The Consul by Somerset Maugham – one of my favorite writers https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-buried-talent-by-somerset-maugham.html - this is part of the collection Ten - 10 out of 10

 

The Consul by Somerset Maugham – one of my favorite writers https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-buried-talent-by-somerset-maugham.html - this is part of the collection Ten

 

10 out of 10

 

Somerset Maugham has written some spectacular works, some of them included in The Far Eastern Tales, wherein we have Before The Party https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/before-party-by-somerset-maugham-his.html which I have just finished, there seem to be a lot of problems in those colonies

 

About one century ago, one third of the world was under British rule, in Before the Party, we learn about one British woman who gets married to this representative of the crown in one of those remote places, where he gets drunk permanently, and the resident calls him to offer an ultimatum, you marry, or you get the sack

And he goes back to Britain, where he marries – later on, the spouse tells her mother she needed not go to all that trouble to entice this prospect, since he was to be in a marital relationship, no matter who it would be, given the precarious position his boss placed him into – and then takes the spouse along to the Far East

 

He stays sober, then falls into the habit again, when he finds he will be a father, promises sobriety again, and once the child and wife are off to the beach, for a few days, he takes to the bottle and they find him in bed, passed out, with the whiskey nearby, so the strong woman cannot take it anymore, takes the sword and…kills him

In The Force of Circumstance https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-force-of-circumstance-by-somerset.html we have some other themes, one will be racism, the representative of the queen in a remote part of the empire is also recently married, to a white woman, who just moves in this part of the world

 

One day, she hears a kerfuffle at the bath, where the husband is annoyed at a local woman that came to demand something, and then this native comes again, the following morning, with her baby in her arms, and the spouse says that colonizers took local women to bed, and then took care of the resulting children, providing for them

Eventually, the white lady expresses a disgust for the situation, and states that she would hate it if he had done the same, which he had, for he tells the story of his solitude, how he was so young and alone in this god forsaken land, and he was going to lose his mind, when somebody offered a local woman, for a small sum given to the family

They have three children, and the white spouse thinks this unacceptable, she would not sleep in the same room, and after some time, she decides she can no longer stay there, she will travel back to England, and thus, the mother and the two boys and the girl are asked to return to the house, they will live together again

 

Neil Macadam ends in tragedy, but the route is different  https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/neil-macadam-by-somerset-maugham-author.html Neil is a Scot that will work at a museum in Borneo, where he will be under the supervision of Angus Munro, a wonderful man

However, Angus Munro is married to a Russian, Darya, who had had some affairs that cause the white community to look at her with contempt – and they make jokes, so that Neil Macadam punches one of the fellows there – and at the husband with some pity, and arrogance given the fact that he was a cuckold for them

 

Darya falls in love with the young Scot, and pushes for him to accept a sexual, and maybe a romantic connection, but he is a virgin, furthermore, he is inspired by Prince Mishkin, from The Idiot https://realini.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-idiot-by-fyodor-dostoevsky-one-of.html by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the innocent hero

Neil Macadam admires Angus Munro, who is a role model for him, and the Scot will not even think of cheating on such a man, so he rejects the wife, who bites his hand, the young man responds with a blow, and then she tries blackmail, ‘if you do not give in, I will tell my husband you tried to rape me, and I have the proofs, the bite, blue sign on the face’

 

The Consul is somewhat pompous, and he is asked to help by a British woman, with a Cockney accent, no higher education (maybe none at all), who has married a Chinese man, and they now live in this province, where the main character is The Consul, who does not like this situation, and proposes a dramatic end to it

The English woman had had rooms, with her mother (who opposed the marriage, and would not let her hear the end of it, if she would go back home) and this is where the Chinese man stayed, when he was studying in Britain, he pretended to be an important man, back in China, where she expected him to live in a palace

 

They marry, but when they get to his homeland, there is no mansion, and worse, she is not his only wife, she is expected to listen to, obey his parents – perhaps in the Confucian tradition, which has children in awe of their parents, and has them take care of them, at least in the old days – and she is appalled of this

The Consul has a simple exit, you are not married to him according to our law, so you can go home, and if you want, I can have you travel with some missionaries back, and you could stay with them until you sail, but she does not want this…

 

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”