الدائرة

by W. Somerset Maugham, عزيز متري عبدالملك (مترجم), علي فهمي (مراجعة)

Is life a circle, a journey that keeps repeating itself? This seems to be the question the playwright is asking in this amusing play.Lady Kitty, who gave up a boring
life with her titled husband to run away with a young adventurer, watches her daughter-in-law, Elizabeth, about to do the same thing thirty years later.
Can Kitty convince the younger woman to stay with her husband and avoid all the sorrow, pain and heartaches she has suffered?

Late in the play the author appears to answer his questions by saying that it is not our choices that make us unhappy; it is our character. It is not what we do; it is what we are that is decisive. People with weak, trivial natures will be unhappy, no matter who they are with, or what they are doing. Instead of improving their character, they will always long for that someone or something or some place to make it all better. Those with stronger characters have a greater chance of happiness no matter what their choices have been.

Genres: Plays, Classics, Comedy, Fiction, Romance, Theatre, English Literature

197 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1921

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

[Sawsan · Rating 2 out of 5]

يكتب سومرست موم في كثير من أعماله عن ماهية الحب المعقدة
فما ان يتملك الحب من القلب حتى يتخلى الانسان عن العقل بإرادته
ويُصر على المضي في طريق قد يندم أحيانا عند الوصول لنهايته
هي حكاية واحدة لامرأتين بينهما أكثر من ثلاثين سنة
كلا منهما تعيش حياة ثرية ومريحة لكنها لا تكفي بدون حب

الحياة تغيرت عن زمن كتابة المسرحية
لكن بعض الأحكام المجتمعية لا تتغير بمرور الزمن
وكعادة موم في كتاباته يرفض ويسخر من المظاهر والإدعاء
وعادات الحياة الفارغة لطبقات المجتمع المُرفهة

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42395

PERSONS OF THE PLAY:
Clive Champion-Cheney
Arnold Champion-Cheney, M.P.
Lord Porteous
Edward Luton
Lady Catherine Champion-Cheney
Elizabeth
Mrs. Shenstone.
The action takes place at Aston-Adey, Arnold Champion-Cheney’s house in Dorset.

The opening: THE FIRST ACT

The Scene is a stately drawing-room at Aston-Adey, with fine pictures on the walls and Georgian furniture. Aston-Adey has been described, with many illustrations, in Country Life. It is not a house, but a place. Its owner takes a great pride in it, and there is nothing in the room which is not of the period. Through the French windows at the back can be seen the beautiful gardens which are one of the features.

It is a fine summer morning.

Arnold comes in. He is a man of about thirty-five, tall and good-looking, fair, with a clean-cut, sensitive face. He has a look that is intellectual, but somewhat bloodless. He is very well dressed.

A play of its time and as such, a snooze-fest that was a quick read. Try WSM's 'Of Human Bondage' or 'The Razor's Edge' to see how good he was.

5* Of Human Bondage
4* The Razor's Edge
4* The Painted Veil
4* The Moon and Sixpence
4* Collected Stories
3* The Magician
3* Ashenden
2* The Circle

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg

Opening lines:
THE FIRST ACT

The Scene is a stately drawing-room at Aston-Adey, with fine pictures on the walls and Georgian furniture. Aston-Adey has been described, with many illustrations, in Country Life. It is not a house, but a place. Its owner takes a great pride in it, and there is nothing in the room which is not of the period. Through the French windows at the back can be seen the beautiful gardens which are one of the features.

It is a fine summer morning.

Not Maugham's best style of writing.

[Boadicea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Circuitous life forms of the fashionably well-heeled.

Now, I feel a bit of a heel. Sandwiched between Noel Coward's Private Lives and GBS' Heartbreak House, there's this charming but light little fancy froth on the obsessions of the well-to-do, namely fusty houses, fabulous furniture and frollicking adults indulging in adultery with a spot of tennis thrown in.

It's easy to read as Maugham was a very straightforward chap in his words and plays, but ultimately has very little to actually take home. It's entertainment certainly but the foreshadowing is evident from the start.Saying anything more would require the use of a spoiler tag, which I do not wish to justify.

He's undoubtedly a good playwright but the lack of a film adaptation beyond 1925, as per Wikipedia, surely tells you something. This is really a poor representation of his work and its inclusion in "14 Great Plays" surprises me.

The characters are shallow and depend on good actors to invest them with additional characteristics/mannerisms to embellish the absence of interesting dialogue or plot. Comedy, humph, is rather wanting!

I was going to give it 2.75* but on reflection, 2.5 is adequate.

[Chet Herbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favorite quotations:

"When you've loved as she's loved you may grow old, but you grow old beautifully."

. . . "But she loved and she dared. Romance is such an illusive thing, you read of it in books, but it is seldom you see it face to face. I can't help it if it thrills me."

"Are you shocked? One sacrifices one's life for love and then one finds that love doesn't last. The tragedy of love isn't death or separation. One gets over them. The tragedy of love is indifference."

. . . "After all, a man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing . . ."

"I don't offer you peace and quietness. I offer you unrest and anxiety. I don't offer you happiness. I offer you love."

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do not think this is among the author's best works, for at present the only work of the author's I read about in other books is his classic novel Of Human Bondage.  However, when one looks at this book, there is certainly a great deal of value here.  Without knowing more about the life of the author, it is unclear exactly what circumstances led him to write this sort of play, but what is clear is that the author is profoundly interested in questions of morality and in the fragility of respectability and the insecurity of relationships.  In this play, we see a "comedy" that is really a domestic tragedy of generational curses being passed down from one generation to another.  Although this play is obscure nowadays, once upon a time it was performed in London with noted actors like John Gielgud.  At any rate, although this play is not well known today, at least to my knowledge, it is a play whose content and approach deserves to be better known, for it addresses issues that I have seen in my own experience, and portrays sympathetically a character who is particularly Nathanish, it must be noted.

This particular play is a drama in three acts.  The setup of the play is interesting, in which a man, Arnold Champion-Chaney, meets up with his mother and her longtime paramour a quarter a century after she left his honorable and decent father.  Meanwhile, his wife is plotting to leave him with someone else to perpetuate the family's cycle of abandonment and unhappiness.  In the first act we see the worthless fellow propose to take the bored housewife away with him to India.  In the second act, we see the son attempt to succeed where his father failed in keeping his wife and trying to persuade her to stay, and in the third act we see the mother and her paramour try to convince her that the young wife will lose a great deal in reputation as well as honor by leaving, and that it will be viewed as a betrayal of the community spirit of mankind and will also make the woman dependent on a worthless man.  There are some laughs, but this play does not strike me as a comedy the way it seems to have struck other people.  Any laughs that many people have at this play's bitter and sardonic and witty dialogue is likely to be hollow indeed, to laugh so that one does not cry.

After all, this play has a lot to say about contemporary problems regarding families.  The play comments that women do not tend to like intelligent men because they are boring and not very much fun, and it is much harder to romanticize intelligent and driven men than it is to romanticize bullies and rascals.  In the dialogue of this play we see the way that people act coldly and harshly to those they have wronged as a way of trying to see themselves as not very bad people, or the people they wrong as having been worth the ill-treatment they receive in that cruel form of double victimization.  We also see that the lures of adultery in terms of the way that they are viewed romantically do not pan out, and also the way that women without a profession are highly vulnerable in relationships where there is no marriage.  The author paints marriage in a highly prudential light as supplying both men and women with the opportunity for success and happiness, and how it is easy to give up this happiness for illusions, without the chance to get it back.

[Stuart Aken · Rating 2 out of 5]

A play very much of its time, The Circle, nevertheless touches lightly on themes which continue to have relevance today. Superficially dealing with infidelity and its consequences, there are deeper threads that weave around the war of the sexes, real love, class and sex.
It’s set in the home of a man of independent wealth, a man who is also a Member of Parliament with a ‘position’ in society. His wife is, of course, beautiful and much younger. She is also, predictably, bored by her life of privilege and ease. The plot revolves around the fact that the MP’s father was deserted by his equally beautiful and superficial wife in the name of love, and he is quickly revealed to be in the same boat as his father shortly after the play opens. Just in case you’ve either never heard of the play, or might have the chance to see it, I won’t spoil the ending by revealing the outcome.
As a seed bed for comedy, the situation ought to be bursting with potential life. Unfortunately, the comedy of manners here doesn’t travel through time as well as the famous Pride and Prejudice. I think the reason for that is that it’s very difficult for a modern reader to have any true empathy with any of the characters. The only ‘common’ man in the cast is as difficult to like as are the spoilt brats of the upper classes that take most of the roles.
There’s some amusement to be had by laughing at rather than with the players at times. But I found it sparse for a play that’s described as ‘comedy in three acts’. I was mostly either appalled at the utter hypocrisy and shallowness of the people portrayed or indifferent to their perceived problems or their fate. It wasn’t that their problems were unreal, merely that they, as individuals, failed to convince me that I should give a damn.
I’ve no doubt that gifted actors and a bright director could bring more to this play than I gleaned from the page. But I wouldn’t be tempted to make a trip to the theatre to watch it. Just possibly, were it to appear on the goggle box on a wet afternoon when I had nothing else to do, I might start watching it. For me, it lacked the wit that lifts Wilde’s plays above such considerations and it left a taste of self-satisfaction and smugness in the mouth.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

History repeats itself in this 1920s English comedy. Lady Kitty abandoned her husband and young son decades ago, and upon returning to the family estate with her husband in tow, finds that her daughter-in-law is now contemplating a similar move. That Lady Kitty’s husband is a former friend of her husband’s adds a nice layer to the story.

If written today, my guess is a playwright would go for lots of existential melodramatics and screaming and dysfunction. Maugham, however, mines both the subtle details of interpersonal relationships and the humor of the situation for a funny play that ends up much deeper than its modern, angsty brethren. It’s easy to see why The Circle is considered not only one of Maugham’s finest works but also one of the best works of 20th-century English theatre. Highly recommended.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this play by S. Maugham, although I would hesitate to call this 'A Comedy in Three Acts'... I can think of many other 'comedies' written and performed around the same time as The Circle that were far more funny. Over all it read very smoothly, constantly engaging with notes about character movement, facial changes, somewhat witty banter. I would recommend this play.

[سلوان البري · Rating 5 out of 5]

ما هي حدود الغفران عند البشر؟ أيمكن للإنسان أن يعفو ويصفح عمن كانوا سببًا في إيذاءه طيلة العمر؟
وهل عاطفة الأمومة أقوىٰ.. أم أن الرغبة في الحرية أبقىٰ؟

في مسرحية (الدائرة) يعرض علينا الكاتب/ سومرست موم كل هذه الأسئلة علىٰ ألسنة شخصياته القليلة ( الأب، الأم، زوج الأم، الابن، زوجة الابن) بأسلوب سلس وحوار متميز تُرجم بعناية ودقة؛ مما يدفع القاريء لإنهاء العمل سريعًا.

تقييمي الشخصي للعمل: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[燕南 · Rating 5 out of 5]

就文本內容而言，有一部分人物的性格和動機足夠立體，行為有跡可循，所以讓我試著自恰地解讀看看吧。

比起伊麗莎白，我覺得愛德華更戀愛腦：他「以前還沒有跟誰真正地戀過愛」，和伊麗莎白相處時卻覺得「世界上只有一件事情值得說，那就是愛情」，同時還思考了他們結合的利弊得失等等，很認真地沉浸在自己理想的愛情中。他此刻覺知的愛是真的，但我不太確定他能維持這種熱切的狀態多久。

伊麗莎白對此的反應呢？因為劇本缺乏心理描寫，總覺得她「被求愛，然後答應」的過程有點突兀。但我想，那個當下，她就像《飄》的斯佳麗一樣，為自己對愛情的暢想找到了合適的投射對象——而且還是那個對象先愛上她的。

她羨慕凱蒂，說她「為了那個人，名譽、地位、孩子，她都可以不要」、「愛情就是這麼個迷人的東西嘛。人們在書本上看到，卻很少親眼見到，我聽了情不自禁地激動得心緒難寧」，在我的解讀中，這代表她追求愛情的象徵（或其中的情感）大過具體的對象本身，情夫是誰其實也不怎麼重要。

至於她為什麼不在阿諾德身上找這種幻覺，大概是因為兩人太不合了；如你所說，伊麗莎白是個浪漫派，阿諾德卻覺得「人家對我感情奔放，我就感到不舒服」，諸如此類的問題。而且從伊麗莎白坦誠自己出軌，和阿諾德溝通那段，就可以感覺到他只是一昧用「你糊塗啊，目前的生活最正確、高尚，應該珍惜」的角度看待問題，根本無法說服她。

或許對伊麗莎白而言，婚姻本身代表一種刻板、死的框架，私奔除了追求刺激，還是她打破或重構這框架的選擇。用馬斯洛的需求層次理論來說，她期望的私奔行為能滿足尊重需求（刺激、主體性和成就感），留在婚姻裡得到的卻只是（更下層的）愛與歸屬，所以大家很難用這個打動她。說愛情給麵包行不通啊。

（有點地獄但我覺得，幼年失恃這件事也有影響到她對婚姻和愛情的看法。說不定從小看父母相處就不會產生幻覺。）

坦白說我並不反感伊麗莎白或者凱蒂。可以就她們不明智，還有未盡維護婚姻的責任這兩點作評判，但「不明智」是一種認清現實、走回正軌後才會有的感覺。對此刻的伊麗莎白來說，她恐怕輕視了困難，同時也不接受自己的選擇會是錯的吧。真就人不能同時青春和保有對青春的感受，所以才會陷入惡性循環啊……

至於婚姻就是責任，對男女雙方都一樣，維持原狀走到最後會是最好的，因為總會殊途同歸——但過程中顯然是盡責就等同於做金絲雀的女方更痛苦。（就像凱蒂說的，女人只有和男人一樣，能獨立謀生時，才能和男人講平等。）我想毛姆有意站在伊麗莎白的角度討論這兩難的困境：為什麼人無法幸福而不付代價；同時不讓別人幫自己付、也不讓別人以自己為代價支付他的幸福呢？

最後提一下克萊夫，我不知道怎麼評價他，大概算是一名在道德高地上為所欲為的人物吧。而且他富含的智慧和魅力，足以令人在了解他荒唐的那面後也討厭不起來。喜歡劇情裡安排他以為近乎除去所有阻礙後，就可以阻止伊麗莎白私奔——他真的認為，這件事的發生大部分是禁果效應導致的。

就上面的觀點，我還想再寫些東西，卻感覺再表達就要開始重複了。所以用劇本中凱蒂（又是她，她真的挺有趣）的一段話做結尾：

“Men are extraordinary. They can't stand the smallest discomfort. Why, a woman's life is uncomfortable from the moment she gets up in the morning till she goes to the bed at night. And d'you think it's comfortable to sleep with a mask on your face? ”

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked this one. Would see it in a heartbeat. In addition to its copious usage of the term “ripper” which I guess is the 1920s version of “it’s lit”, and its accidental foretelling of the DiCaprio “no chicks over 25” rule, it's a very funny and fairly knowing read. The characters discuss and react to the fleetingness of love as if they’re dealing with a natural resource shortage. It’s also fascinating to see how clear it is about the fact that occur financial inequity across gender affects everything else. There is a really weird and unfortunate joke around the threat of domestic violence in the last couple minutes of the play, but I'm choosing to let that one go under the guise of "it was written a hundred years go".

[Ahmed Yousri ataweyya · Rating 4 out of 5]

مقدمة درينى خشبة لهذه المسرحية من اجمل ما قرأت و بعا مقارنة بين الأدب الواقعي و الأدب الطبيعي ضروري ان تفهمها قبل قراءة سومرست موم...

اما المسرحية فهي تجسيد لانتصار مبدأ الطبيعة ...و اسلوب موم يجعلك تقرأها في جلسة واحدة..
قرأتها في القطار من الاسكندرية للقاهرة في ساعتين و نصف.

[Claire Polacheck · Rating 3 out of 5]

play reading szn to meet reading goal!! a huge win for maughm for me after hating the magician, his humor worked well in this format. simple story simple setting but complex and knowable characters, could be very fun with a good cast

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maugham's stock in trade for plays seems to be the sudden reversal of plot, only to be countermanded by the reverse reversal. Quite enjoyable.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine old-fashioned well-made play. It lacks the wit and sparkle of Coward, but as Chichester's stylish revival proved, there's life in the old drama yet.

[P · Rating 2 out of 5]

Performance weakens the work.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it to be rather unpleasant - said in my best English accent.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun comedy. We did it for a virtual play reading and, despite some of its historical problems, everyone really enjoyed it. I would really like to see it staged.

[G. Derek Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fluffy. Very fluffy. Some cute bits, and a few passes of inspired dialogue. Beyond dated -- cultural misogyny is on unabashed display. Importance of Being Earnest is of a similar kine and far more inspired.

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Also included The Letter and The Constant Wife.

[Russell Traughber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This an amusing play by Mr. William Somerset Maugham.

[David Cain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant