Don Fernando, or, Variations on some Spanish themes

by W. Somerset Maugham

Considered by Graham Greene to be Maugham's best work, "Don Fernando" is a paean to a golden age of enormous creative energy. It discusses the writings of St Teresa and the paintings of El Greco, and comments with sagacity and wit on such illustrious figures as Cervantes, Velazquez and the creator of Don Juan. This vibrant assessment of a great people at their greatest hour is full of happy surprises, curious facts and stimulating opinions that reflect Maugham's lifelong enchantment with the landscape and people of Spain.

Genres: Nonfiction, Classics, Travel, Spain, Literature, British Literature, Biography

269 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1935

About the author

William Somerset Maugham was born in Paris in 1874. He spoke French even before he spoke a word of English, a fact to which some critics attribute the purity of his style.

His parents died early and, after an unhappy boyhood, which he recorded poignantly in Of Human Bondage, Maugham became a qualified physician. But writing was his true vocation. For ten years before his first success, he almost literally starved while pouring out novels and plays.

Maugham wrote at a time when experimental modernist literature such as that of William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf was gaining increasing popularity and winning critical acclaim. In this context, his plain prose style was criticized as 'such a tissue of clichés' that one's wonder is finally aroused at the writer's ability to assemble so many and at his unfailing inability to put anything in an individual way.

During World War I, Maugham worked for the British Secret Service . He travelled all over the world, and made many visits to America. After World War II, Maugham made his home in south of France and continued to move between England and Nice till his death in 1965.

At the time of Maugham's birth, French law was such that all foreign boys born in France became liable for conscription. Thus, Maugham was born within the Embassy, legally recognized as UK territory.

Reviews

[Steve Payne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Various musings from Maugham on Spain - its literature, food, religion, El Greco, and its way of life and people.

An oddly rambling book which begins like a novel with a wonderfully atmospheric opening chapter regarding tavern owner, Don Fernando, selling the storyteller a book. But from then on we’re all over the place.

Apart from the opening chapter there are just a few curio moments of interest, including some that will offend those seeking to be offended – on all manner of subjects. Although he clearly loves the Spanish way of life, he will think nothing of stating that he sees the Spanish as a traditionally non-intellectual people who have not produced any great philosophers or scientists (this was written in 1935) and forever surmises why he believes there is so little great Spanish literature (the number of precis he delivers to prove points constantly had my head dropping towards sleep. So I guess he succeeded there!). At times I think Maugham partly has his tongue in cheek, and at other times he literally does seem to be just rambling notes and thoughts onto a page.

Somerset Maugham is my favourite author, but this is very untypical. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to someone new to Maugham, in fact, I wouldn’t recommend it at all! I found it to be Maugham's weakest book - in fact it's so all over the place as to be little more than an unfocused notebook.

Pity ole Somerset didn’t keep the opening chapter for another book, for it’s very good. This book apparently divides opinion, but I notice that even the positive reviews often resort to the word rambling. Maybe it’s just the way my brain works. I just don’t do rambling - the digressive thought process that is. I prefer my non-fiction clear and organised. And the reason I love Maugham's writing so much is his very focused ability to create character and atmospheric setting within a gripping narrative; but, apart from the opening chapter, this doesn't apply here. As for the other kind of rambling? There's little I like better than a good ole hike along the coast, or across the countryside! Followed by a cool pint, of course. As much as I like Maugham, I really couldn't recommend taking this book on your ramble.

[Shankar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a big fan of Maugham I am constantly looking to find his works. This was a surprise find at a local library - which normally stocks up on pulp fiction.

This work is different from his others in that it is a travelogue with history thrown in. And how. Only he could be extremely serious but conversational. This book is all about Spain and it’s cultural and social history. A real deep dive into the daily lives of kings and queens and the folks in the villages. An exposition of how their daily lives were across areas such as food literature and relationships. This has a lot of his views on art expounded in great detail. I learnt about a new genre of ‘picaresque’ novels.

The section on El Greco and Cervantes were real eye openers. He speaks a lot about how art just for admiration means nothing unless the beholder’s emotion translates into doing great things ( .... probably for others I guess ).

I realised later that if I read about them in a different book I may not have been so interested. Probably we will only listen to facts from people we like.

A wonderful book by Maugham - despite the fact that I am a huge fan.

Recommended for anyone who would like a good introduction to Spain.

[Zoeb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like indulging myself on a whim. I feel like packing my and my wife's bags and then heading to the airport and go through all the formalities and the paperwork and find myself, after a weary slog of nearly nine hours, in Spain. I would like to then hire a car and drive in circles around the countryside, take a walk with my wife in the cobblestoned, winding streets of those little towns and hamlets, settle down to a platter of some paella or some wine and finally bring the evening to a close by watching a feisty belle dressed in gorgeous red dance the flamenco. And even then, I think, I would be unable to fathom just what makes Spain so alluring to us all.

Is it the architectural remnants of the Moors, the sunshine in the bright, dazzling summers, the precipitous mountains and rocky cliffs, the piquant, succinct flavours of the palate, the feisty women, the foolhardy men, the romance of the plucking of the flamenco guitar strings or something else, that makes us crave to let our hair loose and take in the wind like a true Spaniard? William Somerset Maugham, one of the greatest authors and storytellers from the Edwardian Era and of all time in general, set out in the 1930s, to find the answer to that question.

The result was "Don Fernando" a book that has something of an off-kilter reputation among all his works; most modern readers dismiss it as a mere collection of sketches written when he was conducting his research for "Catalina" and yet it was Graham Greene's favourite book from the author and with good reason too. If you are about to open the cover, expecting a thrilling travel book awash with sights, sounds, scents and sensations, you would be disappointed; if, on the other hand, you are expecting a series of brilliantly penned, well-researched, even annoyingly didactic, pieces on the country and everything about it, well, you will be rewarded.

It begins, living up to its title, with a memory of Don Fernando, a tavern-keeper whom Maugham had encountered in his first visit to Spain - who also had worked out a side business as a dealer of curios and antiques. One day, Fernando sold Maugham an ancient-looking manuscript that turned out to be a history of none other than Saint Ignatius of Loyola and his life and struggles and ultimate triumphs that established his reputation as a Jesuit priest across the world.

Going from there, Maugham sets out to unravel and explore not only Loyola's life and sacraments but also a whole legacy of Catholicism that is unique primarily to Spain. And even beyond that, he digs deeper into the dazzling cultural influence that the country exerted at the same time of Loyola's heyday - through a candid, fairly concise and profound commentary on its traditions of "machismo" and bravado, its food and its earthy exoticism, its picaresque literary tropes, as evident in its most famous work of literature "Don Quixote", its rambunctious form of theatre, its women and its art, all in the height of their glory in their respective Golden Age.

It makes for wonderful reading, from cover to cover, but there is a touch of an overbearing didacticism in some of these sketches and writings; too often, Maugham labours hard his points and conclusions, not only about the figures he sets out to deconstruct and discuss - Loyola, Cervantes, Lope De Vega, Saint Teresa, Luis De Leon and, most of all, El Greco. The accomplished craftsman of words that he was, even this didacticism is mostly easy to swallow, provided you have the patience and time to sit on each of these pieces. But what particularly seems a little preachy is when Maugham is getting ahead of himself, trying more to deconstruct our perceptions and ideas about writers, artists and the like, which also makes the entire volume a little self-indulgent.

Nevertheless, this is only a minor quibble. "Don Fernando" is the book that you should pick up over an issue of Lonely Planet if you wish to gulp down a heady cocktail of everything that made and continues to make Spain a force to reckon with in the annals of cultural and artistic revolution. For most part, it reads like a flowing documentary on the Golden Age of Spain, with splendid sights and revelations brought to life and with a lively voiceover full of more wisdom and knowledge than one could grasp in a single viewing. If only it knew when to stop at times...

[Matjaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This work caught me by surprise as I expected a story revolving around an innkeeper but then it took an interesting turn to Maugham's meditations and observations of the Spanish Golden Age, its artists, society and religion. Many interesting facts that are not so well known.

Should be recommended as one of the good introductory reads (light and not too tedious to read) into Spanish history of art, people, cuisine and (at times extreme) influence of religion from late 15th to mid 17th century.

"No wonder they were able to conquer half the world, these Spaniards, when they could so terribly conquer themselves."

[Amir · Rating 2 out of 5]

We all are entitled to a bad day

[Naim · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In Spain it is men that are the poems, the pictures and the buildings. Men are its philosophies. They lived, these Spaniards of the Golden Age; they felt and did; they did not think. Life was what they sought and found, life in its turmoil, its fervour and its variety."

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished Somerset Maugham's "Don Fernando," which was Maugham's personal favorite of all the books he wrote.

It has been described as a travel book, but I don't think that's entirely accurate, though there are a few scattered sections that could be described as travel writing. The premise is that Maugham long planned to write an historical novel set during Spain's Golden Age. He traveled extensively and read 200-300 books on the subject, but was never able to get the book past the initial planning stage.

"Don Fernando," then, is a loose collection of observations on Spain in general, and especially Spain in the Golden Age. Maugham discusses food, architecture, painting, literature, the practice of writing, drama, mysticism, Catholicism, the Spanish obsession with honor, picaresque novels, and such figures as St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Teresa of Avila, Cervantes, and Lope De Vega.

The longest chapter, I believe, is devoted to El Greco. Though Maugham admires El Greco's work, he also criticizes it. According to the Maugham biographies I own, the book is most famous for the El Greco chapter, chiefly because Maugham claims that he suspects El Greco, notwithstanding the fact that he had a mistress and a bastard son, was homosexual. (Maugham, despite the fact he was once married and had a bastard daughter, was himself predominantly homosexual.)

Though elsewhere in the chapter Maugham hails El Greco as great, he attributes what he perceives to be El Greco's flaws to his supposed homosexuality, saying that a homosexual is generally not capable of making great art, because he is essentially superficial, with an incomplete knowledge of the human condition. He cannot create great art--he can merely draw pretty decorations. This is why, for example, Maugham thinks El Greco's religious paintings are devoid of any true religious feeling--they are just excuses for him to draw elongated bodies, experiment with posing the hands, and paint dramatic clouds with lovely colors.

The relentlessness of Maugham's attack, and the negativity of his attitude really reveal more about Maugham's self-loathing than they reveal El Greco's flaws.

All this being said, it was a wonderful book. It rambles so much that Maugham doesn't have a chance to get too entrenched in an esoteric topic or point and the reader doesn't have a chance to get bored. It made me want to travel to Spain and to do some research into its literature and art, which is the best you can ask from a book of this sort.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

It starts like a typical Maugham tale. Narrator lives in some forgotten place in Spain, and he describes a dirty restaurant owner. One suspects that he will tell the real story. But no, the man tries to sell a book, narrator does not want it, and finally, of course, he gets it. And still later he reads it and tells us the story. Which turns out to be the story of the Holy Ignazius. Very suspenseful, and now one suspects this is not fiction at all. Maugham tells us everything he thinks is interesting about Spanish culture. Lopez and a lot of authors I never heard of, painters. Very interesting. Some very strange remarks, like you eat best in the north of every country.
That was his favorite book. I understand, but it is more an author’s book than a reader’s book. Still quite wonderful. What I find a pity, that this great country did not produce one great scientist.

[Brianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It starts out as a novel then slowly transforms itself into travel book on Spain’s Golden Age. I believe Maugham must have used this book as his own research guide/writing exercise for his next novel, some say Catalina. But I think he achieved all he wanted with this artful piece, Don Fernando. His chapter on El Greco is GENIUS! I highly recommend this to anyone who loves the study of culture, art, music, religion, and food in all forms and countries.

[Sue Chaplin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I chose this book for several reasons. I have read Somerset Maugham stories in the past and enjoyed them, the back of the book said that Graham Greene thought this was Maugham best work and I have enjoyed Graham Greene books. The book is about Spain and recommended on the back by the Washington Post as Maugham's best travel book and I am a bit of an hispanophile.
It was really not what I expected and I started to wonder what is meant by a travel book. For most of this book Maugham is taking the part of a critic of both literature and art of the golden age of Spain. For the literature he gives a summary of the writing and then critiques it. For the paintings he does concentrate largely on El Greco which does give rise to an astonishing passage where he discusses the suggestion that El Greco was gay. Well, what to say? Sometimes you can excuse things by saying "well in those times...." but he goes as far as to say that it is not possible to be gay and a genius.
At the start I thought that may be this was his research or journal that had been published but Maugham makes it clear that he has an audience in mind for the book but it does also seem to be research for a work of fiction. An odd book that I would not recommend.
I have found myself disagreeing with Greene and the Washington Post.

[Lee Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is a blurb from Graham Greene on the back of this edition which says “Don Fernando is Mr. Maugham’s best book.” Let me just say that there is a reason I’ve read 34 (and counting, and that includes compilations) Maugham books and only two Graham Greene books—the man doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

For me, anyway, Maugham is at his worst when he’s writing a period novel. His travel writing is decent, if a bit dull in parts. This book starts out as a period novel, but then it digresses into a travel writing book about Spain. It’s really just him talking about a bunch of books he read about Spain (lots of Cervantes talk), generally shit-talking Spanish culture (per Maugham, they didn’t come up with anything good themselves, just aped other, better culture), and then talking about El Greco for a while (the most interesting chapter for me, because at least I could Google the paintings as he talked about each one).

If you get off on reading a 90-year-old book in which a guy describes in great detail the plots of 500-year-old books, then this is the book for you. One wonders what books of Maugham’s Graham Greene had actually read prior to this one. Maybe it was a backhanded compliment?

[Manuela Ruseva · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I initially picked it from a shelf in a library, I had no idea what I am going to go through. The name was appealing to me as it represented a middle-aged Spaniard who will make the perfect paella or "calamares" in his typical bar and eventually tells funny stories to the small circle of his everyday clients. The book talks instead about religion, literature, architecture, art, people's merits, pilgrimage, saints, and other non-easy-processible stuff. Not bad at all. On the opposite, I enjoyed the summary of the Golden Age in some parts (literature and art were my top fav), it gave me another direction of thought and I highly recommend you want to see behind the scene. This book may nicely surprise you if you open it as unprepared as I was. However, not a kill-the-time read.

[Dave Clarke · Rating 1 out of 5]

My third Maugham novel and the worse so far ... From the blurb on the back, Graham Greene said it was favourite Maugham novel, but i suspect he was being mischievous of a fellow writer's work, expecting a story, instead I got an anthology of his highlights of spain's golden age ... Disjointed, bigoted from the modern readers perspective, inane wanderings of a religious nature and just plain old hard going ... instead of enjoying picking it up, I found myself preferring doing anything but finish it, and had to force myself to do, out of an almost perverse sense of not admitting to defeat ... with exception of the opening tale of a rundown restaurant, an art dealing proprietor and a mysterious book, which sadly led nowhere, it's one to avoid IMHO

[Lucie Riches · Rating 2 out of 5]

Felt quite prejudiced about many people and generally quite rambling. Some interesting cultural and historical insights as well as some interesting views on artists and their craft whether written or painted. Some great tales of adventure too. His grumpy and broad condemnations of all manner of things struck a humorous note for me at times but overall was a bit tiresome and I lost focus regularly.

[Caffeinated · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a short, delightful book for someone who enjoys reading about history, foreign lands, culture and travel. It is, as another reviewer aptly put it, a "slightly aimless collection of anecdotes on various aspects of Spain and its history". I think it's best for when you're in the mood for a bit of learning without wanting to pick up a heavy history tome. And for fans of Somerset Maugham's writing, this is a must read. It's written in such a beautiful style that I find myself reading and re-reading passages for the sentence constructions themselves. And as a big fan of learning about history and in particular of social mores and everyday life in other time periods/countries, the glimpses into Spanish history and life were riveting.

[Betty Notzon]

I don't think it's fair for me to rate this book because Maugham wrote it in the fashion of the time. It isn't one of his terrific fictional works, but more a musing about the zeitgeist, or something German. . .So, unlike my usual practice, I didn't finish it. Sorry Mr. Maugham.

[Andrew McClarnon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was picked up at a second hand book stall. I’m always in the market to read some WSM, but this wasn’t a novel, rather a series of musings on 16 th century Spanish culture. Occasionally WSM’s protagonist peeps through, but mostly it’s learned criticism and not really my cup of tea.

[Jorge Beaufort · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pure rubbish. An absolute ignorance about Spain is shown during the whole book. Completely to be avoided.

[John Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful

[Cait · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first essay is great, but it slowly goes downhill ..

[L · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book left me slightly confused; it is clear that Somerset Maugham had a talent with words but Don Fernando is a slightly aimless collection of anecdotes on various aspects of Spain and its history. The book starts so promisingly, with Maugham recounting a witty tale of an ancient Spaniard he once met (the Don Fernando in the title) who would buy him knick-knacks and bits of jumble. The Spaniard proceeds to foist an old book on Maugham very much against his will, and the next chapter covers what that old book was about. Unfortunately the remaining chapters just seem to be random bits of Spanish history that Maugham had chanced upon or researched and found vaguely interesting.

On the positive side, there were glimpses of humour that did make me smile. Maugham, being born into the upper classes of Victorian England and writing in the first half of the 20th Century, exhibits the typical bluntness of the old aristocracy in saying precisely what he thinks and not particularly tempering it for anyone else's benefit. Dotted through the book are various examples of not mincing one's words, such as "The Church is uglier than any church I have ever seen" and "I cannot believe that religious art has ever sunk lower than this; and that an earthquake has not levelled it with the ground must seem to the good Catholic a very signal instance of the infinite patience of God".

One thing that did irritate me (ironically, because I feel like I am doing the same in this review a bit) is that there are far too many quotes in the book, some of which are pages long. I get the feeling that Somerset Maugham would have been the most marvellous dinner party guest but sadly it doesn't quite translate in this book. Curiously he did self-edit this book himself years after publication, taking out a couple of chunks which he decided were overly self-indulgent and unlikely to be of interest to the reader. What a shame he didn't trim it down a bit more as parts of this book are enjoyable but taken as a whole it did rather drag.

If you do get hold of a copy of Don Fernando, I would recommend reading the first chapter if only to enjoy the dialogue cataloguing Maugham's unceremonious refusal to negotiate with Don Fernando over the old book. However the rest I would recommend only if the reader has a specific interest in any of the various areas that Maugham lights on: Ignatius Loyola, El Greco, bits of Don Quixote, traditional eating customs of the Spanish (?) etc.

After reading this I am not writing off Maugham entirely; however I think I shall be a little more careful in choosing which of his works I read in the future.

[Michael Percy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must admit to feeling I read this book out of order. Although the cover blurb suggests that this is Maugham's greatest work, it would seem that Don Fernando was a sketch of the research Maugham did for what would later become Catalina. It has the feel of a travel book, somewhat similar in intent to On a Chinese Screen, but held together by a personal story relating to Don Fernando and an historical book he insisted Maugham should have. I kept waiting to hear more about Don Fernando but instead found myself enthralled in a treatise on Spanish art, literature, and architecture amid life during the Counter-Reformation, and the artists and mystics who made it all happen. I am often impressed by the depth of historical knowledge of the literary greats. Indeed, Maugham claims to have read some three hundred books as research for a planned novel that had not happened by the time Don Fernando was published. It is clear that one doesn't write true 'literature' without a hefty amount of research. The trouble with reading such scholarly work is the reminder that great works do not come easy, and my ability to absorb literature vociferously is limited by my work and the professional reading I must continue to do. I recall an interview in the Paris Review where an author spoke of the limited time for reading that remained in his life, and the need to be strategic about what one reads after age fifty. Sadly, Don Fernando reminds me of that fast-approaching fact, and there is so much in Maugham's work here that deserves further investigation. I am afraid I will have to abandon the details and enjoy the ephemeral sensation of my newly gained yet thin knowledge.

[Zanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fascinating ramble through Maugham's reading and research on the Spanish 'Golden Age' of Cervantes and the picaresque novels. For me reading this threw up knotty questions of truth and trust in authors, on more than one level, as Maugham's reliabillity and that of his sources is both questionable and blurred by layers of interpretation... His reflection on El Greco seems credible and insightful, but his comments on homosexuality then render the foregoing suspect.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was like a tour guide for the rich from the beginning of the 20th century. Very flowery language that was enjoyable, and some stories for each region of Spain. It really made me want to travel through the whole of Spain.

[Lu 3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been slow at reading thanks to college but what a lovely read this was: such beauty in this exploration of such a rich and vibrant culture!!!!

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

a fun history of the siglo de oro.