The Moon and Sixpence
I hadn’t read any interesting books quite a while before I came across SomersetMaugham with his book The Moon and Sixpence. It is not maybe the best book thatI have ever read, that it is certainly one that grasped my attention the longest. Last time when I went to the library, I brought back with me The Grapes of Wrath and The Heart of Darkness. But up so far they unfortunately still have been
left unexplored, since The Moon and Sixpence has been taking must of my free time.
It was a great book from any aspect. Maugham had a great skill to describe and analyze characters and happenings. In his mind’s eye everything was clear and lucid, and by his pen they got successfully across. The Moon and Sixpence was mainly about a painter’s experience and life: How he escaped his married life afterhe had already reached his forties; how he struggled in Paris but didn’t give
a damn about it; how he didn’t take a whit how other people thought of him; andhow he could remain unmoved and detached even after in a way he totally destroyed a once merry family.
There was something cruel but true in Strickland’s (the painter) attitude towards life. You may not agree with him. But you can’t deny that there was essential truth in what he did and thought. Things that Strickland said such as his wife
would surely get on with her life without him, and the world would still go on,
and no one was a penny the worse for others’ wretchedness.
I think in some way it was his detachedness from the world that brought his success in painting. Because he didn’t care the world’s opinion of him, he got nothing to fear and lose. He maybe sounded rude and self-centric, but it was his light attitude toward the outside environment that granted his freedom to explore
in the painting world fearlessly, and eventually yielded for him admiration and
applause.
In this book Somerset Maugham successfully forged a character that was maybe notto everyone’s taste, but was definitely to everyone’s amazement. But what impressed me was not only the vividness of the character, but also the writer’s thoughtful and exact mind. His sardonic but insightful lines interspersed in the novel impressed me particularly. Besides, I think his delineation of Dirk Stroeveachieved a degree, to which it is hard for whoever reads it to easily forget. Dirk Stroeve was a character full of ridicule that you can’t think of him without a laugh, but in the meantime you can’t draw him into your mind without sympathy.
There are also several parts in the book that are to my personal appeal. When the narrator decided to leave for Paris for a change, he said “I was growing stale in London. I was tired of doing much the same things every day. My friends pursued their course with uneventfulness; they had no longer any surprises for me…
even their love affairs had a tedious banality. We were like tram-cars running
on their lines from terminus to terminus, and it was possible to calculate within small limits the number of passengers they would carry...” Here the writer recorded a stagnant life, which can serve as an alarm for me in the actual life: Make resolution not to let the life go stale and banal. Stare everything afresh if necessary.
There was another part that impressed me enormously. Dirk Stroeve said when he appreciated works by Strickland: Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. Andwhen he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination. Frankly I have seldom come across words expressed so clearly and acutelyas Dirk’s with respect to the appreciation of paintings. I was vastly amazed and impressed.
(To be continued hopefully, as I need to do more research in order to finish offthe review.The story was said to be related to Gauguin, the French painter. ButI need to read more to be sure of it.)
