The Man With The Scar by Somerset Maugham – one of my favorite writers, author of The Verger https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-verger-by-somerset-maugham-another.html and other magnificent tales - 10 out of 10

 

The Man With The Scar by Somerset Maugham – one of my favorite writers, author of The Verger https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-verger-by-somerset-maugham-another.html and other magnificent tales

 

10 out of 10

 

The Man With The Scar is part of the fabulous collection Ten, and it is very brief and yet, wonderful, for we have a tragic turn of events, the protagonist loves a woman, but he now reminds me of…Shakespeare and a sonnet I admire – ‘my love is as a fever longing still, for that which longer nurseth the disease, feeding on that which doth preserve the ill…

 

The uncertain, sickly appetite to please…my reason, the physician to my love, angry that his prescriptions are not kept, has left me, and I desperately now approve, desire is death…past cure I am, now reason is past care, and frantic mad, with ever more unrest, my thoughts and my discourse at random from the truth vainly expressed…’

In brief, this is about ‘being crazy in love’ written with the divine talent of the most gifted poet, playwright, and twisted in the case of The Man With The Scar – ‘It was on account of the scar that I first noticed him, for it ran, broad and red, in a great crescent from his temple to his chin’ these are the first words in the tale

 

‘He was a revolutionary general and if his ammunition hadn’t given out, he’d have upset the government and be minister of war now instead of selling lottery tickets in Guatemala…he is an exile from Nicaragua – incidentally, that is a hell of a place right now, surely beautiful, but with a family of dictators and fat cats sucking dry the land

The tyrant is Daniel Ortega, and I was reading in The Economist how they have the spouse in charge of sections of the economy, the offspring are also profiting, while they have had the insolence, rudeness, stupidity to push a case at the International Court of Justice against…Germany, and as is evident, I am off the rails now

 

Spiler alert, you should stop reading, if you are still on this page – the complaint was connected with the help provided by Germany to Israel, and yes, the Israelis have been over the top, wrong in their handling of the war in Gaza, due in large part to Benjamin Netanyahu, a rather picturesque figure once upon a time

A spectacular book about a part of the childhood of the Prime Minister has won the Pulitzer Prize in 2022 https://realini.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-netanyahus-account-of-minor-and.html The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family by Joshua Cohen

Besides, we must not forget that Hamas has attacked innocent people, on October 7, 2023, they killed about twelve hundred, and they have as their doctrine the elimination of Israel, so there is that to consider, and the fact that the Israelis try to avoid civilian casualties, though these have reached horrendous levels

 

Another loathsome player at the ICJ is South Africa, and I despise those involved there – I mean they embrace the Russians – who have killed so many people in Ukraine, which they have occupied, and now they are on a roll, and they may swallow it whole, then move to other preys, such as our lands, if Orange Jesus becomes president in November

So, this kind of tyrant, Putin, is frequentable, good enough to be our pal, friend, do maneuvers with, what have you, and the Israelis are to be reported, and stigmatized, I am not saying Israel plays the part of the angel now, but to put yourself on the stage, and like in the bible, throw the first stone, this is despicable

 

Now about this Man With The Scar, he is sentenced to die, along with four others, and the general in charge of the execution asks them is there is anything they want, before the final exit, and our man says he would like to say goodbye to his wife, so the general asked about her, and was told she is waiting at the gate of the prison

This reminds me of Fyodor Dostoyevsky https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/06/crime-and-punishment-by-fyodor.html one of the greatest writers in history, the one who gave us Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, Demons and more in a magnum opera, which we could have missed at least in part

 

Just like The Man With The Scar, Fyodor Dostoevsky was condemned to death, and he is standing in front of the firing squad, and dividing his last minutes in three, one to say goodbye to family and friends (mentally, not literally, they were not there), another to pass his life in front, and the last for a ray of sunshine

Eventually, in the last moments, the pardon comes in – or I think I have read somewhere that it could have been a ruse of the czar, willing to scare the rebel, but not to have him die – and therefore we can read in the masterpieces about these last minutes before death, how you would rather live on a rock, in the middle of the ocean…

 

If the alternative is death, evidently, we read about this in other circumstances, the Roman generals would give a slave near them, on the parade given for a glorious return after important battles, who would repeat ‘remember thou are mortal aka memento mori’, then there is carpe diem, Serenity Now! A line that we hear in Seinfeld

For the latter, it was Frank Constanza who shouted this when he was in a fight with Elaine, ‘you wanna piece of me, you got it’ – nonetheless, The Man With The Scar shows his love for the spouse by…killing her

 

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.”