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The Casuarina Tree Six Stories

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W. Somerset Maugham

The Casuarina Tree

The Casuarina Tree [preface]
The Letter
Before the Party
P. & O.
The Outstation
The Force of Circumstance
The Yellow Streak
Postscript

Heinemann, Hardback, 1928.
12mo. vii, 311 pp. Cheap edition. Original preface titled ''The Casuarina Tree'' [vii-viii] and Postscript.

First published by Heinemann in 1926.

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This is the second mature (written after 1920) short story collection of W. Somerset Maugham. Just like the first it contains six rather long pieces with extraordinary complex and vivid characters if not always very intricate and unpredictable plots. Just like ''The Trembling of a Leaf'' (1921), there is not even one short story among the six in The Casuarina Tree that I would hesitate to describe with such strong words like ''brilliant'' and ''masterpiece''. The only difference actually is the locale. All these stories are set in the Far East but none of them takes its plot and characters to the South Seas.

But all this is by the way. Infinitely more important is the fact that here appears for the first time the topic Maugham is perhaps most famous, or infamous if you like, for: his merciless depiction of the vacuous lives and the violent passions of many planters, district officers, colonial servants, administrators and such like. His detached, cynical penetration into their minds and the rather cool observation of some of the hottest human emotions and obsessions won him a great deal of hatred among all builders of the British Empire in the Far East at the time. They obviously did not have the resources to read for pleasure and, should they find a fictional character who is somewhat similar to them, to profit from the author's perceptiveness, intuition and shrewdness rather than being vexed with him. Small wonder that this short story collection contains a preface and a postscript almost entirely dedicated to the art of fiction and how the mundane real life is dramatized into it. Maugham always said that all he could claim about his characters was that he saw them coherent; he never claimed that the picture he draw was a truthful one; he never claimed that it was not partial; he never made futile claims for objectivity. All the same, he was often accused and always harshly criticized for portraying real people much worse than they really were. Just two years before publishing this short story collection he had to make changes in the names of his characters in ''The Painted Veil'' twice because he was threatened with libel. At one time, it was distinctly dangerous for Maugham to travel through the Federated Malay States because a great many white people there were so outraged by their rather stupid and dull outlook in his stories that they were ready to lynch the author. It never occurred to them that they are far too insignificant for the purposes of fiction. Nor was it up to their intelligence to benefit from some of the most masterly done character depictions in the history of the short story. I do think it is worth quoting a part of the postscript of The Casuarina Tree for it contains a perfect example of Maugham's justly legendary caustic sarcasm on the topic:

''With the exception of Singapore, a city too busy with its own concerns to bother itself with trifles, imaginary names have been chosen for the places in which the action is supposed to be conducted. Some of the smaller communities in the countries washed by the China Sea are very sensitive, and their members agitated if, in a work of fiction, a hint is given that the circumstances of their lives are not always such as would meet the approval of the suburban circles in which contentedly dwell their cousins and their aunts.''
[...]
''Living, with all the East about them, as narrowly as in a market-town, they have the market-town's faults and foibles; and seem to take a malicious pleasure in looking for the originals of the characters, especially if they are mean, foolish or vicious, which the author has chosen for the persons of his stories. They have small acquaintance with arts and letters, and do not understand that the disposition and appearance of a person in a short story are dictated by the exigencies of the intrigue. Nor has it occurred to them that actual persons are much too shadowy to serve as characters in a work of the imagination. We see real people only in the flat, but for the purposes of fiction they must be seen in the round; and to make a living personage it is necessary to combine suggestions drawn from a dozen sources. Because a reader, unprofitably employing a useless leisure, recognizes in a character one trait, mental or physical, of some one he knows and is aware that the author has met, it is silly to put the name of this person to the character described and say: here is a portrait. A work of fiction, and perhaps I should not go too far if I spoke more generally and said, a work of art, is an arrangement which the author makes of the facts of his experience with the idiosyncrasies of his own personality. It is an unlikely, and unimportant, accident if it happens to be a copy of life. [...] Facts are but a canvas on which the artist draws a significant pattern.''

As for the title ''The Casuarina Tree'', the preface with the same name is dedicated entirely to its origins. Maugham facetiously tells us about an analogy between the Casuarina trees' conquest of bleak swampy lands which is followed by the immense variety of the jungle and the intrepid adventurers who had opened the wide Far East spaces for the next 'more varied, but less adventurous generation' of English colonists. Later he was excessively disappointed to find out that the facts he had been told about the Casuarina tree are in fact false. But he was determined to keep the title. So he just changed the analogy, finishing in a very amusing way. It should be noted that this short preface also makes it clear that Maugham did have a certain amount of affection, or at least admiration, for all these planters and administrators whose dull lives but violent passions he revealed so well in his stories:

''... and I remembered that the Casuarina tree stood along the sea shore, gaunt and rough-hewn, protecting the land from the fury of the winds, and so might aptly suggest these planters and administrators who, with all their shortcomings, have after all brought to the peoples among whom they dwell tranquility, justice and welfare, and I fancied that they too, as they look at the Casuarina tree, grey, rugged and sad, a little out of place in the wanton topics, might very well be reminded of their native land; and thinking for a moment of the heather on a Yorkshire moor or the broom of a Sussex common, see in that hardy tree, doing its best in difficult circumstances, a symbol of their own exiled lives. In short I could find a dozen reasons for keeping my title, but, of course, the best of them all was that I could think of no better.''

Yet, when it comes to character depiction of all these English gentlemen and ladies or developing plots out of their lives, Maugham's candour is really brutal indeed. But it is also extremely convincing and believable. It is touching and affecting. It makes the most compelling read I can imagine. Some people might find here, and be utterly appalled at, another attitude Maugham was so notorious for: his misogyny. I have never felt this myself in his writings but I keep reading a great deal about it in every biography of Maugham; I guess I am a misogynist too. But certainly it is true that women are for the most part at the center of the plot in four of the six short stories in ''The Casuarina Tree''. Sometimes women are killers (as in undisputed masterpieces like Before the Party and ''The Letter''), sometimes women are evil witches (like in ''P. & O.'', one of Maugham mysterious stories which explores the unknown in a quite compelling way) and sometimes women are cruel and heartless creatures who ruin the life of the delicate and sensitive Empire builder (''The Force of Circumstance'', one of the most heart-rending stories Maugham ever wrote). Puritans and moralists, of either sex, may despise these stories and the man who wrote them, but even they would find it a very hard job to deny their mastery. Maugham's penetrating vision into human nature is astounding in absolutely all of them; the depth and conscientiousness of his characterization is a result of long years of toil and, to my mind at least, can hardly be equaled, let alone surpassed.

''The Yellow Streak'' is something of an exception because this is the only story here without a tragic end. It is also the only one deeply rooted in facts but, as the author states firmly in the postscript, it is fiction nonetheless and he did not have any intention of vicious portraying of his companions. For he used an experience of his own. A detailed account of how Maugham and his secretary and companion, Gerald Haxton, were nearly drowned in one of the big rivers in the Far East can be found in ''A Writer's Notebook'' (1949). The short story itself contains one of the best descriptions of how panic-stricken person must feel like when he is about to meet his Maker as well as infinitely revealing and fascinating account of stricken conscience with all its pangs and pains.

''The Outstation'' is the only short story here in which the tragedy is quite free of women. It is perhaps the greatest masterpiece of them all. The two principal characters are utterly different and drawn with truly remarkable command of style. In Mr Warburton Maugham created an unforgettable epitome of snobbishness, never surpassed later in his oeuvre but surely equaled by Elliott Templeton in ''The Razor's Edge'' (1944). Despite their despicable adoration of the aristocracy and titles, both characters are almost unimaginably more complex, and with many redeeming qualities, than they look at first glance. Some say that Maugham was a snob. Sure he was. He could never have created so real and so vivid snobs on paper had he not been kind of snob himself. He was a good many things besides, a very skillful dramatist for example. The plot of The Outstation, albeit simple, has a rare building of tension until the final tragedy. No doubt a great deal of that is due to Maugham's perfect sense for dramatic effect and his almost unique ability to focus the reader's attention on the action until the climax arrives with a stunning vividness. Strangely, although most climaxes in Maugham's stories are quite expected and not at all surprising, they are invariably so well written, with such a care to the psychological detail and so emotionally intense a dialogue, that they always leave me dazed for quite some time after I read them.

In short, if you are a Somerset Maugham admirer and you have not yet read ''The Casuarina Tree'', you have not read anything at all. If you do not generally care a packet of pins about Maugham but love reading short stories, this collection should be a treat for you. But only if you are not oversensitive person too much dedicated to soap operas! As usual, Maugham prefers to delve into the darkest passions and obsessions of the human animal, rather than to stay on the sunny surface basking in sugary romances. For my own part, this is one of the chief things that makes him so compelling to read; the other one is his immaculate style.

Some may complain that this is not a true picture of life. Maugham never claim it was. He also pointed out, many years later in the preface to ''The Complete Short Stories'' (1951), that the reader must not draw the conclusion that such tragic incidents as those he narrated were of common occurrence in the colonies; no, the great majority of the white people there led their monotonous and dull lives entirely dedicated to their work, little circle of acquaintances and trifle pleasures that are typical for most people all over the world. But who wants to read about this? It would be a suicide out of sheer boredom. It is enough that you live a boring life, there is no need why you should also read about it. Even the stupidest person has some instinct of self-preservation. Besides, what is the point of reading fiction at all if it cannot give you a real thrill and to make, at least for a while, all your fears more vivid than ever? Searching for philosophy about life in reading is all very well but without making your blood boil or freeze it is hardly worth your time and energy. Somerset Maugham knew all this far too well. His short stories in general, and these six in particular, are hard to resist since they have virtually no weak points: plots and characters, dramatic action and philosophical reflection, and a great deal more are skilfully intertwined and written in the most readable style possible. What more could any lover of the art of fiction want?

Well, this one was supposed to be short...