The Moon and Sixpence by William Somerset Maugham is ranked 2492nd on The Greatest Books of All Time site – you have thousands of reviews of magnum opera from this and other web pages on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html and YouTube channel, where my macaws are resplendent

 

The Moon and Sixpence by William Somerset Maugham is ranked 2492nd on The Greatest Books of All Time site – you have thousands of reviews of magnum opera from this and other web pages on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html and YouTube channel, where my macaws are resplendent

 

8 out of 10

 

William Somerset Maugham https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/07/cakes-and-ale-by-somerset-maugham-is.html is one of my favorite authors, indeed, he used to share the number one spot with Marcel Proust, and Kingsley Amis, until the latter changed my perspective, if not completely, at least to an important degree

 

‘Maugham is the only bad writer whose books you read to the end with interest, sympathy and enjoyment’ this is what Kingsley Amis wrote, there is more, some of the lines might be more appreciative, at some point, he listed books according to importance, and Maugham was there, though not in prominent place

Kingsley Amis even ‘found Summing Up by Somerset Maugham to be fine’ https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-letters-of-kingsley-amis-edited-by.html in my case I have a lot of gratitude for the Short Stories in particular, for I had them with me in hospital, during long stays, about forty years ago

 

These were communist days, and I was studying Geophysics, at the University, only to find that there was no career waiting for me, Ceausescu had another priority, the Agrarian Revolution, and once I would graduate, I would not be able to do my job, so I decided to play some games within the system, postponing studies

Since I had a duodenal ulcer, I could freeze my place and then present the stay in hospital as justification: William Somerset Maugham helped with that https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-summing-up-by-william-somerset.html I have enjoyed his magnum opera

 

Paul Gaugain is the inspiration for The Moon and Sixpence, and the fact that he has abandoned his wife and five children to live in Tahiti could be seen in two ways, on the one hand, he is one of the greatest artists, and art requires sacrifice, on the other hand, that was cruel, he does end in squalor, dying of syphilis, or the complications associated with it

I have read The Way to Paradise https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-way-to-paradise-by-mario-vargas.html by Mario Vargas Lllosa, which deals with the same subject, and I am not sure where I am on this, perhaps somewhere in the middle, appreciating some of Paul Gaugain’s art, but also quite repelled by his actions

 

Even worse, he had quite a number of lovers that teenagers, albeit at that time this was perhaps close to the norm, there is the impressive Intellectuals https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/intellectuals-by-paul-johnson.html by Paul Johnson, which details what Leo Tolstoy, Ernest Hemingway, Henrik Ibsen have done in their private lives

 

 

 

 

Comentarii

Trimiteți un comentariu

Postări populare de pe acest blog

In The Fade aka Auf Dem Nichts, written by Hark Bohm and Fatih Akin

  In The Fade aka Auf Dem Nichts, written by Hark Bohm and Fatih Akin In The Fade has won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, although in this cinephile's opinion, Una Mujer Fantastica- which has won the Oscar in the same category- Nelyubov or The Square would have been better choices. Having said that, Auf Dem Nichts is a very good, significant, remarkable feature, that attracts attention to violence against minorities, in this case the Kurdish community in Germany. It is therefore not one sided, we do not have only Muslim lunatics killing innocent "infidels", but also some extreme Europeans murdering the other side. The problem is that, unacceptable, horrifying and vile as these acts are, it appears that the overwhelming majority of atrocities are committed by zealots acting in the name of Islam- radical and unrepresentative as they are for this supposedly peaceful faith, although there are passages in its holy book that seem to insist on a violent jihad and ultimat...
Citiți mai multe

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice written by Larry Tucker and Paul Mazursky, directed by the latter is included on The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list, and Variety has published recently its Top 100 Comedies – or else, I have learned about this lately – where this feature has a top spot, as far as I remember it is higher that the 50th spot – speaking of these pages, you have access to my own more than five thousand notes on films from these and other compilations, together with another five thousand reviews on magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other sites on my blog and You Tube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html you may even subscribe, if you wish

Imagine
  Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice written by Larry Tucker and Paul Mazursky, directed by the latter is included on The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list, and Variety has published recently its Top 100 Comedies – or else, I have learned about this lately – where this feature has a top spot, as far as I remember it is higher that the 50 th spot – speaking of these pages, you have access to my own more than five thousand notes on films from these and other compilations, together with another five thousand reviews on magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other sites on my blog and You Tube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html you may even subscribe, if you wish     9 out of 10   First a correction: I wrote above that this comedy is within the first fifty of Variety’s Top 100, I just saw that it is in fact ranked 90 th , I could have edited the above, but maybe this way I will re...
Citiți mai multe