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Collected Stories
31 stories:
In a strange land --
Rain --
The Fall of Edward Bernard --
The Pool --
Mackintosh --
The Happy couple --
Unconquered --
Before the party --
Yellow streak --
Vessel of wrath --
Force of circumstances --
Alien corn --
Virtue --
Bum --
Treasure --
The Colonel's lady --
The Human Element --
Footprints in the jungle --
Book-bag --
The Back of beyond --
Mayhew --
Mirage --
The Letter --
The Outstation --
Red --
Miss King --
The Hairless Mexican --
Giulia Lazzari --
The Traitor --
His Excellency --
Sanatorium --
In a strange land --
Rain --
The Fall of Edward Bernard --
The Pool --
Mackintosh --
The Happy couple --
Unconquered --
Before the party --
Yellow streak --
Vessel of wrath --
Force of circumstances --
Alien corn --
Virtue --
Bum --
Treasure --
The Colonel's lady --
The Human Element --
Footprints in the jungle --
Book-bag --
The Back of beyond --
Mayhew --
Mirage --
The Letter --
The Outstation --
Red --
Miss King --
The Hairless Mexican --
Giulia Lazzari --
The Traitor --
His Excellency --
Sanatorium --
839 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1921
149 people are currently reading
2132 people want to read
About the author
W. Somerset Maugham
2,114 books6,060 followersWilliam 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
November 21, 2007
These little short stories are tight, twisty, unexpected, and ridiculously addictive. The stories often start out as predictable, colonialist vignettes about stolid, boring British colonels and missionaries in exotic locales, but beware, things are not what they appear to be! The natives are not simple creatures, the men are not manly (or even straight), the women are not submissive or obedient, and the quinine isn't quite doing the trick.
You can't read just one - these stories are like delicious, but strangely mysterious, potato chips. Just the thing when you need a smart escape.
You can't read just one - these stories are like delicious, but strangely mysterious, potato chips. Just the thing when you need a smart escape.
October 15, 2008
The greatest story teller of the English language!
April 18, 2014
This is a hefty and imposing volume, heavy yet also compact in dimensions and in print. Thirty-one stories make up the Collected Stories of W. Somerset Maugham, as selected for this immaculate Everyman’s Library edition that I scored for free from my school library. After a particularly work-heavy weekend I needed something I could sink into, something that could envelop me with lush descriptions of far-off lands and times gone by. This short story anthology seemed like it would do the trick: I knew that Maugham had been a prolific writer of short stories, and I was eager to see what the author of the fantastic
Of Human Bondage
could do in this medium.
Maugham tends to write close to home, and as such, often retreads familiar ground. In reading these stories in quick succession like I did, this becomes all the more apparent. Even the glowing, fanboyish introduction from Nicholas Shakespeare warns that the stories in this book often feel formulaic or repetitive. Of the 31 stories here, I’d say that over half of them are set in the British Malay peninsula (or similar southeast Asian islands under British administration), usually dealing with a governor or similar such administrator, either as the main character or as the subject of a story related by a travelling writer who acts as the narrator. Maugham’s characters invariably seem to play a great deal of bridge and walk around wearing sarongs, and all the native women wear Mother Hubbards. The remainder of the stories usually involve young writer characters observing English high society at arm’s length. The last few stories come from Maugham’s Ashenden collection about a suave, literary spy in Europe during the Great War.
Maugham’s stories tend to be what I might call character studies. They focus on a central character and an episode in their life that is particularly important or even fantastic. The stories often end abruptly, just after a flourishing twist that changes the reader’s understanding of the situation. I suspect that, had he wanted to, Maugham might have made a good living as a writer of detective fiction (though he lampoons this genre a couple of times with sly and skilful pseudo-mysteries); it’s a shame he had to suffer in the squalor of fame and fortune like he did.
With these character studies, Maugham seems interested in a few different themes. He devotes a lot of time to understanding obsession and what it is about the human spirit that makes us unable to part with things—whether they are possessions, positions, or people. Maugham’s protagonists often have an ambition or obsession that drives them, typically towards a tragic or otherwise surprising end. I wouldn’t call Maugham pessimistic, but he injects a level of cynicism into his stories that seems to imply a less-than-charitable attitude when it comes to human nature. But this is probably what makes Maugham such a great writer, and a particularly accomplished writer of short stories: he is very good at illustrating the flaws of his characters, and flaws make for the best internal, emotional conflicts, as well as the conflicts between the protagonist and others.
The stories set in the Pacific islands catered to my interest in colonial and postcolonial fiction. Maugham toured this area during the Great War and the 1920s, in the sunset years of the British Empire when its hold on its colonies was becoming more and more of a formality. The stories depict a kind of tired administrative regime. Life on the islands is full of simple pleasures: bridge games at the club, beachside reading, native mistresses, that sort of thing. Maugham’s administrators often entertain ambitions that echo the old desire to build empires—they like to build roads, in particular, as a harbinger of progress and Western capitalism.
Some of his stories deal with the relationship between the colonists and the indigenous peoples; his protagonists are often well-meaning paternalists who “treat the natives like children” and feel affection for what they regard as simpler people. His portrayals of native characters and women are often racist and sexist, but more in a way that reflects the institutional racism and sexism of the era rather than any particular personal bigotry on Maugham’s part. Though I don’t detect anything in his stories that might be directly attributable to his homosexuality, Maugham’s depiction of sexuality in general is very frank and realistic, quite at home with the attitudes towards sexual freedom and celebration that Fitzgerald chronicles in 1920s America. Several of his stories involve marital conflicts brought about or exacerbated by affairs, and in these conflicts, Maugham ascribes sexual agency to both the men and the women involved.
As with any large collection, not all of these stories are created equal. And, with a few exceptions, they are all quite long for a short story: I would struggle to read one in a single sitting, which I typically consider a good measure of a short story’s length. Not that this detracts from the quality of the stories, mind you, for Maugham uses this length to good ends. But after twenty or so of them, especially given their repetitive nature, I admit that the lustre was starting to fade.
Now that I’ve completed the collection, however, I have to admit that I enjoyed it. Of Human Bondage was my only other experience with Maugham until now, and it floored me. I didn’t have the same reaction to his short stories, but they have reawakened my desire to read more of Maugham’s work—until now, he was mostly a one-book author for me. Now that I have a better sense of his writing and his subject matter, I’m intrigued and want to sample more of his works.
This is essential reading, in whatever edition or form one finds it, for fans of Maugham. Newcomers will also find it a fine introduction, albeit one that requires patience and tolerance for repetition. It is, without a doubt, an excellent representation of Maugham’s ability as a writer of short fiction, one who uses the medium to describe and portray the shortcomings and short fuses of individuals thwarted in their desires.
Maugham tends to write close to home, and as such, often retreads familiar ground. In reading these stories in quick succession like I did, this becomes all the more apparent. Even the glowing, fanboyish introduction from Nicholas Shakespeare warns that the stories in this book often feel formulaic or repetitive. Of the 31 stories here, I’d say that over half of them are set in the British Malay peninsula (or similar southeast Asian islands under British administration), usually dealing with a governor or similar such administrator, either as the main character or as the subject of a story related by a travelling writer who acts as the narrator. Maugham’s characters invariably seem to play a great deal of bridge and walk around wearing sarongs, and all the native women wear Mother Hubbards. The remainder of the stories usually involve young writer characters observing English high society at arm’s length. The last few stories come from Maugham’s Ashenden collection about a suave, literary spy in Europe during the Great War.
Maugham’s stories tend to be what I might call character studies. They focus on a central character and an episode in their life that is particularly important or even fantastic. The stories often end abruptly, just after a flourishing twist that changes the reader’s understanding of the situation. I suspect that, had he wanted to, Maugham might have made a good living as a writer of detective fiction (though he lampoons this genre a couple of times with sly and skilful pseudo-mysteries); it’s a shame he had to suffer in the squalor of fame and fortune like he did.
With these character studies, Maugham seems interested in a few different themes. He devotes a lot of time to understanding obsession and what it is about the human spirit that makes us unable to part with things—whether they are possessions, positions, or people. Maugham’s protagonists often have an ambition or obsession that drives them, typically towards a tragic or otherwise surprising end. I wouldn’t call Maugham pessimistic, but he injects a level of cynicism into his stories that seems to imply a less-than-charitable attitude when it comes to human nature. But this is probably what makes Maugham such a great writer, and a particularly accomplished writer of short stories: he is very good at illustrating the flaws of his characters, and flaws make for the best internal, emotional conflicts, as well as the conflicts between the protagonist and others.
The stories set in the Pacific islands catered to my interest in colonial and postcolonial fiction. Maugham toured this area during the Great War and the 1920s, in the sunset years of the British Empire when its hold on its colonies was becoming more and more of a formality. The stories depict a kind of tired administrative regime. Life on the islands is full of simple pleasures: bridge games at the club, beachside reading, native mistresses, that sort of thing. Maugham’s administrators often entertain ambitions that echo the old desire to build empires—they like to build roads, in particular, as a harbinger of progress and Western capitalism.
Some of his stories deal with the relationship between the colonists and the indigenous peoples; his protagonists are often well-meaning paternalists who “treat the natives like children” and feel affection for what they regard as simpler people. His portrayals of native characters and women are often racist and sexist, but more in a way that reflects the institutional racism and sexism of the era rather than any particular personal bigotry on Maugham’s part. Though I don’t detect anything in his stories that might be directly attributable to his homosexuality, Maugham’s depiction of sexuality in general is very frank and realistic, quite at home with the attitudes towards sexual freedom and celebration that Fitzgerald chronicles in 1920s America. Several of his stories involve marital conflicts brought about or exacerbated by affairs, and in these conflicts, Maugham ascribes sexual agency to both the men and the women involved.
As with any large collection, not all of these stories are created equal. And, with a few exceptions, they are all quite long for a short story: I would struggle to read one in a single sitting, which I typically consider a good measure of a short story’s length. Not that this detracts from the quality of the stories, mind you, for Maugham uses this length to good ends. But after twenty or so of them, especially given their repetitive nature, I admit that the lustre was starting to fade.
Now that I’ve completed the collection, however, I have to admit that I enjoyed it. Of Human Bondage was my only other experience with Maugham until now, and it floored me. I didn’t have the same reaction to his short stories, but they have reawakened my desire to read more of Maugham’s work—until now, he was mostly a one-book author for me. Now that I have a better sense of his writing and his subject matter, I’m intrigued and want to sample more of his works.
This is essential reading, in whatever edition or form one finds it, for fans of Maugham. Newcomers will also find it a fine introduction, albeit one that requires patience and tolerance for repetition. It is, without a doubt, an excellent representation of Maugham’s ability as a writer of short fiction, one who uses the medium to describe and portray the shortcomings and short fuses of individuals thwarted in their desires.
January 4, 2021
Collected Stories of Somerset Maugham
Many of Maugham’s stories - though the plots are drawn well - read like historical travelogues in the waning years of the British Empire. Maugham traveled extensively in his life to all corners of the Empire and he wrote mostly about these places. These were my favorite stories. There are also a dozen stories set in Europe featuring the recurring spy Ashenden.
While some of his stories have clear tones of paternalism it is still easy to be drawn into his writing. Perhaps it is his straightforward vocabulary and the ease with which he paints a scene that makes him so unique.
1. Rain - A short story set in Pago Pago about a missionary and a prostitute. Widely read story with exquisitely drawn characters.
2. The Unconquered - a French woman is raped by a German soldier in WWII and all kinds of consequences result.
3. Alien Corn - Young George is from a wealthy English family in the early 20th century and they have big plans for him in the highest echelons of society. But when his uncle surfaces, George learns of his own Jewish heritage and he no longer wants to live this life of Anglo-Saxon wealth and privilege and instead focuses on becoming a pianist. My favorite story.
4. The Letter - a defense attorney works to purchase a damning letter that his client wrote to the man she has been accused of murdering.
5. The Hairless Mexican - Ashenden and an assassin from Mexico are working together on a deadly mission in Italy.
4 stars. Several of the stories in this collection are set in the South Pacific. I had the occasion to visit Pago Pago and Apia - the settings for Rain - just a few years ago. Maugham’s descriptions seemed so very real to me. Even more remarkable since he wrote this story exactly one hundred years ago.
Many of Maugham’s stories - though the plots are drawn well - read like historical travelogues in the waning years of the British Empire. Maugham traveled extensively in his life to all corners of the Empire and he wrote mostly about these places. These were my favorite stories. There are also a dozen stories set in Europe featuring the recurring spy Ashenden.
While some of his stories have clear tones of paternalism it is still easy to be drawn into his writing. Perhaps it is his straightforward vocabulary and the ease with which he paints a scene that makes him so unique.
1. Rain - A short story set in Pago Pago about a missionary and a prostitute. Widely read story with exquisitely drawn characters.
2. The Unconquered - a French woman is raped by a German soldier in WWII and all kinds of consequences result.
3. Alien Corn - Young George is from a wealthy English family in the early 20th century and they have big plans for him in the highest echelons of society. But when his uncle surfaces, George learns of his own Jewish heritage and he no longer wants to live this life of Anglo-Saxon wealth and privilege and instead focuses on becoming a pianist. My favorite story.
4. The Letter - a defense attorney works to purchase a damning letter that his client wrote to the man she has been accused of murdering.
5. The Hairless Mexican - Ashenden and an assassin from Mexico are working together on a deadly mission in Italy.
4 stars. Several of the stories in this collection are set in the South Pacific. I had the occasion to visit Pago Pago and Apia - the settings for Rain - just a few years ago. Maugham’s descriptions seemed so very real to me. Even more remarkable since he wrote this story exactly one hundred years ago.
September 9, 2018
It's one of the best books I have ever read, almost as good as "Of Human Bondage".
I really enjoy Maugham's writing, but I have to say his prejudice and stigma in stories like "Pool" really bothers me. My distaste for him really makes me miss George Orwell, whose insights on colonialism and race relations is obviously ahead of his time. "Burmese Days" is so much superior in every way. Probably Maugham would never be able to attain the same kind of enlightened view as George Orwell. Actually Maugham's limited comprehension is not restricted to race relation. I can see it in his view of love and partnership. Often he describes an intelligent man falling desperately in love with a woman who has meager understanding or zero sympathy for him. Consequently he is at later part of the story seriously damaged or completely destroyed. Probably this is a reflection of his own life, but I doubt how well this reflects the reality of love. Actually this is not even a reflection of his real life.
I have been torn between loving and hating Maugham as I progress through this collection of short stories. On one hand, I like his writing style--straightforward description--with an obsession that I want to embrace not only sentences but rather passages, but on the other hand his warped view about love, his pessimism, and his prejudice plague me heavily when I am enjoying his style of writing. Can he become a bit enlightened? I mean just a little bit. I don't expect him to become George Orwell, but still he doesn't have to be so deliberately ... -- it is almost sadistic in certain aspects.
In "The Yellow Streak", there was not a hint of sympathy for the native or the half caste people, even if the two native prisoners saved Campion's life. Most of these prisoners in colonies are just innocent natives who have no notion of private property and they eat and grab whatever they can. Even if they are Izzart's mother, even if they saved Campion's life from drowning, they don't deserve sympathies and the main characters don't need to feel any guilt about it. However the author spent pages and pages of description to elaborate on the guilt Izzart should feel for not helping Campion when Izzart himself was drowning. How could a drowning man help another drowning man even if he wanted to? Of course Izzart should express more selfless willingness even if he could hardly help his own helpless state--that's essentially his big guilt the author identified. So Izzart is considered to be guilty and he deserves to be punished, if not by law, at least by public opinion. This is like picking on the minor moral issues while ignoring the major ones. Am I too hard on Maugham?
In "The vessel of wrath", I was again attracted by the author's characterization of the main characters even though he showed no indignation at the prison system. I guess he will not sympathize Oscar Wilde when he was cruelly sentenced to hard labor and was dead soon afterwards. I am seriously torn between my love for his writing and my dismay at his cruel callousness. He seems to think that a prison life is not too bad, almost better than the life a person lives when he is in love. Remember how miserable the hero was when he was in love in "Of Human Bondage".
I have never experienced this before that I want to praise an author as much as I want to criticize him, both very strong feelings. It feels like a torture to do either and a torture not to. The "Force of Circumstance" is another example of the unenlightened view from this unenlightened genius. I remember in "Of human bondage", he was described as "he has a middle class mind." And that's so true. He is describing what he is observing through the lens of a middle class manat the turn of the twentieth century.
I really enjoy Maugham's writing, but I have to say his prejudice and stigma in stories like "Pool" really bothers me. My distaste for him really makes me miss George Orwell, whose insights on colonialism and race relations is obviously ahead of his time. "Burmese Days" is so much superior in every way. Probably Maugham would never be able to attain the same kind of enlightened view as George Orwell. Actually Maugham's limited comprehension is not restricted to race relation. I can see it in his view of love and partnership. Often he describes an intelligent man falling desperately in love with a woman who has meager understanding or zero sympathy for him. Consequently he is at later part of the story seriously damaged or completely destroyed. Probably this is a reflection of his own life, but I doubt how well this reflects the reality of love. Actually this is not even a reflection of his real life.
I have been torn between loving and hating Maugham as I progress through this collection of short stories. On one hand, I like his writing style--straightforward description--with an obsession that I want to embrace not only sentences but rather passages, but on the other hand his warped view about love, his pessimism, and his prejudice plague me heavily when I am enjoying his style of writing. Can he become a bit enlightened? I mean just a little bit. I don't expect him to become George Orwell, but still he doesn't have to be so deliberately ... -- it is almost sadistic in certain aspects.
In "The Yellow Streak", there was not a hint of sympathy for the native or the half caste people, even if the two native prisoners saved Campion's life. Most of these prisoners in colonies are just innocent natives who have no notion of private property and they eat and grab whatever they can. Even if they are Izzart's mother, even if they saved Campion's life from drowning, they don't deserve sympathies and the main characters don't need to feel any guilt about it. However the author spent pages and pages of description to elaborate on the guilt Izzart should feel for not helping Campion when Izzart himself was drowning. How could a drowning man help another drowning man even if he wanted to? Of course Izzart should express more selfless willingness even if he could hardly help his own helpless state--that's essentially his big guilt the author identified. So Izzart is considered to be guilty and he deserves to be punished, if not by law, at least by public opinion. This is like picking on the minor moral issues while ignoring the major ones. Am I too hard on Maugham?
In "The vessel of wrath", I was again attracted by the author's characterization of the main characters even though he showed no indignation at the prison system. I guess he will not sympathize Oscar Wilde when he was cruelly sentenced to hard labor and was dead soon afterwards. I am seriously torn between my love for his writing and my dismay at his cruel callousness. He seems to think that a prison life is not too bad, almost better than the life a person lives when he is in love. Remember how miserable the hero was when he was in love in "Of Human Bondage".
I have never experienced this before that I want to praise an author as much as I want to criticize him, both very strong feelings. It feels like a torture to do either and a torture not to. The "Force of Circumstance" is another example of the unenlightened view from this unenlightened genius. I remember in "Of human bondage", he was described as "he has a middle class mind." And that's so true. He is describing what he is observing through the lens of a middle class manat the turn of the twentieth century.
Read
December 12, 2013This is one of a handful of books that stays with me through garage sales, moves and regular culls. To me Maugham is a master of the short story. He will lead you into the dark recesses of the colonial mind with a gin pahit and a game of bridge not far from hand, just to take the edge off. This compilation contains 'Rain', one of his most well-known stories. I'm not one to be grandiose, but you really are in the presence of genius here.
December 11, 2013
I've read all his short stories many times over. This isn't the volume I've read. Mine has 900+ pages!
Maugham was dedicated to writing stories that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I like that. You can always tell what's happened in his stories. I love the wry, self-effacing humor of the narrator in so many of his works (a thinly disguised self-portrait, I believe).
It's true that he waxes prosaic at the beginnings of many stories, but forgive him that. Read on. The plots and characters are almost always fascinating
Maugham was dedicated to writing stories that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I like that. You can always tell what's happened in his stories. I love the wry, self-effacing humor of the narrator in so many of his works (a thinly disguised self-portrait, I believe).
It's true that he waxes prosaic at the beginnings of many stories, but forgive him that. Read on. The plots and characters are almost always fascinating
April 30, 2024
Oddly, I’ve only ever read The Painted Veil by Maugham. Having read the rather convoluted review by James Woods in the New Yorker about The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng , which features Maugham as a character, I decided to read a collection of Maugham’s stories before seeing him factually fictionalized. A hefty collection, more than 800 pages, and the intro materials were elucidating, about Maugham personally, as well as setting him and his work in historic and literary context. For instance, I’d had no idea that for quite a long time, Maugham was the most famous and well paid writer in the world. The stories are fascinating and compelling and one learns a great deal about British colonialism and more. When I reached the story called The Letter, I skipped it, to read after I’d read The House of Doors because Maugham uses the story he hears in that novel to write his own version.
March 6, 2014
Somerset Maugham dramatisations, narrated by Dirk Bogarde
Have to agree with Inder's summing up - 'You can't read just one - these stories are like delicious, but strangely mysterious, potato chips. Just the thing when you need a smart escape.'
Have to agree with Inder's summing up - 'You can't read just one - these stories are like delicious, but strangely mysterious, potato chips. Just the thing when you need a smart escape.'
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 15, 2015
Described as a galvanizing pinnacle of his true metier. Either way I thought the stories were up there with the best i have ever read.
July 22, 2022
First of all, this has to be my favorite publication of W. Somerset Maugham's stories. I have had a handful, but this particular one from publishing company Alfred A. Knopf is such a treasure to me. Its cover features a portrait of the author, in his later years nicely dressed and caught in a musing gaze, which I find delightfully poetic. I relish in having an image of the writer's face in my mind, because he devotes so much of his work on depicting others. The book itself is simple and beautiful, with a red cover and a gold bookmark slipped into the text block. The spine has a black band to house the title and author with fine gold lettering and accents. Inside, there is an introduction, a chronology of the author's life and 31 of his short stories. If you are interested in Maugham, this is the book I would recommend to have.
W. Somerset Maugham has to be one of my favorite authors of all time. And I had not heard of him until I moved to Japan, where he seems to be very popular somehow. He is an English writer of the early 20th Century, who wrote stories from the time about intrigue, scandal, romance, turmoil, triumph–all the good stuff, in immaculate detail, and overflowing wit and mastery. His vocabulary is transcendent, and I have to constantly, happily search the meanings of words he employs to pinpoint accuracy every other page or so. There are plenty of authors who I admire and hold dear to my heart, but none can compare to the vastness and meticulous precision of Maugham's storytelling. It is like watching in the highest resolution possible, for reading. I can't express how good his stories are, but I trust that whoever reads them will understand.
Though no relationships of the kind can be found in his writing, Maugham himself was gay. I am really glad to have another hero who has a divergent perspective, especially when that is owing to their own unique personal identity, and proclivities. I think his works should be at the forefront of gay literature (despite not having any gay stories) for the particular way in which Maugham views the people, the world, and all the beauty and tragedy around him.
W. Somerset Maugham has to be one of my favorite authors of all time. And I had not heard of him until I moved to Japan, where he seems to be very popular somehow. He is an English writer of the early 20th Century, who wrote stories from the time about intrigue, scandal, romance, turmoil, triumph–all the good stuff, in immaculate detail, and overflowing wit and mastery. His vocabulary is transcendent, and I have to constantly, happily search the meanings of words he employs to pinpoint accuracy every other page or so. There are plenty of authors who I admire and hold dear to my heart, but none can compare to the vastness and meticulous precision of Maugham's storytelling. It is like watching in the highest resolution possible, for reading. I can't express how good his stories are, but I trust that whoever reads them will understand.
Though no relationships of the kind can be found in his writing, Maugham himself was gay. I am really glad to have another hero who has a divergent perspective, especially when that is owing to their own unique personal identity, and proclivities. I think his works should be at the forefront of gay literature (despite not having any gay stories) for the particular way in which Maugham views the people, the world, and all the beauty and tragedy around him.
July 6, 2020
I think when I imagine stereotypical British storytelling of a certain era, this is exactly what I envision it to be. Genteel, urbane, concerned with class (and race, to a lesser extent), everything wrapped in a polite pressure cooker where no one says what they mean but hides it behind droll observations and glasses of sherry until things get so heated that when someone comes out everyone has to act surprised at the breach of decorum even if no one is really surprised.
Somerset Maugham looks like the kind of people who populate his own stories (and often was, sometimes including a thinly veiled version of himself as narrator) and I guess fortunately for his storytelling abilities he seemed to live a pretty active early life . . . he studied to be a doctor before deciding writing was his true calling, he lived all over the world, he ticked off Aleister Crowley (though that may not be a very exclusive club) and was even recruited as an intelligence agent during World War One. Through it all he was a pretty successful writer, not just of novels but short stories, plays and film adaptations. Never considered much of a flashy writer (especially compared to the postmodern crew popping up in the 20s and 30s), he was liked by critics but never quite showered with the praise that some of his peers got. In a sense he's kind of Johnny Reliable when it comes to stories . . . you know what you're getting and he doesn't disappoint but he's got a certain style and a comfort zone and that's what he tends to stick to. If you don't go in expecting wild psychedelic excursions and mad literary experimentation then you're probably going to be just fine. Whether a steady diet of that is something you'd enjoy is going to be up to you, but for me chewing on a solid slice of fiction is just fine.
Now, maybe there are vast swaths of Maugham's career where he did go buck-wild with experimentation or boundary pushing . . . if so, you're not going to be find that here. There's a reason this collection is titled "Collected Stories" and not "All the Stories Collected". His writing career spanned roughly sixty years and he didn't seem to have many years where he wasn't pumping stories to some degree, which means an actual complete short fiction collection would probably be at least twice the length of this volume and this volume is eight hundred pages. Instead it's more of a cross-sectional sampling, presumably across the meat of his career, both primer and "best of". The stories here aren't given dates (and there's no way I'm going to try and cross-reference like thirty stories, sorry) and while there's a chance that they are placed in a vague chronological order, a bunch at the end all feature the same main character so that idea probably goes out the window.
It hardly matters. Maugham seems to hit upon the epitome of his style fairly on and once he got there was quite content staying in that vein for most of his career (at least with short fiction) . . . there are refinements here and there but for the most part there's really no substantial arc in quality. Much like albums by British post-punk band The Fall, once you find yourself attuned to the style there's good stories and there's okay stories, with the okay ones just being a little more obvious or lazy but never outright bad. They're just not as good as they could be.
That consistency can make for some pretty even reading if you're trying to devour this in hundred pages chunks at a time like I did. His prose is generally exactly what it needs to be for getting the job done, understanding where to place the right emphasis on a scenic detail or personal trait, describing everything with a restrained spareness that never seems to get heated or rushed. Even the stories where people die violently (and there are more of those than you'd expect) glide along with a smooth inevitability that never gets lurid even when it ends in a bullet to the head or a slashed throat (generally all of which happens off-screen).
Not to say they aren't enjoyable, however. Maugham didn't become a popular writer because the audiences of the 30s really really liked stories where people were mean to each other for class-based reasons . . . while I'm sure that didn't hurt it turns out he's a good storyteller with a decent instinct for taking familiar elements and turning them into an interesting story. Part of that may be the setting . . . this collection leans heavily toward the stories that take place in the waning days of the British Empire in their South Seas outposts, where Foreign Office or trading company employees labor away in lush jungles far away from home. The number of stories in those settings here probably give a false impression of just how many of them he wrote but as someone who wouldn't mind visiting the Polynesian islands some day I'm generally okay with the focus. He's got a good feel for the scene, with most of the tales drenched in humidity and sweat, emphasizing just how small and large the world feels, along with the sort of ramshackle sense of an empire coming to grips with the fact that its starting to wind down.
A lot of them seem to revolve around crimes of passion, or just passion in general, as he depicts people content in their lives coming in contact with a source of friction (or being a bystander to someone else's frictions) and then eventually doing something about it when matters reach a certain boiling point. The first time it happens, in "Rain", its genuinely shocking because you're not expecting the gruesomely violent bloodshed that results. After a while it becomes almost expected so that by the time you reach the personality clashes of "The Outstation" you're aware after the first couple pages that one of these people is going to wind up dead.
The death toll can at times seem staggering, as wives eliminate husbands to make way for lovers, lovers knock off husbands, people kill themselves out of some degree of shame (another scene that caught me by surprise in how understated and brutal it was) . . . it can seem harrowing if it wasn't so calm at the same time. Yet the deaths feel like a sideshow to what the stories are showing us, which from the perspective of today is a sort of contemporary glimpse into colonialism and why it wasn't necessarily the world's greatest invention. In story after story we experience casual (and often less than) racism as the British treat the native people of these islands as annoyances or, at best, children, taking a paternalistic "father knows best" attitude toward the peoples who probably didn't ask for a bunch of Brits to show up and start building roads in the name of progress. Just how pervasive it is can be the most startling aspect of these stories and its difficult to tell if Maugham is satirizing these attitudes in some cases, making detached observations, or if his perspective accepts this as the way things are. Its tough to pin down, as there are moments in some stories where the guy who refuses to deal with the natives on their own terms (as opposed to the comfortable veteran who just rolls with the island rhythms) is the one who gets it in the back for not being respectful enough . . . but by the same measure, for all Maugham's time spent in these places, he didn't bother to even try and write a story from a native's perspective. Maybe he didn't care to, or he just knew his audience well but it does stand out after a while.
After so many tales of woe set in the South Seas/Far East, the last set of tales gives us a nice change of pace as the collection focuses on writer/sometime spy Ashenden, who is so Maugham that he might as well just spelled his own name backwards and used it as the character's. While Maugham's prose style doesn't necessarily shift, the last six stories take on a moral ambiguity, with enough grey tones that you start expecting a billionaire to take you into his secret room of velvet handcuffs . . . Ashenden seems to get missions because he gets the job done but also he doesn't seem to care too much about making people uncomfortable ("Guilia Lazzari" is particularly rough on this score). The stories were an influence on Ian Fleming but what's interesting is how many don't seem to focus on the mission at all but go off into tangents that seem more inclined to depict how petty people can be or illustrate the gap between what they are and who they think they are ("His Excellency" comes to mind, where whatever mission he's assigned gets sidetracked into an old guy's long story). Sometimes, as in the closing "Sanatorium", they're not even about spying at all. But the variety of settings showcases Maugham's range a little better, even if the stories still revolve around people making themselves or other people miserable for their entire lives because class determines everything in British life.
I don't think these will ever go down as my favorite stories (nothing draws blood, even when people are trapped in their own social decisions) but he's so consistent decent at constructing a story that most of them go down pretty easy and never drag. Are they predictable to some extent? Yeah. Read a bunch in a row and you'll see some semblance of formula, especially in Maugham's tendency to stick in a "gotcha" last line of dialogue or turn of phrase that reveals someone to be even more awful than we originally suspected. But taken a little at a time they wind up being revealing slices of a vanished time and place that is far enough away that no one is asking for it back. Even from a limited perspective they have some ring of reality to them and what's valuable about Maugham is how all of it, dialogue, prose, descriptions, falls together into a very neat whole. Imperfect as it might be, tug on any piece and you run the risk of it collapsing entirely, which in a way is its own kind of perfection even if its not for everyone.
Somerset Maugham looks like the kind of people who populate his own stories (and often was, sometimes including a thinly veiled version of himself as narrator) and I guess fortunately for his storytelling abilities he seemed to live a pretty active early life . . . he studied to be a doctor before deciding writing was his true calling, he lived all over the world, he ticked off Aleister Crowley (though that may not be a very exclusive club) and was even recruited as an intelligence agent during World War One. Through it all he was a pretty successful writer, not just of novels but short stories, plays and film adaptations. Never considered much of a flashy writer (especially compared to the postmodern crew popping up in the 20s and 30s), he was liked by critics but never quite showered with the praise that some of his peers got. In a sense he's kind of Johnny Reliable when it comes to stories . . . you know what you're getting and he doesn't disappoint but he's got a certain style and a comfort zone and that's what he tends to stick to. If you don't go in expecting wild psychedelic excursions and mad literary experimentation then you're probably going to be just fine. Whether a steady diet of that is something you'd enjoy is going to be up to you, but for me chewing on a solid slice of fiction is just fine.
Now, maybe there are vast swaths of Maugham's career where he did go buck-wild with experimentation or boundary pushing . . . if so, you're not going to be find that here. There's a reason this collection is titled "Collected Stories" and not "All the Stories Collected". His writing career spanned roughly sixty years and he didn't seem to have many years where he wasn't pumping stories to some degree, which means an actual complete short fiction collection would probably be at least twice the length of this volume and this volume is eight hundred pages. Instead it's more of a cross-sectional sampling, presumably across the meat of his career, both primer and "best of". The stories here aren't given dates (and there's no way I'm going to try and cross-reference like thirty stories, sorry) and while there's a chance that they are placed in a vague chronological order, a bunch at the end all feature the same main character so that idea probably goes out the window.
It hardly matters. Maugham seems to hit upon the epitome of his style fairly on and once he got there was quite content staying in that vein for most of his career (at least with short fiction) . . . there are refinements here and there but for the most part there's really no substantial arc in quality. Much like albums by British post-punk band The Fall, once you find yourself attuned to the style there's good stories and there's okay stories, with the okay ones just being a little more obvious or lazy but never outright bad. They're just not as good as they could be.
That consistency can make for some pretty even reading if you're trying to devour this in hundred pages chunks at a time like I did. His prose is generally exactly what it needs to be for getting the job done, understanding where to place the right emphasis on a scenic detail or personal trait, describing everything with a restrained spareness that never seems to get heated or rushed. Even the stories where people die violently (and there are more of those than you'd expect) glide along with a smooth inevitability that never gets lurid even when it ends in a bullet to the head or a slashed throat (generally all of which happens off-screen).
Not to say they aren't enjoyable, however. Maugham didn't become a popular writer because the audiences of the 30s really really liked stories where people were mean to each other for class-based reasons . . . while I'm sure that didn't hurt it turns out he's a good storyteller with a decent instinct for taking familiar elements and turning them into an interesting story. Part of that may be the setting . . . this collection leans heavily toward the stories that take place in the waning days of the British Empire in their South Seas outposts, where Foreign Office or trading company employees labor away in lush jungles far away from home. The number of stories in those settings here probably give a false impression of just how many of them he wrote but as someone who wouldn't mind visiting the Polynesian islands some day I'm generally okay with the focus. He's got a good feel for the scene, with most of the tales drenched in humidity and sweat, emphasizing just how small and large the world feels, along with the sort of ramshackle sense of an empire coming to grips with the fact that its starting to wind down.
A lot of them seem to revolve around crimes of passion, or just passion in general, as he depicts people content in their lives coming in contact with a source of friction (or being a bystander to someone else's frictions) and then eventually doing something about it when matters reach a certain boiling point. The first time it happens, in "Rain", its genuinely shocking because you're not expecting the gruesomely violent bloodshed that results. After a while it becomes almost expected so that by the time you reach the personality clashes of "The Outstation" you're aware after the first couple pages that one of these people is going to wind up dead.
The death toll can at times seem staggering, as wives eliminate husbands to make way for lovers, lovers knock off husbands, people kill themselves out of some degree of shame (another scene that caught me by surprise in how understated and brutal it was) . . . it can seem harrowing if it wasn't so calm at the same time. Yet the deaths feel like a sideshow to what the stories are showing us, which from the perspective of today is a sort of contemporary glimpse into colonialism and why it wasn't necessarily the world's greatest invention. In story after story we experience casual (and often less than) racism as the British treat the native people of these islands as annoyances or, at best, children, taking a paternalistic "father knows best" attitude toward the peoples who probably didn't ask for a bunch of Brits to show up and start building roads in the name of progress. Just how pervasive it is can be the most startling aspect of these stories and its difficult to tell if Maugham is satirizing these attitudes in some cases, making detached observations, or if his perspective accepts this as the way things are. Its tough to pin down, as there are moments in some stories where the guy who refuses to deal with the natives on their own terms (as opposed to the comfortable veteran who just rolls with the island rhythms) is the one who gets it in the back for not being respectful enough . . . but by the same measure, for all Maugham's time spent in these places, he didn't bother to even try and write a story from a native's perspective. Maybe he didn't care to, or he just knew his audience well but it does stand out after a while.
After so many tales of woe set in the South Seas/Far East, the last set of tales gives us a nice change of pace as the collection focuses on writer/sometime spy Ashenden, who is so Maugham that he might as well just spelled his own name backwards and used it as the character's. While Maugham's prose style doesn't necessarily shift, the last six stories take on a moral ambiguity, with enough grey tones that you start expecting a billionaire to take you into his secret room of velvet handcuffs . . . Ashenden seems to get missions because he gets the job done but also he doesn't seem to care too much about making people uncomfortable ("Guilia Lazzari" is particularly rough on this score). The stories were an influence on Ian Fleming but what's interesting is how many don't seem to focus on the mission at all but go off into tangents that seem more inclined to depict how petty people can be or illustrate the gap between what they are and who they think they are ("His Excellency" comes to mind, where whatever mission he's assigned gets sidetracked into an old guy's long story). Sometimes, as in the closing "Sanatorium", they're not even about spying at all. But the variety of settings showcases Maugham's range a little better, even if the stories still revolve around people making themselves or other people miserable for their entire lives because class determines everything in British life.
I don't think these will ever go down as my favorite stories (nothing draws blood, even when people are trapped in their own social decisions) but he's so consistent decent at constructing a story that most of them go down pretty easy and never drag. Are they predictable to some extent? Yeah. Read a bunch in a row and you'll see some semblance of formula, especially in Maugham's tendency to stick in a "gotcha" last line of dialogue or turn of phrase that reveals someone to be even more awful than we originally suspected. But taken a little at a time they wind up being revealing slices of a vanished time and place that is far enough away that no one is asking for it back. Even from a limited perspective they have some ring of reality to them and what's valuable about Maugham is how all of it, dialogue, prose, descriptions, falls together into a very neat whole. Imperfect as it might be, tug on any piece and you run the risk of it collapsing entirely, which in a way is its own kind of perfection even if its not for everyone.
October 29, 2022
I like the way Maugham wrote. It flows well and the characters provide a spectrum of human traits and foibles. But the reader, especially an Asian one, has to put up with the gross stereotypes and paternalistic attitudes that the British assumed toward the natives of the countries they colonized. He was also harsh in his physical descriptions of people who were not of the elite class, especially the women. In a nutshell, he was a racist and a snob.
March 8, 2022
First off, why WOULDN'T YOU read this? Easy. 900 pages of white people problems. And rampant colonial pomposity. I get it. Also, the final handful of stories, centered around Maugham's spy-guy protagonist Ashenden, are well-constructed but only for hopeless pre-LeCarre junkies. Those pieces were too much of too much for me.
That said, it's hard not to admire nearly 600 pages of page-flipping delights. The guy knew how to keep a story moving. And there's a jazz-like mastery here where, even as you recognize aspects of one story appearing in another, you appreciate the subtle playing of the changes that's happening. I myself probably came to appreciate these tales by way of Graham Greene and Bob Shachochis, but I imagine there are more than a few other points of entry as well. Anyway, for someone who reads a lot but tends to lurch away from the "classics", I really liked this collection. Flaws and all.
That said, it's hard not to admire nearly 600 pages of page-flipping delights. The guy knew how to keep a story moving. And there's a jazz-like mastery here where, even as you recognize aspects of one story appearing in another, you appreciate the subtle playing of the changes that's happening. I myself probably came to appreciate these tales by way of Graham Greene and Bob Shachochis, but I imagine there are more than a few other points of entry as well. Anyway, for someone who reads a lot but tends to lurch away from the "classics", I really liked this collection. Flaws and all.
April 10, 2015
One of the greatest writers of short stories ever. Period.
One of my favourite short stories is the Back of Beyond. You can just escape to that day and age. Idyllic. Yet something is not quiet right. And Somerset Maugham brings out the frailties in human characters meticulously.
The Back of Beyond - "... but if to look truth in the face and not resent it when it's unpalatable, and take human nature as you find it, smiling when it's absurd and grieved without exaggeration when it's pitiful, is to be cynical, then I suppose I am a cynic. Mostly human nature is both absurd and pitiful, but if life has taught you tolerance you find in it more to smile at than to weep."
One of my favourite short stories is the Back of Beyond. You can just escape to that day and age. Idyllic. Yet something is not quiet right. And Somerset Maugham brings out the frailties in human characters meticulously.
The Back of Beyond - "... but if to look truth in the face and not resent it when it's unpalatable, and take human nature as you find it, smiling when it's absurd and grieved without exaggeration when it's pitiful, is to be cynical, then I suppose I am a cynic. Mostly human nature is both absurd and pitiful, but if life has taught you tolerance you find in it more to smile at than to weep."
December 9, 2007
remarkable how consistent humans are. we think that times have changed, but we continue to have the same frailties and desires. it is best to dip into the stories rather then read straight through, since after 2 or 3 it's pretty easy to see the plot twists coming, but the interest for me is all in the settings and the people rather than the suspense. anyone who is considering spending some time in a different culture should bring these stories along to save a lot of embarrassing gushing.
June 1, 2008
Maugham was the most widely-read and well-paid writer of his day. Considering himself primarily a storyteller, he avoided the modernist Cult of the Sentence. Orwell said he was the contemporary writer who most influenced him. To this day, he has never received much attention from the critical establishment.
The guy was my hero before I even picked up this book.
The guy was my hero before I even picked up this book.
April 17, 2015
It seems silly to rave about a collection of short stories, I've read several "collected stories of..." and typically they're a mixture of good and OK and so so. I have read several of Maugham's novels and really liked them and expected this volume to be sort of like other collections I've read - not the case. Short stories are truely Maugham's medium. Brilliant from start to finish.
September 2, 2023
I’ll admit I didn’t read all 31 stories in this doorstop, but I read enough and enjoyed almost all of them. You do start to see how Maugham uses the same tricks over and over — they’re good tricks and I won’t spoil them for you, but they get a bit old eventually.
Like everything else of his I’ve read, this is imperfect but worth picking up.
Like everything else of his I’ve read, this is imperfect but worth picking up.
March 23, 2013
One of my favorite authors! Brilliant! Deep!
July 21, 2025
فاجعه بزرگ انسانها در هلاک نوع بشر نیست، در دست شستن از عشق ورزیدن است. سامرست موام
March 31, 2018
A mixed bag. Thirty or so stories the majority of which are set in the Far East at the turn of the century. The lives and loves of those posted from England to govern and work in the colonies provide the author with much of his material. Despite living in a tropical paradise the ex-pats show the same human frailties found elsewhere. There are a number of tales of adultery, jealousy, and murder as a consequence. There are a small number of stories set in England. The book ends with several stories based on the authors own experiences as a spy at the beginning of the First World War.
The stories reflect the mores of the time when cohabiting with a native girl and having an affair or marrying somebody below your station was seen as "gossip worthy". Although there are some strong female characters most of the stories are about men and their behaviors. Some of the stories seemed to take some time to get to the point where the actual story was told. Whilst most had a satisfying conclusion there were some that were weak.
These criticisms aside most of the stories were entertaining. I enjoyed the insights they gave into high and colonial society at the turn of the century. Sufficiently short to be read in a sitting I would recommend the collection as one to dip into periodically whilst reading longer novels.
The stories reflect the mores of the time when cohabiting with a native girl and having an affair or marrying somebody below your station was seen as "gossip worthy". Although there are some strong female characters most of the stories are about men and their behaviors. Some of the stories seemed to take some time to get to the point where the actual story was told. Whilst most had a satisfying conclusion there were some that were weak.
These criticisms aside most of the stories were entertaining. I enjoyed the insights they gave into high and colonial society at the turn of the century. Sufficiently short to be read in a sitting I would recommend the collection as one to dip into periodically whilst reading longer novels.
December 2, 2023
So good that gushing won't convey. They WILL take you to another time and place. Islands and heat to soggy chill of a raining empire.
Melodramas, soap operas, context of relationships re class or situational path! All superlative. And yes they are very much each of those things. This is THEATRE in print before film was in any way digital or began to grab an ion of the color scheme.
This book needs to be owned. If you have read his novels or at least a goodly portion of them, you will meet some of the same characters in the short stories. Many lengths here, and that NEEDS to be mentioned. Some are quite short, mere pages- The Bum, for instance.
Obsessions (not just of love interest or sexual consort) but miniscule nuance of purpose are sliced thin and seasoned for ultimate flavors. Super savvy eyes from one who is primarily looking from the outside/in. To nearly everything too of "norm" convections. Art, marriage, music, poetry, English words! And the only true sin is putting up with boredom.
The English men of a certain class in this period of the earliest years of the 20th century until WWII- you might never know their souls' crux until you read Maugham. And his short stories cut closest to the bone at that.
Only my opinion, but in English- probably the best flow and context to core motives/ character identities of any short stories collection. Then or since.
Melodramas, soap operas, context of relationships re class or situational path! All superlative. And yes they are very much each of those things. This is THEATRE in print before film was in any way digital or began to grab an ion of the color scheme.
This book needs to be owned. If you have read his novels or at least a goodly portion of them, you will meet some of the same characters in the short stories. Many lengths here, and that NEEDS to be mentioned. Some are quite short, mere pages- The Bum, for instance.
Obsessions (not just of love interest or sexual consort) but miniscule nuance of purpose are sliced thin and seasoned for ultimate flavors. Super savvy eyes from one who is primarily looking from the outside/in. To nearly everything too of "norm" convections. Art, marriage, music, poetry, English words! And the only true sin is putting up with boredom.
The English men of a certain class in this period of the earliest years of the 20th century until WWII- you might never know their souls' crux until you read Maugham. And his short stories cut closest to the bone at that.
Only my opinion, but in English- probably the best flow and context to core motives/ character identities of any short stories collection. Then or since.
December 19, 2023
It took me a little while, but I am finally done. I did not like this collection of short stories very much. Some of them were very interesting and had surprising twists or worthy lessons, but most just seemed convoluted.
The irony of writing this many short stories to have most of them feel so long. To be fair, I did not read this book to the best of my ability with my full attention. Some of it is on me, but also on the book, it's its job to captivate me, not my job to force myself to read it.
The most interesting part is how stuck in its period it is. Many of the stories take place in former British colonies, where the main characters are often American or English which are fleshed out. On the other hand, the "indigenous" characters are often just referred by their country and role, for example: "The Chinese assistant". I found this to be sad and interesting. Somerset Maugham is one of the most successful and revered British writers of the 20th century, yet he, like Albert Camus, could not escape his time.
The irony of writing this many short stories to have most of them feel so long. To be fair, I did not read this book to the best of my ability with my full attention. Some of it is on me, but also on the book, it's its job to captivate me, not my job to force myself to read it.
The most interesting part is how stuck in its period it is. Many of the stories take place in former British colonies, where the main characters are often American or English which are fleshed out. On the other hand, the "indigenous" characters are often just referred by their country and role, for example: "The Chinese assistant". I found this to be sad and interesting. Somerset Maugham is one of the most successful and revered British writers of the 20th century, yet he, like Albert Camus, could not escape his time.
August 18, 2017
The focus of Maugham's stories is primarily character study - exploring inner motivations and obsessions (leading to devastating consequences), the clashes between individual needs and societal norms, the pain of realising that even love and devotion cannot serve as a 'bridge' to fully knowing another's heart - that each walks their own path and people are, despite apparent closeness, strangers. Poignant and disillusioning, the stories in this big volume are all based around the same themes. Becomes somewhat repetitive with further reading, as the story structure almost inevitably follows the sequence 'protagonist (most likely a travelling author) meets a person with unusual behaviour/ostracised by society/learns something surprising about someone they have known for a long time -> protagonist learns the backstory of this person -> reader learns how and why the person in question arrived at the spot where they were when the protagonist met them'. Tendency for a surprise twist that one begins to anticipate as one reads more of these stories. Overall, I liked them well and am looking forward to reading Maugham's most famous work 'Of Human Bondage' next.
May 9, 2018
Somerset Maugham is the most wonderful writer . His stories are usually set in a claustrophobic world bound by codes of behaviour which may seem antiquated nowadays . But these boundaries give structure to his tales which add piquancy and depth to his characters . He often leads us to believe in the early paragraphs that the story will be about one person only to sidestep and lead us to meet another character .
The settings are often colonial in nature but he rarely seems interested in the native populations but concentrates generally on the English planters and travellers . What a life he must have led , travelling , when the world seemed so much bigger and unknown .
I first read these stories around 1985 and have returned to them recently . They are beautifully written and I have enjoyed them as much thirty odd years on .
The settings are often colonial in nature but he rarely seems interested in the native populations but concentrates generally on the English planters and travellers . What a life he must have led , travelling , when the world seemed so much bigger and unknown .
I first read these stories around 1985 and have returned to them recently . They are beautifully written and I have enjoyed them as much thirty odd years on .
July 27, 2020
Full disclosure: I skipped five of these stories (about 160 pages of this sizable book) because they appear in the Ashenden collection of connected tales which I intend to read in the coming months. What I was left with was a slew of mostly very good stories, some just good, and also very similar stories. If you've read enough Maugham, you know what to expect, right down to the casual colonial racism (usually seeming to be the opinions of the characters and not the author himself). I've read ten Maugham novels now in addition to the stories and it strikes me he is probably my favorite writer who didn't write any of my favorite books. Maybe Ashenden (or The British Agent) will change that.
October 22, 2023
Normally I can't bear short stories, apart from Somerset Maugham, of course. I have read his novels, novellas, and Writer's Notebook, but I enjoy his short stories best. Maugham is the only author I have consistently read since my teens and am still reading in my late 60s. A word of warning - some of his characters display casual racism that can be quite shocking. However, it adds to the realism of the stories - that is no doubt how some people thought and spoke back then. Interestingly, some of the characters with the most despicable attitudes come to a sticky end.
December 14, 2023
Maugham was known for basing his short stories on real-life things he heard about in his travels, many of which took place in the Far East. Usually Maugham wrote himself into the stories as the unidentified observer/narrator, and in many cases the setup is such that you can see what's going to happen at the end. Still, Maugham is a good storyteller and holds your attention. I didn't read every story--there are 31--but I tried to cover the best-known and for the most part found them very entertaining.
November 2, 2021
" این مجموعه داستان های کوتاه سامرست موام شامل داستان مشهور باران است که تراژدی آقای داویدسون مبلغ مذهبی زاهد مآب و خشکه مقدس و سدی تامپسون روسپی را تعریف می کند. این کتاب شامل بیست و یک داستان است که شما را از جزایر اقیانوس آرام به انگلستان، فرانسه و اسپانیا می برد. این داستان ها استعدادی را به نمایش می گذارد که او را تبدیل به داستان نویسی بی رقیب کرد."
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