Revealing Mr. Maugham
Director:
Michael House
Year: 2012
Rating: 6.5
That would of course be Somerset Maugham - 1874
- 1965.
I had a phase in my early 20's when I became enamored with the British authors
of the first half of the 20th century - D.H. Lawrence, Orwell, Huxley, Forster,
Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and Maugham. Lawrence for his sexuality and the
intense relationships of his characters, Waugh for his biting sense of humor,
Orwell and Huxley for their political and prophetic satires, Forster for
his grand epic stories, Greene for his spy and adventure novels and Maugham
simply for his lively and entertaining style of writing. I have my doubts
if any of these great authors are read much any more but they were enormously
influential at one time and helped (along of course with American authors
such as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck and Dos Passos) change the way the
language was written. These guys still feel modern today as compared to authors
of only a few decades earlier.
Until I saw this documentary about his life I had no idea just how prolific
Maugham was - many plays, short stories and novels - as best as I can recall
I read a few of his more famous novels - The Razor's Edge, The Moon and Sixpence,
Ashenden; The British Agent in which Maugham used his own experiences as
a spy during WWI, Cakes and Ale and some of his short stories. This phase
eventually petered out as things do and I haven't read any of those authors
in four decades other than a bit of Greene and two books of Maugham's that
I have with me here in Bangkok - The Gentleman in the Parlour: A Record of
a Journey From Rangoon to Haiphong and a collection of short stories titled
Far Eastern Tales - both of which I read from time to time. Maugham spent
a lot of time in Bangkok back in the 1930's and he has a suite named after
him at the famous Oriental Hotel.
Maugham's life and writing was driven to a large degree by the circumstances
of his sexuality. He was gay. In a period in England in which it was quite
illegal and you could go to jail - as per Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing as
seen in the wonderful The Imitation Game. He had spent the first 8 years
of his life growing up in Paris but when his parents died he went in live
in England with his minister uncle, then five years studying medicine before
he decided to become a writer. Success was slow but when it came it came
in waves.
After a few theatrical successes he wrote Of Human Bondage which along with
the film versions made him a rich man. Critics say that much of the angst,
the passion, the for its time intimate sexuality came out of his need to
both express and yet hide his own sexuality. He became involved though at
one point with a married woman - an anomaly for him and got her pregnant
and was miserable in his marriage to her. He took up with an American man
he met as a medic on the Western front who was then later discovered in his
hotel room with another man. They didn't jail him but they made it illegal
for him to return tor England. And because of this and his unhappy marriage
Maugham along with his companion began to travel the world and many of his
short stories and books are set in these foreign climes - in particular the
South Seas.
It is quite an enjoyable documentary with clips from many of the films based
on his books - of which there are a ton - and there are clips of Maugham
being interviewed late in his life - in which he displays no stuttering which
he often badly fell into. And of course a number of Maugham enthusiasts chime
in. If you have no interest in Maugham I can't imagine this would appeal
to you. As soon as I finished it I went on to Amazon to see what they had
for Kindle for practically free - and there is a fair amount!
