strickland and the narrator, and finally as the week ends Strickland leaves France ending up in Tahiti with the Narrator soon to follow

Thank you Mabel015 for your comment on ”Johanna”, a Novel by Claire Cooperstein . Interesting since we appear to have here another fictional novel based on the real life story of another expressionist artist. This time the principals are Vincent and Theo van Gouh. Johanna is the wife of Theo in the story. Click Here to read the From the Publisher and From the Critics paragraphs from the B&N catalog.

This afternoon on a group trip to Austin, we had with us a local community college history professor. I had the opportunity to mention our Maugham discussions and our recent speculation on Maugham’s present and future rank among the Giants of English (language) literature. Specifically I ask his opinion whether today’s students after completion of the required freshman and sophomore English courses would recognize Maugham as a major author. As I anticipated in his opinion any recognition would be highly unlikely.

I was glad to see the posts about the narrator's thoughts on women and love. When I read his remarks I was annoyed. What vast generalizations! I think this fortified my impression that Maugham in this book is not unlike Strickland in many ways...only a more 'socially accepted' version. N.B. I did NOT say 'socially acceptable'...

I too in reading Moon and A Sixpence noted many passages where Maugham's expressed attitude toward Wommen that today (How shall I say it?) would not be politically correct? I too am glad and fully expected the see Maugham called to account in this matter which of course was the accepted, at least male attitude, during most of his lifetime.

Because there are so many different people, their emotion varies depending on their personality. So, to answer your question about love, I doubt anyone of us could define it because it means something different to all of us. Love to Blanche was different from Strickland's lust but lust is a form of love. Any emotion is diffcult to define because our physical senses can not respond to it. Yes, when we make love we are aroused by the person we are with, but we can't feel the emotion itself - only the person who is giving us pleasure at the time.

It is a researched fact that the majority of women become emotionally attached to the person they have a physical relationship with in most cases. This may go back to a sort or primeval need to have a protector for progeny. Of course with the advent of easily available birth control we don't have this necessity but I think we are genetically programmed to have this emotional attachment.

Regarding the Narrator’s interface with the three principals immediately after the Blanch/Stroeve break-up. he had one chance meeting with Strickland and Blanche shortly after the two became a couple. They met on a Paris street and despite the Narrator’s professed disinclination for a meeting with Strickland, the three went to a bar where the Narrator began to probe for details on how the new relationship was going. It was a strange interview with Strickland and the Narrator playing Chess while Blanch sat at the table and watched. During the meeting the Narrator found Blanch unchanged even to the extent of being attired in the same gray dress she had worn when with Stroeve. The Narrator judged her on this occasion “a woman of complicated character and there was something dramatic in the contrast of that with her demure appearance.” He tried hard to beat Strickland at chess who he knew from previous experience "to be a bad winner, but a good looser." We readers are not advised of the games outcome, but the Narrator departed with out learning of meaningful details as to how they were getting on.

The Narrator’s contacts with Dirk Stroeve were much more frequent and much the nature of an advisor or confessor relationship. He was quick to tell Stroeve that his meek, forgiving, I am here for you, come back any time stance was the worst thing he could have done if he wanted her back. Earlier he had said “you’d have been wiser if you hit her over the head with a stick, She wouldn’t have despised you as she does now.” When Stroveve heard of the chess game meeting he pressed for details and news of Blanch that the Narrator could not supply.

But the Narrator had apparently heard and seen enough to conclude that the Strickland/Blanche Relationship would quickly end

What do you think of the Narrator’s so-called attachment to Stroeve of whom he always wrote disparagingly? Those two could not be more different As it is Maugham’s style to show the dark side of his characters first, he reluctantly attributed good qualities to them and he said: ”But Stroeve, the unconquerable buffoon, had a love and an understanding of beauty which were as honest and sincere as was his own sincere and honest soul. It meant to him what God means to the believer.” He saw the beauty in Strickland’s paintings and because of that, he loved the painter? If Stroeve understood beauty that much, why didn’t he recognize the mediocrity of his own painting?

Blanche had attempted suicide when Stroeve married her out of pity for her misfortune and he expected her to love him because of that? Somehow this character is unbelievable to me, he seemed intelligent enough and he had success selling his paintings, then why does he show such poor judgment when it comes to his attachment to Strickland? I feel that the author goes over the top here. Did Maugham have that kind of relationships with those he loved? After reading Of Human Bondage, I might think he did.

I had to think about what Strickland said to the Narrator: ”A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her, but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.” Is that true? A sacrifice is not something that needs forgiveness, it is not an insult, did he mean: “A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her, but she can never forgive him for making her feel like she owes him something.” I balk at the word ‘sacrifice’ in a love relationship, when someone loves another, what they do for them is more a pleasure than a sacrifice.

Howard,re: "We readers are not advised of the games outcome...." I was disappointed in that. I don't know why what with all the heavy emotional events occurring in this book...but I really wanted to either know who won or maybe just see another of Strickland's reactions if he had lost.

Eloise, re: “A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her, but she can never forgive him for making her feel like she owes him something.”

I think this is probably the case. Stroeve played a very cloudy game at times it seems to me. I didn't really see a relationship between Dirk and Blanche so much as a man who had obtained a thing of beauty and she was now his to show and introduce, and shower his affections upon much as he would a favorite dog.

It is a sad human condition that we can rarely understand that 'love simply is' and we humans feel we must attach the love that is in us to an 'object'.

I have frequently felt a 'after all I've done for you' game sentiment in Dirk especially his not being willing to let go of Blanche after she had left with Strickland. Kind of like...keep your eyes on the prize attitude! To say it another way: I'm not so sure Dirk didn't want to lose BLANCHE...he didn't want to LOSE Blanche. Hope I'm not being too obtuse.

Blanche as a character...in fact, all of these characters...seem less to interact than to each play out their own game plan and simply find another character who fits what they need to carry out their game. Maybe that is why there is more interaction between Strickland and Maugham than there was between Blanche and either Dirk or Strickland. I did get a sense of Stickland and Maugham both being participants in their relationship. I wonder how much of this sort of thing goes on in real life, and am inclined to think quite a lot unfortunately.

Alliemae

Alliemae: "It is a sad human condition that we can rarely understand that 'love simply is' and we humans feel we must attach the love that is in us to an 'object'." Do you feel that Dirk treated Blanche as an object? I am trying to understand.

Do you feel that Strickland, Stroeve and Maugham all felt that it is fine to have a woman in their lives provided they stayed within their limits. Strickland said to the Narrator: "Do you remember my wife? I saw Blanche little by little trying all her tricks. (which tricks) With infinite patience she prepared to snare me and bind me. She wanted to bring me down to her level; she cared nothing for me, (really?) she only wanted me to be hers." I guess she didn't leave him alone like his women in Tahiti did, exactly what he wanted from a woman, just to be there at his beck and call and stay out of his way. (underlining mine)

Finally on page 147 we read about S. painting. The Narrator was surprised and naturally, his preconceived idea of art didn't match what he was looking at and it took him some time to adjust himself. He writes: "I wish I could say that I recognized at once their beauty and their great originality...at first sight I was bitterly disappointed. I felt nothing of the peculiar thrill which it is the property of art to give." Yes, art gives you a thrill like listening to great classical music and great vocal performances. Still, it takes a while to become accustomed to a new style of art, for me at least. I try to learn and be open minded about modern art, but most of the time it irritates me to watch or to listen to abstract works of art instead of it giving me a thrill.

Re: "Stroeve played a very cloudy game at times it seems to me. I didn't really see a relationship between Dirk and Blanche so much as a man who had obtained a thing of beauty and she was now his to show and introduce, and shower his affections upon much as he would a favorite dog."

I didn't see Stroeve as a person playing games. He seemed to me to be a very sweet good-hearted, although naive, person. He helped others in trouble. He had married Blanche when she was in trouble. He brought Strickland into his home when he was in trouble. I thought he loved Blanche and was devastated when she left him, not because he had lost a possession but because he loved her and she was gone. (Maybe I'm the naive one?)

Marni

Alliemae, I guess we readers really did not need to know who won the game, yet somehow after Maugham went so deep into Strickland’s win/loose attitudes after previous games I too wanted to know.

Marni, I am inclined to agree that Stroeve was naïve and perhaps good hearted. My reservation regarding his being good hearted is that the question keeps coming to mind- did he take the seriously ill Strickland into his home because of his good heart or because he recognized Strickland as a great artist worthy of preservation? In other words was his taking Strickland in the result of his good hearted humanity, or his love for art in consideration of Strickland’s potential future creations?

Harold: I think Stroeve probably had both reasons going on inside. But, how many people would bring someone like that into their own home? Especially with the wife so adamant against it. I think Stroeve couldn't bear the thought the Strickland was suffering so and could even die. You're right. I wonder if he would have done the same thing for someone who wasn't a brilliant artist.

Re #263: whatever the professor said about Maugham's survival as one of the great in English langage authors, I don't think that it says much about his merits. Not to stick to English language literature, it was frightening for me to see that almost no American reader (including college professors) appreciated Thomas Mann, for instance. I think that many great writers of the near and not near past are being not read in our times.

As to the verisimilitude of the characters, I am thinking about a volcano. It is quite infrequently active, but the outbreaks are the real characteristic of a volcano.

Eloise...in that I saw Stroeve as a character who related to others simply by the way he felt and what he wanted from them and what he decided they wanted that that might be construed as objectifying...including Blanche. Or maybe I mean manipulative and controlling in his own inverse way.

I do think that one of the problems I'm having in understanding the motives and actions of the characters is that I keep forgetting that this book is set in the late 19th century and I am making judgements based on the 20th.

Alliemae

Marni...I don't mean intentional games but more psychological games and I don't see them just with Blanche.

For instance, in re-reading the scene where Dirk wanted to bring Strickland to the studio to stay when Strickland was so sick:

Yes, Dirk was good-hearted and generous and as for his naivete I think a lot was real but a lot may have been his response because he had found out that his innocence 'worked' for him in his life...but again, not intentional...just sort of a conditioned response. I believe that Dirk sincerely believed that he was being kind and caring when he wanted to bring Strickland home. But then, how about caring enough for Blanche to not use the silently understood manipulation:

Dirk: "You are my wife; you are dearer to me than anyone in the world." and then, a paragraph later:

Dirk: Haven't you been in bitter distress once when a helping hand was held out to you? You know how much it means. Wouldn't you like to do someone a good turn when you have the chance?"

This, after her begging and pleading and even threatening that she didn't want Strickland in their home and vowed to leave if he came.

Innocent though Stroeve may be, that was quite an ungallant thing for him to say to her when she was so adamant, even hysterical...yet appearing to all, including the reader who has not as yet learned the reason for their marriage (if my memory serves me right) as a kind and generous and thoughtful man...and even after reassuring Blanche that this was her home and whatever she said would be final. And then to use that tactic....Maybe Dirk was selfless, in more than one sense of the word. I do believe he was well intentioned. I don't believe he was always aware of why he interacted the way he did with others. In fact, I think poor Dirk was rarely aware of his impulses but amazingly aware of his feelings regarding art, great art, and even his art. Very interesting character this Dirk Stroeve!

Alliemae

Harold, you said:

"In other words was his taking Strickland in the result of his good hearted humanity, or his love for art in consideration of Strickland’s potential future creations?"

I tend to agree with this. Didn't think of it quite that way but this would seem 'true to character'...very interesting point.

With all of the ups and downs I have experienced in reading this book, I truly enjoyed and am still enjoying the reading of it and can't wait to read my next Maugham!!

Alliemae

"Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose; you can smell it and this is all." ~ W. Somerst Maugham

Interesting words from a more interesting author. What do you think he is saying in the first line? Perhaps, he is merely saying that just like we crave food when we are hungry; we also crave beauty. Isn't this the core of most artists - this hunger to create beauty? Can we see Strickland in this way? Does he have this craving for beauty or was it more of a lust?

His second line is even more compelling. If I read it correctly, Beauty is like the perfume of a rose; you can smell it and that is all. But is it really. When we smell a rose it tickles our emotion - we feel something.

The other evening I saw a movie about Betoveen. He was so deaf that he could not hear his own music, but when he composed he composed from his heat. He literally created pictures with his music. This than I think is beauty - to be able to stretch the physical senses in order to create an emotion within ourselves. I believe that Strickland had this ability, but because of his obnoxious attitude toward others it was hidden only to a very few.

Relative to the Permanence of Maugham as a true giant of English language literature I suppose it is inevitable for him to loose the exalted stature he enjoyed as his stellar career approached its end in the early 1950’s when I was going through the education system. On reflection this was certainly the case with many great writers of past ages. Only a few like Shakespeare seem truly immortal.

Recently I have had the opportunity to re-read a delightful cultural history of the Regency period in England (1812 – 1820). The book is “The Prince Of Pleasure” by J..B Priestley, now out of print. The Regency was the period that saw the end of the Napoleonic wars and a great outburst of English creative writing and art. It included the flowering of such luminaries as Lord Byron, Walter Scott, Percy Shelley, and William Wordsworth. Though these few are still vaguely remembered today there were many other who were noted in the book who were well known and even famous in their day, but are now completely forgotten. This list included Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley’s 2nd wife, who created the Frankenstein character. In her case though the character survives, but it does so as countless modern writers for film, television, and comic books have appropriated it. Mary’ Shelley’s original writing is long forgotten and worse hardly any one would recognize Mary Shelley as the creator.

Regarding the Dirk Stroeve/Blanche relationship I think we are all recognizing that from the beginning there was something wrong with the union. This was the fact that Blanch was much more important to Dirk than he was to Blanch. To him it was his whole life; literally he could not conceive of life without him. To Blanche, however the relationship was much more a matter of convenience that she used to pick up the pieces of some previous unhappy life experience. Initially this is all we readers are told about Blanche’s past. It is only later after the break-up of the relationship and Blanche’s suicide that we get some details.

I'm not sure I agree that Lord Byron, Walter Scott, Percy Shelley, and William Wordsworth are just vaguely remembered writers today. They are typically in anthologies and are generally on required reading lists for college (and some high school) students studying that particular era or genre. I can't say the same for Maugham. I wonder if it is because he is a 20th century author. There was such a proliferation of authors world-wide available in the 20th century that one kind of picks and chooses among those from earlier in the century. I suppose Mary Shelley is another story. Not everyone would want to tackle the lengthy Frankenstein. Then again, not everyone would want to tackle Bram Stoker's Dracula, even though shorter. I guess it depends on one's preference for horror stories. Probably the younger generations today would go more for Stephen King.

I think Stroeve was quite "thick." I do think he invited Strickland into his home out of kindness and concern. I think Stroeve was a kind man, but thick. If he had had any understanding at all of women, he would have listened more carefully to what his wife was saying to him, where she was coming from. But, he didn't get it. He never did understand her. But, then again, she was a complicated person. Stroeve seemed simpler. But, I guess that is just the way narrator described the characters.

My local community college is doing an entire month of Frankenstein -- book discussions, all the Frankenstein films, discussions of medicine of the time, etc.

Harold, I doubt that Stroeve would be a person nursing the very sick Strickland for future material gain, rather Stroeve did for him as he had done for Blanche, take in a sick and poor individual because he was generous by nature, which by-the-way, could be to compensate for his unattractiveness.

Hegeso, How interesting what you said about the outbursts of a volcano, I love that.

Alliemae, In a way, it felt like he thought Blanche's reaction to the idea of bringing Strickland home was just an outburst of a hysterical woman that has no consequence, like saying "there, there".

Scrawler, yes, beauty is an elixir.

This makes me wish to visit Tahiti:

”For Tahiti is smiling and friendly; it is like a lovely woman graciously prodigal of her charm and beauty.”

and again:

"And the crowd that throngs the wharf as the steamer draws alongside is gay and debonair; it is a noisy cheerful, gesticulating crowd. It is a sea of brown faces. You have an impression of coloured movement against the flaming blue of the sky". Beautiful imagery.

Tahiti must have changed though, like everywhere else.

When my son was in junior high, two of the required readings were "The Castle" by Kafka, and the other one "The Stranger" by Camus, two 20th century writers. I would not give these books to a young teen-ager. The selections, in general, are not too good. (but I am an old European)

I feel very differently about Stroeve and his innocence since he talked about his home...much more convinced about his naivete and good-heartedness.

And, Eloise, here again I may have been reacting out of this century and not as women were considered at the time of this book. For example when you said:

"...like he thought Blanche's reaction to the idea of bringing Strickland home was just an outburst of a hysterical woman that has no consequence, like saying "there, there"."

Alliemae

"The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill." ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Does the above statement fit Strickland? Did he leave his wife and family to free his soul? If this is the case than we must look at Strickland in a whole new light. Doesn't everyone have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. How than could it be that Strickland becomes as we have spoken before a "monster" in our eyes. Perhaps when we look at a person we see only a part of that person. It seems to me that a person has many parts. For example, we may call a person mom, but that same person can be called teacher by others, and still she might also be an artist in yet another part of her life. Therefore we can't simply focus only on one part of Strickland, we must see the artist and the whole man. In other words we must see the bad, the good, and the ugly.

If everyone had the same philosophy as Strickland our families would be in an even bigger mess than than they are today. One thing we also have to have is responsibility.

We had a father with that Philosophy and it was very damaging to all of us. I have no sympathy for Strickland. None at all!

I have taken my book from the library. It was an intralibrary loan and I had no choice...I was happy to receive the one they loaned me.

But before I post anything more about the book and characters, etc. I'd like to check to see if I am at the right place so I don't post outside of the focus questions.

This book is a Dover Thrift Edition. It only goes up to page 164. I think I've been reading the same as all of you because I decided to use chapters rather than page numbers for the questions and considerations.

The inside of this edition says: "Bibliographical Note: This Dover edition, first published in 1995, is an unabridged republication of the work first published by William Heinemann, London, 1919."

Can someone tell me where the larger edition stops at the end of chapter XLV and how chapter XLVI starts.

Do you folks with the longer editions have illustrations or additional footnoting and explanations? This book is not illustrated and except for the first couple of pages where I found the citations that were not real there are no other citations or explanations.

(Harold: I became aware of this possible problem with my edition at the bottom of your post # 281: "Regarding the Dirk Stroeve/Blanche relationship..." after my posting of #277.)

Also, I want to make sure I haven't missed any of Maugham, as I find him a very interesting writer. If there is a more complete edition I would want to reread the book.

Thanks much, Alliemae

The several posts yesterday afternoon relate to our attitude as readers to Strickland and change in our opinion of his complex personality as we approach the end of the story. Before we go deeper into this subject I think we should discuss the narrator’s last meeting with Strickland and whether his opinion of Strickland was beginning to change as the result of this meeting.

I guess I am inclined to judge Strickland emerging as the winner after the final face-to-face meeting. The Narrator it seemed had no desire to meet Strickland this time and in fact tried to avoid it. It was probably his pent-up interest in actually seeing Strickland’s paintings that caused him to go to Strickland’s where the meeting took place. To me I think the meeting marked the point at which the Narrator’s opinion of Strickland both as an artist and as a man began to change. Strickland seemed at least partially successful in showing the Narrator (and European society generally) as the hypocrite and himself as the “normal” man. Do you see the Narrator at this point beginning to understand Strickland? Beginning tomorrow we will go with the Narrator to Tahiti to discuss how these issues finally played out.

I think type size and formatting the likely explication of the page number differences. Though our paperback has no illustrations or footnotes, it is relatively large print and the standard smaller paperback page size. There are a total of 58 short chapters averaging less than 4 pages per chapter.

Regarding the subject matter of Chapters XLV and XLVI, XLV begins some 15 years after the end of the previous chapter with the Narrator’s trip to Tahiti on other business matters. I thought the language in which he absolutely denied any thought of Strickland during the long sea voyage from England unbelievable but typical of Maugham’s writing style.

The last paragraph of XLV gives the narrator’s description of Tahiti beginning “Tahiti is a lofty green Island. With deep folds of a darker green, in which you divine silent valleys; there is mystery in ----------.” The last sentences reads, “Everything is done with a great deal of bustle, the unloading of baggage, the examination of customs; and everyone seems to smile at you. It is very hot. The color dazzles you.”

Chapter XLVI begins with his meeting with Captain Nichols. The first sentence reads: I had not been in Tahiti long before I met Captain Nichols. He came one morning when -----“.

I can safely say that when I first met my husband, I feel in love with his art before I feel in love with the man. He used the old line: "want to come up and see my paintings" and low and behold when I got up to his room he really did have paintings! He was a landscape artist and he had the most beautiful paintings scattered throughout his room. It was through his paintings that I got an inkling of what the man. The effects of Vietnam had hit us both like a sledge hammer and so it took more time to deal with him as a person. But it was in his paintings that I found ecstasy and peace.

I think this may have been what the narrator thought after viewing Strickland's paintings. This ecstasy of beauty that was slowly beginning to develop. Strickland's paintings like other post-expressionist painters were different and it because they were different that people tended to keep their feelings in check. When we see something different we tend to think of it as strange.

The first time I saw Picasso's work I thought it very strange indeed, especially his cubism, but I grew to love his "blue" period with the gaunt figures all in blue.

Thanks...ok then I'm on the same page with all of you. Terrific!

Hi, All,

I'm sorry to say I've missed much of this discussion due to a computer crash that took me a week and 40 hours to recover from. I just read about a hundred posts, and I must say you all are doing an admirable job of discussing this book. I will at least be around for the end of the discussion. I am fascinated by Maugham and plan to reread "Of Human Bondage" next week (I read it as a youth but, alas, like almost all things I read then, I remember none of it!)

Pamela

"The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacement is erroneous; on the contrary, it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people cruel and bitter." ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Interesting quote from Maugham. I wonder if he thought this way, why he made Strickland the opposite. Or was it that Strickland was a "failure" almost throughout the book and it wasn't until he was dead that he became a success. But, alas, by that time it was too late.

This chapter is fascinating to me.

When I first read what the narrator wished he might have done differently and told more of I thought...but you did...you did...in many little ways.

Now, before I do my usual 'instant opinionating' using subjective responses rather than what the narrator/author is saying, I am reading it again.

I kept wondering if the narrator was suddenly becoming the author in that chapter...after all, if he (Maugham as narrator) had only met Strickland so almost superficially as an emissary from his wife and then met up with him again through Stroeve, he couldn't really have known too much more than he told us. After all, Strickland was not the most open of characters, especially about his own life and feelings. And I don't believe Dirk or Blanche were in a position to give too much objective insight into Strickland either, knowing all the circumstances now.

So I'd like to re-read that chapter before I start reading chapter XLVI.

Alliemae

Hegeso,

Right, teachers give students assignments that are not suited to their age. It seems that those assignments propels them into a world far too sophisticated for them as we only reach that level when we have aged a bit. I read L’Étranger by Camus a very long time ago and I found it too depressing, I was very young then. I bet I would like it better today.

Scrawler, you know your post gave me a start, about seeing only a part of Strickland, not the ‘good the bad and the ugly’ but by the same token, how could a man create extreme beauty when his whole speech and actions reflect that he is a ‘monster’? To me those two do not connect. When Picasso was young he produced ‘young’ art, even romantic, but as he got older, his work became more disillusioned about life, to my eyes only perhaps. Another painter was becoming blind with cataracts, and his art reflected his lack of color discernment and he painted everything in very bright colors only because he couldn’t see soft subdued color. But a painter and an author describes his own soul in their art.

“I can safely say that when I first met my husband, I feel in love with his art before I feel in love with the man. I can safely say that when I first met my husband, I feel in love with his art before I feel in love with the man.”

Thank you for sharing this with us, it is so true that people who excel in something are more appealing and we want to know them better.

Hi! Scamper, good to see you. Jump right in and tell us what you think. I read Human Bondage where Somerset Maugham there tells us what his philosophy is.

Alliemae, it is so hard Not to think of the narrator as the author isn’t it? I always have his face in mind whenever I read what the narrator says.

We will be moving to the last chapters where we learn of life in Tahiti and we discover another Strickland, far removed from the European one. Apparently, Tahiti changes people.

Éloïse

Another thing about Strickland that deserves mention is that as inconsiderate of everyone and as mean spirited as he certainly was, he was never really bad-bad in the sense that some of our recent serial killers certainly appear. He was never violent to others; well maybe except for a few black and blue marks on Ata that were never actually mentioned but that might be implied from the dialog of his marriage proposal.

Another on the plus side of Strickland's character - Despite his years of advancing leprosy, one of the most hideous of all diseases, Strickland carried on, frantically painting to the very end what probably was his masterpiece. He didn't give up and give in to his disease.

Marni

I have just watched a documentary about Henri Matisse, I have always loved Matisse, his style is so easily recognizable.

HENRI MATISSE said something like this: "I have something to give to humanity. I think I am nothing but a medium". I suppose that the passion that propels artists such as Gauguin, Matisse, VanGogh, Picasso and those before them, to greatness is so compelling that they let nothing stand in the way. Some have more talent than others at allowing family and friends into their world, and others don't.

Strickland could have thought that because he started so late in life, he didn't have time to lose. As we examine the destruction he leaves behind as he forges forward, does it matter to him what others think? The passion for his art ate him from within. Maugham, doesn't hide the fact that he admired the painter in spite of all his other faults, but that admiration came late, after the painter was dead and he had time to assimilate the painter's work.

Éloïse

Perhaps we should have included a link for further information on leprosy on our Web Resource page. Click Here for an informative link..

I remember from the WW II period that lepers in the US were confined in a Leper Colony in Louisiana. Today the site linked above indicates that there is an effective multi drug regimen the controls and apparently even cures the disease. In any case we never hear of it as a health threat in the US but according to the link is is still common in Asia particularly India and also in Africa. I was surprised Maugham killed Strickland off with leprosy instead of Syphilis, a popular last illness of artists (and aristocrats) of the period.

Leprosy is still going strong in Brazil. I saw a doco about it the other week, They use thalilomide to keep it at bay. Noone taking the drug is allowed to conceive as it damages fetuses.

Carolyn

Click Here I thought the The disease and its treatment link in the left hand frame particularly interesting.

You know, it's interesting to me that in this book Strickland dies of leprosy; and in the recent book discussion of The King Must Die, the king of Crete dies of leprosy.

I mean, when was the last time I read anything about leprosy??? Can't even remember!

Marni

"In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time." ~ W. Somerset Maugham

With these words I bid thee farewell as I go into the dark side. Not only am I going to a new city and a new apartment, but I'm getting a new computer system as well. I hope to have it up and running soon and they have assured me I will be able to get SeniorNet. But you know what they say about old dogs.

If for some reason I should you all should be lost to me, I just wanted to thank for your company and wish you peace always and may the force be with you on your journey with Maugham.

Harold you asked: "Were you really able to feel any of the intense emotional reaction from your reading of the Author’s words akin to the feelings you may remember from a past visual viewing of some great work of art?"

Somehow to know what an artist is going through emotionally makes me understand his paintings much better. Years of living also helps in better understanding of art I found. It takes training and patience before the beauty of it settles in. It is like music for me, when I first hear what people say is good music and if I want feel its beauty I have to listen to the piece several times. It's the same with art.

I will appreciate post impressionsm better than before. I want to thank you, SCRAWLER for giving us the pleasure of your intelligent postings. I hope you will find your new apartment in a new city to your liking and you will come back soon in B & L soon.

Éloïse

Scrawler: You can't be lost to us. You're too important to discussions. You'll find a way!!! As SeniorNet has proven, you CAN teach old dogs new tricks!

Speaking of dogs, Fidelco trains new guide dogs for the blind right in front of my house. They park right in front of my front porch, and give each dog in the van a turn around my block, using a clicker, snacks, and, for more advanced, hand signals. Just a few minutes ago, a new German Shepherd puppy got out. He was all excited and kept squeaking. So cute!!

Marni

Scrawler where there is a will there is a way! As long as you have a PC and an internet connection you will find your way back.

Good luck for your move! You are a braver soul than I am!

Carolyn

Indeed Scrawler, your input here is most appreciated by all of us. Come back when you can and remember you are always welcome in future book discussions.

In that regard, all of you might keep your eyes open for a winter Discussion of the new Audubon Biography by Richard Rhodes Led by our new Discussion Leader, Marni and an old relic, myself. Click Here for information about the book.

But we still have a lot of discussion before we conclude Moon and a Sixpence. In that respect I have been meaning to comment on Maugham’s verbal description of Tahiti as his ship approached it and entered the port through the reef. He described it as “a lofty green Island, with deep folds of darker green, in which you divine silent valleys;---------.“ To me the key word is his notice of the color, Green.

I think this is a common reaction of people who after a long, slow sea voyage through the south pacific approach any of the islands. Through out the voyage the predominate color experience has been blue. The sky of course is most often blue but in particular the distinctive ever-present color of the sea itself is a deep blue until this color seems to burn into ones brain. Then as the ship approaches an island the eye begins to discern the Green of thick tropical foliage that soon overpowers the blue. I think this color contrast is what Maugham was describing in his description of the Tahiti as he saw it from the deck of his ship as it approached the island.

I think that I would also have added that as the ship nears its anchorage position in the lagoon or harbor even though it is still a half-mile from the shore, the air takes on a distinctive sweet, vaguely smoky land odor quite different from the open sea.

????????????????????????????

Hi Scrawler,

Although I didn't know you as long or as well as the others in this group, I will sincerely miss your posts and you. I feel that you will find your way back to us but just in case...go in peace as well.

Alliemae

Alliemae - 08:48am Aug 22, 2005 PT (#297 of 312) Chapter XLIII

This chapter is fascinating to me.

When I first read what the narrator wished he might have done differently and told more of I thought...but you did...you did...in many little ways.

Ch XLIII, para 2: "...I might have found his motives in the influence of the marrige relation..." "...or dometic incompatibility..." "...then I should have drawn Mrs. Strickland quite differently...a nagging, tiresome woman...with no sympathy for the claims of the spirit." "I should have made Strickland's marriage a long torment from which escape was the only possible issue."

Ch XLI, para 69:

Strickland: "When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul." "Do you remember my wife? I saw Blanche little by little trying all her tricks. With infinite patience she prepared to snare me and bind me." "...she cared nothing for me, she only wanted me to be hers."

Now, I am not saying I agree with his attitudes and impressions and subconscious or conscious motivations...but I think they did give the reader some insight into the marriage in his eyes.

...also para 2: "I should certainly have eliminated the children."

It seems to me that the writer very early on decided not to elaborate on the children. (or was it the narrator who decided that?)

I never understood why neither Strickland nor Maugham (as narrator) nor any of the other characters ever said much about Strickland's children. After all, they were his children...

So, in retrospect, except for a nagging question in some of the readers' consciousness the children were, by default if nothing else, 'eliminated'.

Re: para 5: I do agree and wish that Maugham had given us a lot more regarding, "...his [Strickland's] connection with Blanche Stroeve," as he states in this paragraph. Call me nosy but I would like to have known much, much more about the time they were together both in his sick room at the studio and when they lived together when Blanche left Dirk.

And now, having started the last few chapters, I can concentrate on them without this nagging at me!

Alliemae

I was out all day folks, but I am back now and I can concentrate on the Moon and Sixpence. Isn't it an interesting character study? Are we studying the author's or the narrator's motivation? Do you find Somerset Maugham as the narrator a bit overbearing as he meddles in everybody's affairs?

Alliemae true, both the Narrator and Strickland don't mention the children very much in all this. Gauguin had a better relationship with his children than Strickland. Do you feel that Maugham himself was not very interested in children?

Éloïse

I very often find my self quite fed up with the Narrator in Maugham novels. He is always such a terrible busybody with an intelligence network that somehow always comes up with the details often in the 11th hour following some unlikely meeting in a Paris back alley or bar. Yet somehow these negative judgments of the technique quickly disappear and I find myself able to forgive the annoying Narrator and again to enjoy the story. I think this eagerness to forgive the basically annoying Narrator is because the story comes so easily after a single reading with no real effort on my part.

After Strickland left Paris he seems to have spent considerable time in extreme poverty in Marseilles. He was lucky he did not contact some killer communicable disease or get his throat cut there. The details of Strickland’s experience in Marseilles comes from Maugham’s interview with Captain Nichols in Tahiti long after the fact and after Strickland had died. As I understand Maugham’s writing he consider Nichols a liar and unreliable. Strickland seems to have left Marseilles alone working on a steamship. I don’t remember Maugham ever telling us how Captain Nichols got to Tahiti, yet Maugham’s information on Strickland in Marseilles comes from Nichols.

When I first read this book this spring when planning this discussion I did not realize that leprosy was common to Tahiti. It had never been mentioned in the other accounts that I have read of the Island. This was the Bounty stories and the Gauguin writings, “Noa Noa” and “Intimate Journal.“ My first thought when I read of Strickland’s Leprosy was that he contacted it in the filth of Marseilles poverty. But Maugham seems to indicate that the disease was common in Tahiti and in any case he got it and it killed him and its origin is unimportant.

--- regarding paragraph 2 of Chapter XLIII I find I had wrote opposite this paragraph in the margin, “Is this an indication of an anti Mrs Strickland bias?” I now think it is more a more general bias on the part of the Narrator (Maugham) against women generally. Some of you who participated in Razors Edge; did Maugham show bias against women there to? I think this question there as here can be answered that at end of the story he did just that.

Also this view is evident in some the Shaw plays (Maugham’s near contemporary) like” Man and Superman,” where the woman’s need to possess her man is stressed as her key dominate objective.

You said: Do you feel that Maugham himself was not very interested in children?

I do think that Maugham was not interested in children, or, for that matter, his own life. He really didn't seem to have much of a life...or did he? He must have had a life during all the stretches of time between his meetings with Strickland, Dirk and Blanche. but presumably had no interest in children OR women. I sure hope he had more of a life than he shared with us rather than just being a busybody...and so young a busybody at that!!

I'm reading the end now and hope that this question may be answered. In spite of what seemed like a light-weight as narrator, I do look forward to reading more of Maugham.

Alliemae

Re: Maugham's (as narrator) general bias towars women.

I see what you mean and am eager to read the final pages of this book to clarify what seems to be a common thread throughout the book, not only by Maugham but also Strickland. Also, as narrator, did Maugham 'notice' Strickland's attitude regarding women more than possibly other points about Strickland because of this being a common point between them? I do suspect that the feeling for (or rather against) women was one of Strickland's and Maugham's tightest bonds.

By the way...did anyone else besides me get a first impression of Captain Nichols as a Strickland if Strickland had been a nicer guy?

Alliemae

Eloise, an interesting question. In the beginning, I found I was able to separate Maugham from the Narrator - always referring to him as "the Narrator." He was like Maugham, yes, but this is fiction and the Narrator a fictional character. But all the while, I was sensing similarities between the Narrator and other of Maugham's narrators, until it became clear he IS indeed Maugham. Do you remember the passage in which the Narrator says, "If writing a novel, rather than recording facts..." I had to say, WAIT a minute. This is fiction - at least it is a fictionalized account, isn't it?

And then the similarities between Strickland, Dr. Abraham, Captain Brunot...and yes, Maugham himself...all with an overriding passion stronger than the love of a woman. Over and again, I could hear Maugham describing himself - "A man is not what he wants to be, but what he must be."

I've read all your posts...and find that while I agree with what you say about character development and believability, I find that I am overwhelmed with the underlying message I feel Maugham is conveying. I sense it is more than anything, a justification for Strickland's behavior - do you think Maugham is justifying his own views as well? I wonder what you thought of this when you read it? Are men better able to compartmentalize? From chapter XLIII:

"Here lies the unreality of fiction. For in man, as a rule, love is but an episode which takes its place among the other affairs of the day, and th emphasis laid on it in novels gives it an importance which is untrue in life. There are few men in the world to whom it is the most important thing in the world...even during the brief intervals in which they are in love, men do other things which distract their minds; the trades by which they earn their living engage their attention, they are adsorbed in sport, they can interest themselves in art. For the most part, they keep their various activities in various compartments, and they can pursue one to the temporary exclusion of the other. They have a faculty of concentration on that which occupies them at the moment, and it irks them if one encroaches on the other. As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at time."

I remember reading about a leper colony in Hawaii when I read Michener's novel Hawaii. I wonder if leprosy is common in a number of Pacific islands. And, if so, why?

Leprosy (Hansen's Disease)

Primary Distribution: Tropical and sub-tropical Africa, Asia, Pacific Islands, South America, Central America, and Mexico. Countries reporting the most cases in 1997 were Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Nigeria (CDC, 1998).

For more information about leprosy, see:

http://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/leprosy.htm

Thank you Harold.

Before I rave about a page in the last chapters that struck me as brilliant, I want to make note of something on page 151 which seems that he does not have much respect for his reader's intelligence, like this:

"Looking back, I realize that what I have written about Charles Strickland must seem very unsatisfactory. I have given incidents that came to my knowledge, but they remain obscure because I do not know the reason that led to them."

What do you think of this? Is he not writing fiction? Then he goes on like if his connection with Strickland was real.

"The strangest, Strickland's determination to become a painter, seems to be arbitrary; and though it must have had causes in the circumstances of his life I am ignorant of them. From his conversation I was able to glean nothing. If I were writing a novel, rather than narrating such facts,..."

Does he think he can fool us by writing as if this was true? Is it arrogance? Is he brilliant?

There is much more in this novel that meets the eye. Maughem fools everybody, he seems to be writing Gaughin's biography, but he still wants to weave a story around his life like if he knew what the painter felt inside but Maugham couldn't do that professionally, so he wrote a novel based on the painter's life and work.

By describing Strickland as an abject creature, did he hope that readers would come to his defence? What IS Maugham's motive in writing this novel? What is he telling readers in Moon and Sixpence?

Éloïse

I note the introduction of Ata to Strickland by Tiaré in Chapter LI,. and his marriage to her was similar to Guaguins marriage to Tehura. Though Maugham's dialog is in no way copied from Gauguins “Noa Noa” there does seem to be a certain general similarity in the way Strickland and Gauguin interviewed and proposed to their respective brides. Maugham as author has made Ata a 17 year old more acceptable to European readers but there was a general similarity in the tone of the two interviews.

Guaguin asked questions like “are you afraid of me? Tehura said “no.” “Do you wish to live in my hut?” “Yes.” “Have you ever been ill?” “No.” The deal was done, but her mother did insert an 8 day approval provision. At the end of that period Tehura returned to consult her mother. Apparently she was satisfied with Gauguin as she immediately returned staying with him until he ended his first visit with a short return to Europe. He left Tehura on the beach as his ship departed. (Gauguin had justified his liaisons with the 13 year old Tehura on the grounds that a 13 year Tahitian was the equivalent of an 18 to 20 year old in Europe).

Strickland asked questions like “Well Ata. Do you fancy me for a husband” Ata did not say anything, she just giggled, which Strickland took as “Yes.” The proposal dialog continue; “I shall beat you,” he said. How else should you know you loved me,” she answered.

Later after Strickland was diagnosed with his terminal illness and Ata had expressed her determination to stay with him, Strickland remarked to Dr Coutras; “Woman are strange beasts --- You can treat them like dogs, You can beat them till your arm aches, and still they love you.” He shrugged his shoulders, “of course it is the most absurd illusion of Christianity that they have souls."

And Dr Cputras concluded, “In the end they get you, and you are helpless in their hands. White or brown, they are all the same.”

I found a copy of the Ted Morgan biography of Maugham at a library book sale for $2. If I had read it, I could give you more input into Maugham's views on women, LOL! I did notice in an Amazon reader review of this book that Morgan apparently feels that Maugham did hate women. On the flyleaf is said, "..behind his facade of success and excitement Maugham was an emotional cripple who could not come to terms with his own homosexuality. He married, in an Edwardian attempt to keep up appearances, yet carried on a 30 year love affair with Gerald Haxton, an alcoholic gambler who became his secretary. In his declining years, after Haxton's death, Maugham tried to disinherit hsi daughter and adopt Alan Searle, a Cockney youth who succeeded Haxton as his companion. He died a lonely and embittered figure, alienated even from his family, a man who had survived the great writers of his age but who still felt overwhelmed by them."

Reading this makes me think Maugham WAS Strickland!! As I am a big fan of Maugham, I will have to make time to read this bio (625 pages) one of these days. But next up is Of Human Bondage, which I will start next week!

Re: "Gauguin had justified his liaisons with the 13 year old Tehura on the grounds that a 13 year Tahitian was the equivalent of an 18 to 20 year old in Europe."

HA! What a lech. Then you have Mr. Casaubon in Middlemarch.

.... “I shall beat you,” he said. How else should you know you loved me,” she answered.... “Woman are strange beasts --- You can treat them like dogs, You can beat them till your arm aches, and still they love you.”

This made me absolutely sick. This is the kind of thing I don't like about Maugham. I get the feeling that this is how he feels. Yuk.

Marni

Marni, as you point the attitude of the women characters as depicted by our author, W Somerset Maugham, in “Moon and A Sixpence can in no way be termed politically correct under current early 21st century standards. The fact is that Scamper’s message #325 has identified the background cause for his extreme bias against women that appear in this novel. Though similar bias by other Contemporary authors and by society in general were common at the time , I know of no other literary writing where it appears as blatant as in this one.

And by the way has anyone seen the pre-WW II Hollywood film version of "Moon and A Sixpence?" I know there was one as I remember seeing the previews at the Saturday afternoon showing of a Hopalong Cassidy double feature about 1940. Yet it is not today available from my usual sources.

Eloise...Happy Belated Birthday!! So glad you were born! So glad you were here when I got here!!! Birthday hugs, Alliemae

Scrawler...good to see you are still here, or didn't you start your move yet? At any rate was glad to see your post! Alliemae

p.s. regarding Strickland's children: I don't think anyone was really interested in them although their aunt and uncle took them in. Even their mother was consumed first of all with getting Strickland back and then with spiting him and her new life. I am sad to think how these children may have suffered emotionally had this been a true story...Of course, we can only know what our rather spotty Narrator/Writer tells us!!!

We should now begin the conclusion of our discussion by Monday or Tuesday. Including focus points 3, 4, and 5 now in the heading.

Regarding point #3 concerning the Chapter L story the Narrator told Tiaré about Abraham and Carmichael, two medical students he knew at St Thomas Hospital, I really did not understand why Maugham considered this story with its simple moral conclusion necessary to his story. I just have trouble seeing under the circumstances as they were described any great moral achievement coming from Abraham’s decision to give up his prodigious earned appointment in favor of a mundane career. Had his new career been a spectacular one of dedication to great human service, maybe so But that was not the case, and the character Abraham’s experience does not to me seem to parallel Strickland in any significant way. I am left with the impression that Maugham’s publisher wanted another 2000 words to market the short writing as a novel rather than another “Rain” a long short story. As a result Maugham came up with Chapter L.

As our discussion concludes I am going to New Mexico on Wednesday for a week in the mountains at my brothers house near Red River. http://lonestar.texas.net/~hhullar5/NM_LA&J%20Place.htm

Thanks Allimae for your warm words, I feel like when my grandson Anthony 12 hugs me. For the past three days I have been showered by love from all around and this evening I will dine with my two sisters, my two daughters and their family, total 11 people. It's fun getting old(er) sometimes.

I was just mentioning in the Middlemarch discussion that Maugham is really irritating when he writes about women, but on the other hand, we remember his penmenship for a long time. It's just what he writes that seems difficult to take, not how he writes it.

Harold, how precious that they can build their own house themselves. I had that pleasure twice when my husband was alive. The building process takes up all your time and thoughts.

Allimae and all, regarding Strickland's children and European family, I think Maugham missed a wonderful chance to write a real award winning ending when he let the Narrator turn chicken and not tell the European family of Strickland's Tahitian wife and the kids new half brother in Tahiti. Of course presumably the son later found this out when he researched Strickland’s later life in writing the Strickland Bio that we were told about in an early chapter,

Eloise my brother's New mecico house was built by a contractor except for the interior finish done by Jack and Lucy Ann. It is a wonderful house. I am the one who built my little country house from scratch including the foundation, the electric, plumbing, and air conditioning/heating Heat pump installation. The only two sub contracts were the septic Tank and the outside siding. http://lonestar.texas.net/~hhullar5/Casita.htm

Arnold: You are a man for all seasons!!

Marni

Harold, how wonderful to have those pictures from the past. I saw all of them and read the captions. It was interested for me to see what Texas looks like as I have never been there. Not so long ago people has skills, such the building of a house, that this generation could not possibly do unless they had seen their father do it. Even I could manipulate power tools and help my husband with the construction of our country house. Such interesting family photos with little Jazz sitting on the Board Walk.

Thanks for showing it to us.

Sorry to jump in here but I'm not sure how else to find out what this group will be doing next month? is that posted someplace? Do you vote? I'm signed up in the MIDDLEMARCH group but hey- I can always squeeze in another book, if it's one I like. TIA and sorry again to intrude.

Scootz, you will find HERE where to vote for a new book. I hope you find what you are looking for.

In the meantime, to answer Harold's question No. 4, yes, that chapter gave me an intense emotion as I read about the paintings on the walls and ceilings of the house. I could visualize the scene in Gauguin's style with dense tropical foliage, with natives milling about in the forest. What I couldn't imagine is a blind man painting anything at all which would not be chaotic and senseless.

Éloïse

The 'revelation' of Abraham and Carmichael's appreciation of the serendipitous course of his circumstances could give a deeper understanding of what Strickland has done.

All three men, rather than having made 'a hash of their lives' ended up doing what they wanted at their very core to do, having followed their dreams however unknown to them at the time, and finally finding peace.

According to Roget 'integrity' and 'morality' have many similar characteristics.

However, under 'morality he says--see DUTY...and under 'integrity he says--see WHOLE.

Rather than feeling 'out of sync' each man though "...born out of [his] due place," has "hit upon a place to which he mysteriously feels he belongs."

Each human has their own definition of 'heart's home'...

By thinking integrity rather than morality in this moral message, the outcome of the story serves to help us understand Strickland's search to become whole.

Neither Abraham nor Carmichael seemed to have caused the destruction that Strickland did in achieving this end, but they all ended up at that special place.

Scootz, it looks like the new book discussion beginning Sept 1st will be the George Elliott book, Middlemarch. I see you have already indicated you plan to participate there. I’m sure you will find it a rewarding experience. I’m sure there is room for any others who might be interested.

In November Marni and I will offer “John James Audubon- The Making of an American by Richard Rhodes. Click Here. This announcement should appear on the new offering menu about Oct 1st.

My interest in Audubon stems from my previous reading of his “1826 Journal,” the story of his trip to England to obtain the publication of his life's work, “The Birds of North America.” and also “Up the Missouri with Audubon,” by Edward Harris. All of you who participated here discussing Sixpence have a special invitation to join us discussing Audubon.

Thank you everyone who participated here. I enjoyed the discussion and hope all of you also found it a rewarding experience. The board is still open for any concluding comments by any of you. I am now frantically getting packed for my early Wednesday departure for New Mexico. Eloise when you are ready go ahead and ask Pat to begin archiving the board.

Harold, have a super holiday in New Mexico. I enjoyed your home page and all the links. My what an interesting life you have had and the family portraits that you have kept all those years is a lesson in history. Thank you for showing it to us.

This discussion went beyond all my expectations and the posts were a well of information for me. I would like to keep the discussion open for a few more days to continue sharing our thoughts about the book and the author.

Éloïse

Well, I've finished the book and what a turn-around it was for me.

I haven't completely settled my impressions yet in my head so cannot elaborate. I can only say that in some way I care for Strickland. It's not just pity because of the leprosy. Sort of a kinship of one human to another. I'm glad he had his time with Ata in Tahiti. I'm glad he shed a tear and lived out his life as he wanted to.

After I read the last few chapters I thought, "This was good enough without the rest of the book." But then I realized that of course, the ending would not have been the same without all those other chapters.

Was Maugham a 'chicken' for not telling Strickland's western family about Ata and their son? I don't think they would or could have understood. Somehow I feel absolutely nothing for that family. In that, I feel that Maugham (as writer) is quite magical.

Either Maugham was a genius at making this reader feel nothing for the 'normal' status quo folk (the antidisestablishmentarianists) and making all my sympathies lie with the radical, offbeat and anti-establishmentists...or...maybe this is a clue to my own psyche...my sometimes 'wannabe'...

Oh Howard...how enchanting! Love the boardwalk and especially love the glider!! Cute pup and I agree that you nor anyone else with a dog could have gotten them to make that pose. (smile)

Saving the rest of the links to savor so glad Eloise, that you are leaving the pages on for a few days!! Thanks!!

Have a wonderful vacation Howard. You have been amazingly patient and insightful and I appreciate that.

Alliemae

Alliemae, me too, I want to spend more time with the links in the Web Resources to admire the artwork. there. I was just through dozens of Gauguin paintings. To me his art pieces did not reflect a man like Strickland, there were scenes of Breton Girls dancing, many of his pieces in Britany showed children in different activity. Gauguin was fond of children if we look at his art.

He was tender with women and painted landscapes in vibrant colors in no way as aggressively as other post impressionists. Gauguin's rendition of his inner self, through his painting was certainly unconventional, fine, but still it indicated to me as the work of a man at peace with himself. He was not the monster Strickland was.

I often felt Maugham wrote about his own turmoils within his soul. His writing reflected a man who had never felt loved in his primary years when that is so important for later development. Of Human Bondage, being his biography, was clearly evident in that respect.

The title of the book, Moon and Sixpence, does not reflect the content and I feel led astray in believing it was about the genius of an famous painter, but rather it was about a mentally ill human being who happened to paint well, still his paintings did not reflect the man Maugham writes about.

Please take some time with the links before we conclude the discussion. I will leave it open a few more days to give you time to browse in there as I will.

Thanks everyone for your wonderful participation, without you it would not have been the pleasure that it was.

Éloïse

I wrote: "Either Maugham was a genius at making this reader feel nothing for the 'normal' status quo folk...and making all my sympathies lie with the radical, offbeat...or...maybe this is a clue to my own psyche...my sometimes'wannabe'..."

Just want to make a clarification, esp on the part that says "maybe this is a clue to my own psyche...my sometimes 'wannabe'..." Don't want to be considered a beast! (smile)

What I meant was not to be a mean, cruel, thoughtless person but an 'I lived for art' sort of person...(smile)

Alliemae, I didn't think you were a beast either. I think I can understand someone who lives for their art. I never wanted to be conventional, follow the leader, I was a rebel in a way, still am, but I think that means you have a mind of your own, not one that can be molded according to someone else's rule. Artistic people for the most part are unconventional, several in my family are, shall we say, original. Thank you for that.

"Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it." ~ W. Somerset Maugham

In Strickland's case death brought him success. How many authors and artists obtain success only after they are dead. Perhaps there is a lesson in all of this - that we should focus not on the success of our craft, but rather the enjoyment it brings to us just by doing it. Would Strickland have been a better "person" if he had focused only on the enjoyment his work. Maybe his family could have been a part of this enjoyment. Strickland, I think tried to hard to be perfect and according to Maugham: "Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved." I would have to agree with this statement. To me it is better just to live and be at peace than be perfect and have all the success in the world.

Yes, I'm back after a frantic week of moving from the country to the city. I really missed you guys alot! And I hope to see you soon in another discussion, since this is probably the last day here.

Scrawler, I am so happy to see you, I thought your moving would have taken much longer. At least you have your computer going and that is important for connecting with Books and Literature's discussions. I hope to read you in other discussions. They are just fantastic, that way we can express our deepest sentiments about dozens of topics which we can't do unless we find like minded people, but here, we can always find intellectual stimulation to our heart's content.

I think we have exhausted discussing this book, but there are always interesting things going on in Books and Literature. I expect I will all see you soon then, as we are a very homogeneous group and we like to get together under the same roof.

I appreciated your participation in more ways than one. Thank you.

Éloïse

Thank you all for your participation. This discussion is being archived and is now Read Only.