The Moon and Sixpence edition by W Somerset Maugham Literature Fiction eBooks
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The Moon and Sixpence is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham first published in 1919. It is told in episodic form by a first-person narrator, in a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character Charles Strickland, a middle-aged English stockbroker, who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his desire to become an artist. The story is in part based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin. The novel is written largely from the point of view of the narrator, a young, aspiring writer and playwright in London. Certain chapters entirely comprise accounts of events by other characters, which the narrator recalls from memory (selectively editing or elaborating on certain aspects of dialogue, particularly Strickland's, as Strickland is said by the narrator to have a very poor ability to express himself in words). The narrator first develops an acquaintance with Strickland's wife at literary parties, and later meets Strickland himself, who appears to be an unremarkable businessman with no interest in his wife's literary or artistic tastes. Strickland is a well-off, middle-class stockbroker in London sometime in late 19th or early 20th century. Early in the novel, he leaves his wife and children and goes to Paris. (The narrator enters directly into the story at this point, when he is asked by Mrs Strickland to go to Paris and talk with her husband.) He lives a destitute but defiantly content life there as an artist (specifically a painter), lodging in run-down hotels and falling prey to both illness and hunger. Strickland, in his drive to express through his art what appears to continually possess and compel him on the inside, cares nothing for physical discomfort and is indifferent to his surroundings. He is helped and supported by a commercially successful but hackneyed Dutch painter, Dirk Stroeve (coincidentally, also an old friend of the narrator's), who recognises Strickland's genius as a painter.
The Moon and Sixpence edition by W Somerset Maugham Literature Fiction eBooks
The Moon and Sixpence by Somereset MaughamThe Moon and Sixpence was Somerset Maugham’s eleventh novel. A first person narration, it follows Charles Strickland, a remorseless pursuer of artistic fuifillment in painting. The model for Strickland was the Franch artist Paul Gaughn who died nearly a decade prior to the novel’s publication.
The rather short chapters and clear writing provides a comfortable reading pace. Maugham had exceptional skill in dramatic construction and writing in a style that expressed complexity with precision and passion. About the title: its import is the choice between what is near and cheap and that which is far and grand. Sixpence is a British coin with a connotation of small value; a connotation similar to that given the U.S. quarter when used in the phrase “two bits worth”. The moon as referred to in the title has the connotation of something remote and worth attainable; “Fly me to the moon” is a lyric suggestive of the same attitude. The moon then, within the context of the novel, is the mastery of painting Strickland seeks; the sixpence is the negible value of conventions he rejects.
For the reader who is willing to pan the stream of literature for nuggets, The Moon and Sixpence may be a rewarding find. His productive period ran from the late 1800’s to the mid 1960’s. Maugham once said that the future would probably judge him among the foremost of the second raters. Time had vindicated his estimate. Though he is not ranked among the greatest, neither is he relegated to the least. Several of his fictional works have been made into films. Adapt in play writing as he was in other fields of prose, he accumulated a fortune, an estate, and a valuable collection of paintings. A unpleasant childhood, a tenative start as a doctor, a stint in the British secret service, and world wide travel provided him with ample material for his fiction.
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The Moon and Sixpence edition by W Somerset Maugham Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
I first read this in college and it sent me on a Maugham binge and also piqued my interest in Gauguin. The book is loosely based on the artist life, following him through his early and very ordinary life to his marriage, his slow awakening to his own need to create, his heartless but necessary (to him) abandonment of his wife and children and his eventual dissipation in Tahiti and finally his gruesome death. A master storyteller takes on the life of a master painter told with all the subtle depth and well drawn psychosis that only a writer like Maugham can make as compelling as action. A must read for serious readers and those who just enjoy s good page turner
In Maugham’s earlier novel, Of Human Bondage, people travel to Paris because they hope to become artists. In this novel, we meet Charles Strickland, upon whom art descends like an affliction. He abandons his job and his family, and all the conventions of polite society. He becomes coarse and obsessive. The change is so violent that we suspect some neurological trauma.
The scene moves from Paris to Tahiti, in parallel with Strickland’s progress as an artist, conveying physically the sense of being drawn into a different world. The contrast between the artist and the world he left behind is a study in how art transcends ordinary life. I put it this way because it is clear where Maugham’s sympathies lie. He is sympathetic enough about the abandoned wife and the dead lover, but derisive toward the rest.
There is a lot to hate in this romantic description of the possessed artist, but I enjoyed it. Maugham makes the story plausible by relating it as a friend of the family, the same technique he uses to good effect in The Razor’s Edge. It, too, is a sentimental story rescued from cliché by Maugham’s narrative style.
I am a Chinese reader and at first started this book in Chinese. But after a mere chapter, I decided that I have to read it in English because the translation is too obscure to be understood and I just don't want to miss a great book. Though my English is poor, I tried my best to perceive.
I like this sentence a lot"a writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of his thoughts; and indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success." Reading more into the stories, I could understand better how Maugham meant by saying this.
When I came to the part when the author and Strickland met frequently in Paris, I understood the sentence by one should not be kidnapped by the material desire of his body but pursue the real desire of his spirit. Facing reproach of the author toward him for his inhumanity, Strickland's got only one sentence to say, "I've got to paint." Painting is what the spirit of Strickland wants to pursue, he could get no peace unless he paints. He was indifferent to comfort from wealth or squalor from poverty, he just painted.
But later, when my imagination went to Tahiti with the author, I was so surprised by his married life on the island that I doubted for a moment if those story-tellers just have made stories up. But apparently, they did not. And only till then did I understand, painting is not what Strickland pursues finally, painting is just a medium, it is the mystery of life he wants to ask, it is the form of primitive he wants to find, and finally it is beauty that he wants to create. His soul feels lonely at his born place.He finds no mate to his spirit, he finds no answer to his confusions, he can't be freed from his uneasiness. But in Tahiti, he starts to get what he wants so he accepts the accompany of a wife, an old woman, a young girl and boy to live with him. Because he finds an answer so that he is no longer afraid of and resist companion of others in life and he is no longer tortured by his inner desire.
So at the end of life, I think, he is content. Because even blinded, he sees beauty with his mind, and that is what he wants to create, and by so, he finds peace of his spirit which can finally rest and vanish into the great emptiness.
The Moon and Sixpence by Somereset Maugham
The Moon and Sixpence was Somerset Maugham’s eleventh novel. A first person narration, it follows Charles Strickland, a remorseless pursuer of artistic fuifillment in painting. The model for Strickland was the Franch artist Paul Gaughn who died nearly a decade prior to the novel’s publication.
The rather short chapters and clear writing provides a comfortable reading pace. Maugham had exceptional skill in dramatic construction and writing in a style that expressed complexity with precision and passion. About the title its import is the choice between what is near and cheap and that which is far and grand. Sixpence is a British coin with a connotation of small value; a connotation similar to that given the U.S. quarter when used in the phrase “two bits worth”. The moon as referred to in the title has the connotation of something remote and worth attainable; “Fly me to the moon” is a lyric suggestive of the same attitude. The moon then, within the context of the novel, is the mastery of painting Strickland seeks; the sixpence is the negible value of conventions he rejects.
For the reader who is willing to pan the stream of literature for nuggets, The Moon and Sixpence may be a rewarding find. His productive period ran from the late 1800’s to the mid 1960’s. Maugham once said that the future would probably judge him among the foremost of the second raters. Time had vindicated his estimate. Though he is not ranked among the greatest, neither is he relegated to the least. Several of his fictional works have been made into films. Adapt in play writing as he was in other fields of prose, he accumulated a fortune, an estate, and a valuable collection of paintings. A unpleasant childhood, a tenative start as a doctor, a stint in the British secret service, and world wide travel provided him with ample material for his fiction.
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