A Man From Glasgow by William Somerset Maugham – one of the greatest novelists of all time, author of The Poet https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-poet-by-william-somerset-maugham.html and other superb works - 10 out of 10

 

A Man From Glasgow by William Somerset Maugham – one of the greatest novelists of all time, author of The Poet https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-poet-by-william-somerset-maugham.html and other superb works

 

10 out of 10

 

Somerset Maugham is a fantastic writer, one of my two favorites, although I have found recently that he was critical of Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis  https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/03/lucky-jim-by-kingsley-amis-author-of.html - well, not really attacking another of my gods, but expressing some sort of puzzlement

 

This has been a wonderful summer, in that I have started again the complete stories, with gems like Footprints In The Jungle, wherein we meet, with the narrator, a couple of gentle, likeable people, Olive and Theo Cartright, playing bridge and being described as essential for the community, viewed very well by the community

Except that Olive had been married to Reggie Bronson, a planter in Malaya, who had brought Theo Cartright to his own property, when the latter became bankrupt, and had a very bad, awful time, and he was offered a roof, job and salvation, which he repaid in a quite unexpected way, controlled by…Olive, the strong woman

 

Olive and Theo have fallen in love, the result of this affair is that she becomes pregnant, and then they decide – actually, she was the strong half of this sphere, if we use Plato’s https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/06/phaedo-by-plato.html take, that we are two halves looking for the other, to form the original sphere – that they could not tell Reggie, he had been so kind, they could not do this to him

Ergo…they kill him, Olive instructs her lover to be in the jungle, and use the shotgun, make it look like it was a robbery, and then they will marry (which they would do, we know that from the start), they have a scare, because the news sounds ‘your husband has been wounded’, and for some moments, she thinks he may survive, and reveal who the killer is

 

Most of the short stories are outstanding, and it is also the case for Before The Party https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/before-party-by-somerset-maugham-his.html which starts with preparations for the party we have been told about in the title, Mrs. Skinner is looking for suitable attire for mourning

Harold had passed away, he was her son-in-law, married to Millicent, who will reveal some unbelievable details, due to the rumors that have been spreading, she has to tell the truth, which will be a chance to find some closure, and put the record straight, as regards the reverence for the late man, which is not justified

 

Millicent seemed to be on track to become an ‘old maid’, more than one hundred years ago, there was this thing with women waiting for the suitable fellow, who had to come before they were thirty or something, and Harold showed up, returning from the Far East, and asked the woman to travel with him to the colonies

However, once married, the spouse finds that he had been forced to do that, the governor had made it clear, you either marry, or you are fired, because the man had been drinking excessively, and although there is a chance now, he is falling to addiction again, stops and makes promises, but it is useless, he is lost…

 

Therefore, when Millicent returns form a trip taken with their daughter and finds the husband passed out, unshaven, loathsome, with an empty bottle of whiskey next to him, and she has the parang, native sword is there, the next thing she knows, there is blood, and the fellow is dead, which will be recorded as suicide…

What is wonderful about the writings of Somerset Maugham is that we do not read about the good super hero, defeating some villain, it is much more complex than that, Millicent is not a cruel human, she is somehow forced into acting, however, it is murder we are talking about, and maybe we need the Anatomy of a Fall

 

 https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/01/one-of-top-three-films-of-2023-anatomy.html we have different narratives and characters and I will also mention Makintosh, in which this is the assistant, and Walker the boss, the former hates the latter, and we have a Reversal of Fortune, just like Aristotle prescribed

Aristotle said that we need reversal and one example is the climax in Oedipus Rex, when the king finds that he had killed his father, and then married his mother – ergo the famous Complex – and in Makintosh, we have the representative Walker, he rules for the British, in a fight with the natives, over a project

 

Walker has been kind to the locals, but now he had asked them to make a road, and he wants to pay them twenty pounds or so, which they refuse, on advice from the son of the leader of the tribe, so the astute white man hires men from another island, who get the money, and besides, they are fed and hosted by the…local tribe

According to their traditions, the guests are offered food and shelter, and that is ruining the natives, they face starvation, thus they want to stop this, agreeing to just finish the work, for that money, but no, walker does not accept even an end of the project without pay, he wants the locals to pay the twenty pounds he owes the workers

It is pushed to the point where he is assassinated, only at this nadir, he proves what a generous man he was – in all that cruelty – because he does not want Makintosh to reveal that he was killed, he wants this to be buried with him https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/07/makintosh-by-william-somerset-maugham.html

 

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.”