The Gentleman In The Parlour (Vintage Classics)
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There enough raw material to sate his imagination and the journey itself takes on the contours of a story worth recording. Among the coolly-observed descriptions of ruined pagodas there's the added treat of Maugham's catty thoughts on his craft Sunday Herald (Glasgow) Maugham's finest travel book...As the urbane novelist wends his way through tropic climes, he reads Proust under the mosquito netting, listens to stories of passion and madness from British colonials gone to seed, and bears up under the merciless sun, sipping at a gin and bitters and laying out a hand of solitaire Washington Post An elegant writer's notebook, imaginative, crammed with impressions and ideas received simply and directly, without the filtering screens of literariness or Englishness... he writes with majestic plainness The Times A delightful book - It contains vivid travel impressions, some autobiographical confidences, and the plots for a dozen novels Spectator
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Stunningly rejacketed as part of a major reinvention of this neglected 20th century master
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book contains, what I believe to be the greatest passage I've ever read. Maugham was very modest when saying he was not a great writer and had to work hard at it. His command of the language is superb; neat and precise yet delightful. He travelled extensively and collected the raw material for many of his short stories. This is more a travelogue, but more charming than that word suggests. Well worth a read.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Really good read, showing Burma and Thailand in the 1920s and particularly when Burma was still a British colony. I've read Somerset Maugham before but hadn't realised how good he is with the English language. Although many of the colonial attitudes have fortunately gone it is still interesting to read of the way of life of those times. I read it while in Thailand and many of the Burmese ways probaly applied in Siam then.
Format:Paperback
On the face of it, it seems like a fine concept - one of the best writers in the world writing a travelogue of his journey across South East Asia in the early 20th century. But once I got into it, I was a bit disappointed with what was actually written inside.
Somerset Maugham is one of the finest writers I've ever read, "Of Human Bondage" is honestly one of the best novels I've ever read, more of the most memorable and soul wrenching stories ever set down on paper. His other works have been no less spectacular - "The Moon and Sixpence" and "The Painted Veil" are masterpieces both. That said, I've read a few books by Maugham that have been less than satisfying - I couldn't finish "The Razor's Edge" or "The Magician" while "Up at the Villa" and "Cakes and Ale" were both quite dull reads. Every so often though I see his name and remember how "Of Human Bondage" kept me going through an enormously long journey in Japan a few years ago and decide to try him again.
"The Gentleman in the Parlour" is very descriptive, going into detail on the buildings and surroundings, the clothes the people wear, the food they eat, the weather - if this is your thing then you'll enjoy the heck of out this book. For me, description is probably the thing I least enjoy about reading. I simply don't care what people wear or how someone describes a sunset, and frankly it reads like a dull travel program minus the visuals.
Strangely, the parts where Maugham digresses and talks about the books he's reading are the most interesting and reminded me of the essays that form his book "The Vagrant Mood". There are a couple of personal stories from the people Maugham met on the road which I'm sure were once scandalous and racy but sadly in the light of the 21st century merely pale into dreariness.
That said, I did finish the book instead of setting it aside with a sigh. It's immensely readable and Maugham's style in this book is very chatty and amiable. It feels like you're being told a story by a human version of Carroll's Cheshire Cat. But overall I would rate it quite low in this writer's list of great works and would instead implore the curious reader to pick up his more accomplished and beautiful books "Of Human Bondage" and "The Painted Veil", the latter of which is set in South East Asia and is a far more entertaining book.
Somerset Maugham is one of the finest writers I've ever read, "Of Human Bondage" is honestly one of the best novels I've ever read, more of the most memorable and soul wrenching stories ever set down on paper. His other works have been no less spectacular - "The Moon and Sixpence" and "The Painted Veil" are masterpieces both. That said, I've read a few books by Maugham that have been less than satisfying - I couldn't finish "The Razor's Edge" or "The Magician" while "Up at the Villa" and "Cakes and Ale" were both quite dull reads. Every so often though I see his name and remember how "Of Human Bondage" kept me going through an enormously long journey in Japan a few years ago and decide to try him again.
"The Gentleman in the Parlour" is very descriptive, going into detail on the buildings and surroundings, the clothes the people wear, the food they eat, the weather - if this is your thing then you'll enjoy the heck of out this book. For me, description is probably the thing I least enjoy about reading. I simply don't care what people wear or how someone describes a sunset, and frankly it reads like a dull travel program minus the visuals.
Strangely, the parts where Maugham digresses and talks about the books he's reading are the most interesting and reminded me of the essays that form his book "The Vagrant Mood". There are a couple of personal stories from the people Maugham met on the road which I'm sure were once scandalous and racy but sadly in the light of the 21st century merely pale into dreariness.
That said, I did finish the book instead of setting it aside with a sigh. It's immensely readable and Maugham's style in this book is very chatty and amiable. It feels like you're being told a story by a human version of Carroll's Cheshire Cat. But overall I would rate it quite low in this writer's list of great works and would instead implore the curious reader to pick up his more accomplished and beautiful books "Of Human Bondage" and "The Painted Veil", the latter of which is set in South East Asia and is a far more entertaining book.
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