Far Eastern Tales (Vintage Classics)
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Product Description
Review
If all else perish, there will remain a storyteller's world...that is exclusively and forever Maugham, a world of verandah and prahu which we enter as well as we do that of Conan Doyle's Baker Street, and with a happy and eternal homecoming The Times Maugham teases out buried secrets as mesmerising as the heat and as menacing as the surrounding jungle Observer Ideally you should listen to these stories lying in a long cane chair on the veranda of a dark bungalow sipping a gin and bitters - not that Maugham's writing needs any further atmospheric embellishment. Like Kipling and Conrad, Maugham transports us to a long-since-vanished and distinctly non-PC world of hard-drinking colonial planters and traders and their frosty memsahibs Guardian
Book Description
Stunningly rejacked as part of a major reinvention of this neglected 20th century master
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
34 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a beautifully written work that really gives you the feeling of what SE Asia must have been like 75-100 years ago for the British (and other) colonials stationed there. In his various stories, Maugham puts us deep in the jungle, maintaining British traditions in order to stay "civilized" and shows us what happens when taken outside of our natural environment. After returning home from a year in Vietnam, I really enjoyed how this book transported me back to SE Asia.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this book not realising that it is a collection of the stories that I already have in the 'Short Stories' ie Vintage have taken out stories from the 4 volumes of his short stories and made a 'new 'collection! I feel cheated to say the least and I feel Vintage / Amazon should have made this clear.
Also the quality of the paper /print is poor so that the print is a bit 'dazzling 'and tiring to read, being rather too black. I shall be avoiding Vintage as much as possible in future.
Also the quality of the paper /print is poor so that the print is a bit 'dazzling 'and tiring to read, being rather too black. I shall be avoiding Vintage as much as possible in future.
30 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Despite being a Brit I have always been put off reading Maugham by his image as a Colonial raconteur. I expected a nostalgia for a way of life I have no sympathy for, tinged with occasional pomposity.
And how wrong I was! Maugham has turned out to be unexpectedly subversive, skewering the social and moral conventions of his period without remorse. In Mauham's world there is no God, except that of Society - an Old Testament God feared by his worshippers. Genuine moral concerns take second place to the correct appearance, and the usual moral platitudes have fatal consequences when followed.
Towering slightly beneath Society in wrath come Vengeful Women - disappointed wives who exact a price from their inadequate menfolk, or from themselves for bourgeois compromise. There are no male heroes in Maugham and the gentler sex is invariably ferocious beneath a calm demeanour.
Which is not to say Maugham is savage to read. His prose is cystal sharp, precise and bright. Yes, there is comedy, but at best it is laconic and often cynical.
Looking for rip-roaring tales, the romance of the East or a confirmation of conventional morality? You've got the wrong book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A satisfying read that may leave you in a ponderous mood
Notwithstanding the fact that very few of us could be nostalgic for the institutional racism and myriad other attendant issues of the colonial era these stories are pleasantly... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Michael Turley
Singapore Sling
Conjures up an atmosphere redolent of the bygone world of stengas on the verandah, rubbers of bridge at the club, dark deeds in the night when the sun never set on the British... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Ben Fox
Pour me another gin and let me know when tiffin is ready
Can you believe that the Angostura Bitters company has gone bust?
I went out today to buy some to make a gin pahit for my book club tonight, in preparation for our discussion... Read more
I went out today to buy some to make a gin pahit for my book club tonight, in preparation for our discussion... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Suzieabroad
Punchy, pungent tales
Far Eastern Tales isn't just for short-story readers - I normally only read novels. Maugham's characterisation and sense of the plot twist are such that these, most of them at... Read more
Published on 7 Sep 2009 by reader 451
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