- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Mandarin; New edition edition (18 Oct 1990)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0749303433
- ISBN-13: 978-0749303433
- Product Dimensions: 17.3 x 11.4 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 119,178 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Charles Strickland, a conventional stockbroker abandons his wife and children for Paris and Tahiti, to live his life as a painter. Whilst his betrayal of family, duty and honour gives him the freedom to achieve greatness, his decision leads to an obsession which carries severe implications.
About the Author
William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era, and reputedly, the highest paid author during the 1930s. Commercial success with high book sales, successful theatre productions and a string of film adaptations, backed by astute stock market investments, allowed Maugham to live a very comfortable life. Small and weak as a boy, Maugham had been proud even then of his stamina, and as an adult he kept churning out the books, proud that he could. Yet, despite his triumphs, he never attracted the highest respect from the critics or his peers. Maugham himself attributed this to his lack of "lyrical quality", his small vocabulary and failure to make expert use of metaphor in his work. In 1934 the American journalist and radio personality Alexander Woollcott offered to Maugham this bit of language advice: "The female implies, and from that the male infers." Maugham: "I am not yet too old to learn."
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
When he first meets Charles Strickland, a London stockbroker, the young narrator of this novel thinks of him as "good, honest, dull, and plain." When Strickland suddenly abandons his wife and children and takes off for Paris, however, the narrator decides he is a cad. Though he has had no training, Strickland has decided to become an artist, a drive so strong that he is willing to sacrifice everything toward that end. Anti-social, and feeling no obligation to observe even the smallest social decencies, Strickland becomes increasingly boorish as he practices his art. Eventually, he makes his way to Tahiti, where he "marries," moves to a remote cottage, and spends the rest of his life devoted to his painting.
Basing the novel loosely on the life of Paul Gauguin, Maugham creates an involving and often exciting story. His narrator is a writer who feels impelled, after Strickland's death and posthumous success, to set down his memories of his early interactions with Strickland in London and Paris. Because the narrator never saw Strickland after he left Paris, he depends on his meetings with a ship captain and a woman in Papeete for information about Strickland after Strickland's arrival in Tahiti. The ship captain is described as a story-teller who may be spinning tall tales, a constant reminder to the reader that this is fiction, and not a biography of Gauguin.
By depicting Strickland as a "dull, plain" man suddenly gripped by an obsession so overwhelming that nothing else matters to him, Maugham involves the reader in his actions, which even the narrator claims not to understand. The least convincing aspect of Strickland's characterization is the narrator's observation that Strickland is completely indifferent to his wife of seventeen years and his children. No confrontation between Strickland and his wife appears, and one wonders if perhaps Maugham found himself unable to depict such an abandonment realistically. The story moves quickly, however, and whatever is sacrificed in the characterization is more than recouped in the plot and its development.
Straightforward in its story line, the novel is romantic in its depiction of the artist in the grip of an obsession, his subsequent abandonment of civilization and return to nature, his suffering of a long and terminal illness (during which he paints his masterpiece), and the fate of this creation. Good, old-fashioned story-telling at its best, this uncomplicated story, written in 1919, still has broad appeal. Mary Whipple
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Moon and Sixpence is a book about Charles Strickland, who inexplicably leaves his family to live a life as a poor painter in France. It is told by a narrator who met several times at pivotal oments in Charles' life, and has decided to write his memories of the man to stand alongside other misleading or inaccurate biographies. this of course in turn begs the interesting question of the reliabilty of this narrator, especially as there is no-one left alive to contradict him.
Apparently based on the life of Paul Gauguin, an artist who I know little about but The Moon and Sixpence has interested me enough to research of my own, always a mark of a good book if you want to know more.
Overall ths is a subtle intelligent book that leaves you thinking about human motivations and soical interaction, and what does it take to make great art.
Apparently based on the life of Paul Gauguin, an artist who I know little about but The Moon and Sixpence has interested me enough to research of my own, always a mark of a good book if you want to know more.
Overall ths is a subtle intelligent book that leaves you thinking about human motivations and soical interaction, and what does it take to make great art.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio Cassette
Robert Hardy gives a wonderful reading of Maugham's intense study of artistic desire. His crisp, deep and elegant tones bring to life both the bustling cafes of Paris and the remote jungles of Tahiti. The book tells of artist Charles Strickland, who becomes a slave to his creative desires, desires that he compulsively pursues at the cost of all those around him. Hardy manages to convey the sheer emotional power and strength of feelings with which the book often deals, moving between characters and places with ease, from tormented lover to jovial tramp, from the drawing rooms of London, to the sun drenched South Sea islands. However, in the end it is the sensitivity and wisdom of Maugham's prose, which is brought to the forefront by Hardy's delivery, leaving the tale of Charles Strickland's tormented, horrific but ultimately triumphant life lingering in your thoughts long after you, have finished listening.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The moon and sixpence
Only discovered Somerset Maugham recently and think his writing is quite brilliant, economical, poingnant and great stories with terrific insight into the human condition.
Published 17 months ago by Lucy
"You are an unmitigated cad!"
When he first meets Charles Strickland, a London stockbroker, the young narrator of this novel thinks of him as "good, honest, dull, and plain. Read more
Published on 31 Oct 2005 by Mary Whipple
Beware the English department
Very nice little novel based on the life of a sort of English twentieth-century Gauguin who eventually dies of leprosy in Tahiti. Maugham is very impressive. Read more
Published on 30 April 1999
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