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Somerset Maugham: A Life
 
 
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Somerset Maugham: A Life (Hardcover)

by Jeffrey Meyers (Author)
1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 432 pages
  • Publisher: Alfred A Knopf; 1 edition (26 Mar 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0375414754
  • ISBN-13: 978-0375414756
  • Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 16.8 x 3.7 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,022,244 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

A well-considered life of the phenomenally successful but little esteemed English writer. Pity poor W. Somerset Maugham, whose friends called him "Willie": he complained that his manicured Riviera villa and yacht were poor places to write, "out of touch with the stream of life, with people, with happenings of import." When he entered into that stream, he sometimes got himself into deep trouble, but also turned up material for stories that approached literature-Of Human Bondage, The Razor's Edge. Having achieved success early on with books that critics dismissed as potboilers, Maugham found himself outside the best literary circles; he lived to be a ripe 92, but "he developed no coterie and was sustained by no reliable faction," and was indeed most unpopular. Literary and film biographer Meyers (Inherited Risk, 2002, etc.) enumerates the reasons for Maugham's poor standing: he had a "chilling character," lived abroad to avoid paying British taxes, was openly homosexual, and "enjoyed writing and composed with great facility in an age when highly admired authors, like Joyce and Kafka, tortured themselves with creative agony." The last reason seems a little unlikely; like Stephen King and the National Book Award, after all, Maugham got his honors and his moolah too, a million dollars for the play Rain and its subsequent adaptations alone. But it finds echoes in critical assessments of the time, which accused Maugham of emotional tone-deafness and general hackishness. Meyers turns in a respectful account of Maugham, delivering a few nicely turned surprises that touch on, for instance, Maugham's service as a spy in the South Seas and early Bolshevik Russia. All that doesn't make the writer any more likable (as Meyers quotes C.P. Snow as observing, visiting Maugham was "rather like visiting one's family lawyer"), but such moments at least make him seem more interesting. A major biography, then, of a minor figure. (Kirkus Reviews)


Synopsis

A profile of the late-Victorian era literary master discusses such topics as his struggles with sexual repression and artistic expression, his education and medical training, and his roles as a secret agent and war propagandist.
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Average Customer Review
1.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Cut & Paste as a Biog Writing Technique, 26 Nov 2006
By R. W. Black "BlueRememberedHills" (North Yorkshire, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Somerset Maugham: A Life (Paperback)
I've just finished reading this uninspired, formulaic biography of one of the 20th Century's most revered authors...and it was hard going!

To be fair to the author, he marshals the salient facts in more or less chronological order but his writing style grated on me (the result of some peculiarities of syntax in combination with poor proof reading). There are a number of unsubtiantiated opinons too and it felt as if Dr Meyers was following a "how to write a biography quickly" recipe - I note that he has written many biographies of literary figures although this is the first of his that I have read. It is additionally "footnote city" making me even more suspicious that the target audience is really lazy English literature students.

There are too many precis' of WMS's novels, most of which reveal the stories endings and are not a necessary inclusion when describing such a fascinating life. I understand the importance of demonstrating that Maugham used his own experineces and aquaintenances, often thinly disguised, in his writings but I would have much preferred more detail on his travel experiences and less pocket novel padding.

The book feels overlong but does appear to contain the important details. In the absence of other biographies (there are of course autobiographical volumes available) this volume will just about do, but it could have been a much better book in the hands of a less academic writer with a better editor. Pity really - the subject matter was such a colourful, well travelled, erudite and widely recorded character. He deserves better.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars RUBBISH!, 2 Nov 2008
By Carlo Matthews "carlo" (La Paz Bolivia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
"Finally," I thought, "an updated bio on Maugham," some of whose works I love and have taught. I bought and read this shortly after it was published and still feel irked whenever I come across it at home. I'll just have to throw it away, Meyers.

Besides the toneless and hurried writing style which never rises above the perfunctory, the book is riddled with flaws exposing an alarming degree of incompetence. Much of the bio, for example, consists of mere summaries of Maugham's major and even not-so-major works. After reading a few of these -- one placed right after the other -- I realized that I had fallen for a scam. And then came confirmation. Meyers even gets the stories wrong!!! He hasn't read them, or finished them, or can't remember. Take your pick. In any case, the result is just as dire.

Forget any hint of analysis, serious research, history of criticisim, or anything besides the well-known facts of Maugham's life. Just a faceless cut'n'paste hack job. As the reviewer before me mentioned, Meyers has written many biographies, and I shudder to think how he butchered their subjects.

Shame on you Jeffrey Meyers.
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