The Escape by Somerset Maugham, who is one of my favorite authors, he wrote The End of The Flight https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-end-of-flight-by-somerset-maugham.html and other remarkable stories - 10 out of 10

 

The Escape by Somerset Maugham, who is one of my favorite authors, he wrote The End of The Flight https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-end-of-flight-by-somerset-maugham.html and other remarkable stories

 

10 out of 10

 

 

The Escape will not please feminists, for this is about a man who maneuvers and ‘Escapes’ from this woman who wants to marry him, which is so misogynistic, retrograde, passe, right, only we need to use the standards of the time, and besides, it is not as if the male is presented as a role model, there is not time for that

 

Indeed, in this paragraph above I must have given in all the plot – a spoiler alert would hence come too late, but then at least you do not bother with the rest, if you had the intention – this is not just a short, but we could call it a ‘flash story’ maybe, which does not mean it is not wonderful, and somewhat tough on the female personage

On the other hand, we could see Maugham as a ‘woman in a man’s body’, if we use a key suggested by the other great favorite of mine, Marcel Proust https://realini.blogspot.com/2013/10/albertine-disparue-by-marcel-proust.html who wrote the greatest work of all time, A La Recherche du Temps Perdu

 

Roger Charing is the only man that the narrator knows to have Escaped from a woman who wants to marry him, we also have other Far Eastern Tales in which the hunted dies, such as P&O https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/p-by-somerset-maugham-his-of-human.html in this narrative death wins

When Gallagher, an Irish plantation manager, decides to return to his home country, he leaves behind the native woman he had lived with – now, this is a case where we could argue, I just realized that the man had Escaped the local female, for they had not tied the knot, nonetheless, he will not be free in the end

 

The native partner does not say anything before Galagher leaves, but once he is getting on the ship, she tells him that he will never set foot on land again, and what do you think, the white fellow starts with endless hiccups, cannot eat, and soon, he is given up for helpless and the curse comes true, he is deceased before the next port

Mabel is the woman that follows her destiny, which is a man, all over the place, we cannot say the whole globe, but she does look for him in the unexpected places, where he had tried to (again) Escape but there is no way, so he has to surrender https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/mabel-by-somerset-maugham-one-of-my.html

 

In The Escape, Roger Charing falls for Ruth Barlow, but if I think of Thomas Mann, then I could not use the word love here, there is a character that says we find love, friends, only in literature, art, this is where they mean it, in real life, it is braggadocio, they say ‘there are no words to express their feelings’, but that is hyperbole…

https://realini.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-magic-mountain-is-classic-that.html when the test comes in real life, the friend does not have the time, so he is no real pal, and the love does not stand the proof of time, like in the case of Roger – though this is where we should find the feeling, it is literature, but he does not show it

 

Ruth Barlow has ‘pathos’, she is twice a widow, ‘her eyes are ready to fill with tears’, and Roger Charing wants to take the sadness off these eyes, she was always a victim, and in those few pages, Somerset Maugham inserts magnificent humor – ‘if she had a lamb, it would die, if she took a lawyer, he would cheat on her’

But the narrator thinks she is stupid, and ‘tough as nails’, they were partners at cards, and she always did the wrong thing ‘if anybody’s eyes should have filled with tears, they should have been mine’ he states, and then she lost money, said she would send a check and never did – there was that joke with greatest lies ‘the check is in the mail’ was one of them

 

Roger falls out, after the marriage was announced and the way out was to play along, insist that he does want to marry – again, mirth is abundant ‘maybe he was tired of her conversation, though she had none’ – and so he has to use a ruse, cunning, to try to get her to back out somehow, while he is always committed

So, they start looking at houses, where they will reside together, once they will have been a married couple, but there is no place that suits him, so he finds fault with the homes, because he cannot say that he does not want to be her spouse anymore – that would have resulted in her getting him back to square one

 

All the way, he played the role, with invitations to restaurants, sending flowers, showing no sign of cold feet, and then they visited house, after house, which were too large, or too small, too close to the center, or too far, too dark, or too light, too expensive, or too cheap, you see where that was going, or where they were stuck

He begged her to be patient, they needed only perseverance, they saw hundreds of houses, climbed thousands of stairs, and she lost patience, ‘if it goes on like this, we will be married in decades’ or something along these lines, and she revolted finally ‘do you want to marry me, or do you not’ she asked…

And then she took to her bed, and it looks as if he has won the case, he wrote about this new house he was informed about, and then she eventually writes ‘I am going to be married today’, and he replies with a list of…houses for her to choose for her future marriage

 

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.”