W. Somerset Maugham

"Rain and Other Stories" by W. Somerset Maugham YBM SI-sa: no publishing date listed

This is one of those books that I bought from Home Plus here in Korea that is half English and half Korean. The stories that is included are the full version of the original stories. I have mentioned before in other posts that I first read short stories by Maugham as a young teenager because I had nothing else to read in the house and it was a book my mother had. Normally, I did not care for short stories until I read this author's stories set in the South Pacific. There are only three short stories in the collection and I remember reading all of them in that particular volume.

The first one is "Rain" and I remember how shocked I was reading that story. Three films were made from this story. One was a silent film in 1928 starring Gloria Swanson called "Sadie Thompson " which was based on a play that was taken from the short story. Another was "Rain" filmed in 1932 starring Joan Crawford and the third was "Miss Sadie Thompson" filmed in 1953 starring Rita Hayworth.

Reading it again this time I had the advantage of my age and the fact that I read "The Summing Up" a book about the author's philosophy about writing. I knew he liked to include himself in the plot of much of his fiction as an interested observer. He got this idea from reading Henry James. In this case, the author appeared as Dr. Macphall. Maugham was a trained physician although he did not work very long in the field. The setting was in Pago Pago in the South Seas.

The main characters was Miss Sadie Thompson who was a prostitute. She was thrown out of one red light district and on her way to another. All of them including a missionary husband and wife and the doctor and his wife were forced to stay at Pago Pago until they were cleared to continue on their journey elsewhere because of a measles outbreak elsewhere. It was when the missionary, Davidson, discovered Thompson's true profession that the real action of the story begins. He is incensed that she is allowed to stay in the same house as they are and entertain men in her room.

In a slow dance, he starts to tighten the rope around her neck until she is without anything to do and then he goes to the governor and convinces him to throw her off the island on the very next ship which would take her to San Francisco. Thompson begs Davidson to let her go on another ship because prison awaits her if she goes back to San Fransisco. Even the doctor cannot convince the missionary to let her go on a later ship that would take her to Australia. Davidson wants her to pay for her sins. Then Davidson tries to convince her to give up her way of life and become a Christian. She begins to do that. Slowly, the noose tightens around Thompson's neck but it begins to tighten around the missionary's neck as well. She walks onto the ship that will take her to San Francisco and prison but with her old ways back saying that all men are pigs and the missionary ends up slitting his own throat.

There is a reason this story has stood up. It is written and paced extremely well. Maugham was a successful playwright but this group of stories showed the public that he could write short fiction. The book was very successful. He never looked back and saw himself as a professional writer.

The story was written in prose that was easy to read and yet showed the place where the travelers were at. Maugham had been there. He had written that he could not use complex prose that was popular at the time. It is no longer in vogue although the way he writes then is now very much still in style. He could control the language and make it say what he wanted it to say and give the mood and image of what was necessary to the story.

The next story is "Red". It starts out as a captain of a small vessel carrying cargo makes its way to an island. Everyone is described and there is a good reason for it. The captain is portly, not particularly good looking, sloppy and drinks a bit too much. He knows where there is an opening in the reef for the ship to slip in and goes ashore to a small house where a man lives. The man tells him a story about the big tragedy of his life of how he came upon this beautiful spot and fell in love with his beautiful woman who was in love with a young man named Red who was kidnapped by a ship long ago. The young man was as beautiful as the young girl was and they were lovers and lived an ideal life until he was kidnapped. Shortly after he left the girl had a stillborn child. She waited and waited for his return. The man who was sick fell in love with her and wanted to marry her and she refused because she was waiting for Red. He married her anyhow and she burned down the house and he rebuilt it anyhow. Many years have passed and she never loved the sick man who recovered and she just served him. He ended up hating her. Then the woman came in and asked him something. She had gotten old and gray and then left. The captain finally admitted that he was Red. He went back to his ship. The man saw how much he cheated himself and told the woman after she asked who the captain was that he had just told him that his brother was sick at home and he needed to go home. She did not recognize the man sitting there as her lover, Red and the man decided not to tell her.

The last story was "Honolulu" and it started off as if it was a travel essay. The story is in the 1st person by a traveler who listens to a story told by a captain who invited them on his ship. The traveler had been told that the captain although he was a captain of an inferior ship because of a loss of command that resulted in loss of life was a very pleasant man. He had a beautiful woman who was his partner. He told the story that happened a few years before just after he bought a girl from her father that the first mate wanted and started to make him ill by praying him to death. His girlfriend found out what to do and tricked him into gazing into his image and then throwing the image into the sea. His first mate then died and the captain recovered. The traveler was amazed that this beautiful woman would do so much for the captain but he was told she was another girl since the other girlfriend ran off with the cook the year before. He has a new one.

As I said, when I read these stories I stayed with them the first time and being surprised at the ending. Now, I can see how Maugham used women characters to move the plot especially the last two stories. Still, these are good stories and well done. I have read other stories by this author and found them compelling as much as I found his novels fascinating reads. I have read everything by Maugham. Here in Korea, I am limited on what I can get my hands on.

Sometimes in fiction, the plot is more important than the characters. Maugham said that he thought Anton Chekhov did not put enough warmth in his characters and I would have to agree. There is no doubt that Maugham put a great deal of thought in his characters. He said he always started with someone real that he knew in creating his characters and then changed and modified them to fit the story he was working on. I think you have to care about someone in a story for it to work with the reader or with it is with me. If I don't care one way or the other about anyone in a book or short story I usually put the thing down and don't pick it up again.

I am leaving Korea in a month and an half and one of the things I am going to do is hit a book store. I have been dreaming about going to a Barnes and Noble and getting more short stories by Maugham or maybe ordering them if they don't have them. Oh....I can't wait. I really like this author as he writes uncommonly well.