Maugham, W. Somerset "The Moon and Sixpence" Penguin: 1919
This is another book that I had read many years ago and just re-read recently because it was in the English library of the university where I teach. I must have been a teenager when I read it the first time and a senior citizen now. I will admit that I did not understand this book the first time that I read it. This is a story of a man who walks out of a normal middle class and successful life in England to pursue painting. Supposedly, it is based on the life of Paul Gauguin.
As a teenager, I did not feel the draw of artistic expression and why anyone would suddenly just give everything up just to run a paint brush over a canvas. Now, I understand more although I rather doubt if this is the story of Gauguin as he did not do the things that are outlined in the novel for he was active in painting before he decided to pursue painting full time.
I was more conservative in my younger years. Making enough to pay the bills, raise the kids and keep a roof over my head seemed a very high calling. If I
caused children to be born, I could not leave them and take up something else. Even now, I have trouble understanding that point of view. It is true the painter was a genius but why couldn't a painter paint on the weekends and on his days off? After all, he had a wife to do the the domestic chores. He could build a studio. What is the big deal of Paris?However, now that I am older I can see someone doing this after they raise the kids and retire and many people do. I think this is well worth reading but Maugham had his own artistic vision and I don't think it was resolved at the time he wrote this book. Maugham did the same thing and gave up medicine for the theater and writing.
Some writers and critics have never made up their minds about Maugham. I have always thought he was a great writer and don't believe the complaints that he did not write original stories. I love his short stories and I usually don't like this form of fiction. I loved "Of Human Bondage" and "Razor's Edge".
For me now, I think of this book as the least successful of his novels. There were too many issues that Maugham left unfinished in this book. Yes, he had the artist family posturing their Christian values. He had done that successfully in other works especially in the short story, "Rain". I don't think he ever explained why the artistic vision hit the artist the way it did in the book and why he suddenly reversed his life the way he did.
Even the least of Maugham books are worth re-reading and certainly this one was even if it was to learn how much I have changed over the years. I could see someone having the obsession of creating art. I am not sure I would understand living a life of discomfort after living such a life of comfort. I understood Gauguin's life but not Charles Strickland. What has changed in me is that I admire the strength of some people's sense of artistic vision. I envy someone who can give all to something because he or she loves it.
Maugham kept two sets of books all of his life and it was implied that Strickland gave up his life of ease because he could not stand to live that way any longer. Maugham lived his life as a closeted homosexual and was blackmailed by his nephew so he would keep his mouth shut. In this regard, I could see how Strickland's unwillingness to accept the life as prescribed by society would have been attractive to Maugham and at the same time repugnant. That is simply one reader's viewpoint to cover the lack of information in the novel. Usually, Maugham gives enough to create a living breathing story full of credible characters. I think he almost does that here.
"The Moon and Sixpence" is a novel that is worth reading if the reader is curious about what constitutes the artist and what is involved in being honest with oneself. The one thing that the protagonist of this novel seems to admire in Strickland is his total disregard of what society and anyone else in society thinks of him. To be able to toss that aside would be to give one a degree of freedom rarely enjoyed by many people. I did not envy that in anyone as a teenager, but I know now how wonderful such a freedom can be.
