Maugham in My Readerly World

Maugham in My Readerly World

 

How does one get so besotted by a writer that overnight, every other book in the similar genre now seems insipid?

 

I was visiting my wife, who was then pursuing MD. We had been married recently. She could not take leave from her work. In her absence the whole day, I found myself a little lost in the company of relatives I had acquired only a few months back. She must’ve felt guilty about my lonesomeness. One evening she brought me a couple of books from the city British Council Library. One of them was a collection of W. Somerset Maugham’s short stories.

I had not heard of Maugham then. Those days I read mostly Hindi fiction and poetry. The only English books I had read were classics of authors such as; Charles Dickens, Bronte sisters, George Eliot, etc., and a few Russian authors in translation. I picked up Maugham listlessly, out of compulsion, for nothing better to occupy long idle hours. I don’t remember which volume of his short story collection it was. But I remember, I read the book in trance. For many years, I had not read any book with such animated interest. Maugham had clearly knocked my socks off. I had no idea, what was in this book that so enamoured me. I was only aware of the pure, unbridled pleasure his stories brought my way. I had not read another writer like him. I implored my wife to get me more of his books. 

These events are three decades old. I have only vague recollection of Maugham’s books I read in that long vacation. I think, there was another short story collection and a novel or two. Maugham had turned the world of my fiction reading topsy-turvy. Bottom had fallen out of this imaginary world of mine. I could vaguely surmise that his story-telling was remarkably different from any I had encountered till then. But I had neither the intention nor the know-how, to discern this. I hungrily devoured each of his books, I could lay my hands on.

Books those days were not easy to obtain. They were expensive, especially the ones imported. As I eagerly hunted for Maugham books, I found that most libraries and book-shops, at least in the north Indian cities I lived then, did not stock them. Today life of a reader and a bibliophile is easy as a pie. All the information they seek regarding a book or an author is literally at their fingertips. In a few minutes, they can order the cheapest copy of the book from any corner of the country or the world. E-commerce has been an unparalleled boon for a book fiend.

I stumbled on my next cache of Maugham books a year or two later in Poona, where I had gone for MD. Army Command library had ten to fifteen of these. When I saw these stacked in the rack containing books of authors with initials beginning with ‘M’, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I read these quickly and voraciously. They gave immense joy and simultaneously stoked hunger for more. I looked for them with renewed vigour now. From a vendor of used books on the pavement of MG Road, I picked up Of Human Bondage. This is considered his masterpiece by most critics. It markedly notched up Maugham’s stature in my mind. In a book-fair in the city I found Razor’s Edge. My Maugham collection had begun. My sister, when she found her collection of books too huge to manage, sent me the entire load. Among these, I found all four volumes of his short stories and a few novels.

I had by now read a major portion of Maugham’s vast body of work. Today I do not intend to write about his books. I will hence, not comment on merits or demerits of any. Those that had impressed me most till now were his novels, The Moon and the Six Pence, Cakes and Ale and his short stories, The Book Bag, The Colonel’s Lady, Flotsam and Jetsam, The Fall of Edward Bernard, Rain and innumerable others. These incredible tales stirred up a unique world of thoughts and reverie in my mind. I could retreat to this refuge at will. It gave me unbounded joys. I could still not put my finger on the quality in Maugham’s writing that had so overwhelmingly captured my imagination. But I knew, I thought instinctively, that if I ever put pen to paper, in order to give vent to an irrepressible urge to share my thoughts, I must strive to write like him.

I have been hearing the cliché, ‘No one reads books these days,’ for decades. People who read consistently have always been sparse. Few of my colleagues who enjoyed books, had all heard of Maugham. But none had read him much. There was no one to suggest me more of his books. I also realised that most considered Maugham a high-brow author. When I was seen with one of his books, few who recognised him, would roll-up their eyes and exclaim in mock bewilderment, ‘Oh, Maugham! He is too highfaluting for me.’ There was a hint of innuendo in their expression, accusing me of being a snob. I was baffled by this common opinion which was contrary to my views. I had found his books plain like Euclidean algorithms of geometry. Each sentence meant what it said and rarely did one need to read a passage twice to get its import. I had not read any literary appraisal of Maugham then. Consequently, my opinion of his books was stimulated solely by feelings these excited in me. It was uninformed.

 

And then World-Wide-Web entered our lives. Knowledge and information flooded our minds and were just click of a mouse away. My Maugham world swelled rapidly. I discovered names of many of his books that I had not read. Most importantly, I came across his nonfiction works; travel books, anthology of his essays, and the autobiographical, Summing-up and A Writer’s Notebook. This new knowledge reinvigorated my search for his books which had lain dormant for some time. Over the next couple of years I acquired many, almost his complete oeuvre. I also learned about his biographies and obtained most of these too. 

In his nonfiction books, which I found as ravishing, I read his views on his craft. When I read about the qualities, he considered indispensable in a good prose, the penny dropped. I instantly recognised the uniqueness of his style that I had all along found strikingly different from most writers, but had been unable to figure out. Maugham advised every writer to cultivate these virtues in their writing: Simplicity, meaning free from ostentation or display; lucidity, meaning clearness of thought or style; and euphony, implying acoustic effect produced by words so formed or combined as to please the ear. This was the essence of the lure his writing held for me. This was the only prose style that I thought was worth emulating- a fool that I was and am, to think it could be imitated. 

Simplicity and lucidity of Maugham’s prose cannot be missed. His phrases, choice of words, and syntax, most clearly and unambiguously tell us that, which he wants to inform his readers. Minds of the author and the reader seem to communicate without any hindrance. Euphony, the harmony of words as they ring in reader’s mind, I think, is the most difficult quality to appreciate. But it’s essential in a lustrous prose. Its absence is easier to note as this makes any piece of writing sound inelegant. Other essential attributes of Maugham’s prose are brevity and compactness of narration. There is not a word extra in his stories, nor a passage in his novels that does not bear some import for the facts being narrated. Throughout the length of his story, be it a short story of fifteen thousand words or a novel that is three hundred pages thick, he never loses sight of story’s theme. This extraordinary prowess as a narrator of tales, imbues his books with an ineffable charm that simply takes your breath away.

I realise my meditation on Maugham’s prose, is leading me away from the alleged purpose of this piece. I had not set out to talk about Maugham and his writing, only about my consuming passion for him. But a few words about his art are essential to lay bare the appeal he held for me. As I read his biographies, I learnt another facet of his writing. Facts and fiction are inextricably mixed in his stories. This and his incomparably skilful use of first person singular in narrating a tale, where author himself is a minor character in the story, lend a stunning verisimilitude to his stories. Themes, I encountered in his stories were astonishingly new to me. His dispassionate narration of human suffering, his ability to bring out the despicable in the lives of his characters and juxtapose it with their nobility, all in a tolerant, non-judgemental voice, were the novelties I had not found in literature earlier. 

I was in Agra for a conference. At Modern Book Depot in Sadar Bazar, I chanced upon W. Somerset Maugham- The Critical Heritage, a vast collection of critiques, his books had invited at the time of their publication. The hardbound edition was being sold dirt cheap. Its pages had yellowed. I grabbed it instantly. By now, I had read almost complete books of Maugham. As I read these reviews, criticisms, and words of praise, some by renowned personalities of the literary world of that era, like George Orwell, Graham Greene, Katherine Mansfield, Christopher Isherwood, etc., I remembered the books that had given me much joy. I also learnt what these professional writers and critics had to say about the author I had adored all these years.

My Maugham world now looked well endowed. My appreciation of his craft was unbounded. I realised this increasingly, as I now developed distaste for any work of fiction which did not relate facts briefly and plainly. I fell unabashedly for a writing that was lucid, trenchant and concise. I found much of it in fiction and in nonfiction world. Prose style of the author became a major source of joy as I read a book which possessed these attributes. 

Unintentionally, but perhaps excessively, I quoted Maugham whenever I found myself discussing books. This fact was brought home to me shockingly, in facetious and often annoyed remarks at home and in company of friends; Oh! You and your Maugham, Don’t speak to me in your Maugham lingo, You can’t derive laws of living from Maugham’s books. My daughter, when she was still in school, declared in a heated argument, ‘I’ll never read a book of Maugham in my life’, apparently because I was so fond of him.

 

All this was more than a decade ago. In these years I have read many more books then I read in previous two decades. I read varied genre too. I came across scintillating prose, both in fiction and nonfiction works. I was acquainted with many varieties of writing. I found that, though lacking in simplicity, many of these were resplendent with beauty. I read fiction that was highly nuanced and replete with lucidity too. I read novels with esoteric language, yet with a gripping narrative. Stories with an enviable succinctness, brevity and profound commentary on vicissitudes of human condition. Unconsciously, I revised my appraisal of Maugham’s works. I recognised the restricted spread of human nature among his characters, preponderance of few themes in most of his tales and the rather narrow scope of his imagination. 

My frenzied ardour of earlier years is now a constant, placid praise for the art of a Master story-teller whose books once revealed to me the sublime beauty of language and the wonderful joys of a story told plainly. He is an inseparable part of my journey in the realm of written word. I often pickup his books in an attempt to relive the spell they had cast on me when I read them first. They never fail to gratify my longings. Whenever I find I am being led astray from the clear, lucid prose in my readings, I pick up a Maugham story, to regain my moorings. There are occasions when urge to read a story told competently, a plain tale read just for the pleasure of its narration, a story with, ‘a beginning, a middle, and an end,’ as all stories must have, becomes irresistible. I then turn to Maugham, as would an addict to the fix of his drugs.