Customer Reviews

The Gentleman in the Parlour (Itineraria Asiatica: Burma)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Somerset Maugham was one of the world's most famous and widely-read writers of the early 20th Century. Now that 100 years have passed, he is hardly read at all, except for OF HUMAN BONDAGE and maybe THE MOON AND SIXPENCE. This is a major loss for booklovers, because Maugham wrote with an incomparable dignity, clarity, and insight. In THE GENTLEMAN IN THE PARLOUR, he takes his gifts to the Far East -- into a colonial world that no longer exists on the face of the earth. He experiences a way of life that we will never see again. As a small, stammering homosexual, Maugham was far from the stereotypical conquering Englishman, yet he observed all the perquisites of class and station, traveling in style as one of the first truly rich (from his writing) authors. At all times he wrote frankly and unflinchingly, before "telling it like it is" became a catchphrase. As a self-made writer who labored to achieve and maintain his craft, he also wrote with unerring elegance. His great novels are soemwhat strained, if you will, by the dictates of fiction and his publishers. GENTLEMAN IN THE PARLOUR, however, is a purer Maugham, something closer to a remarkable human personality who should be celebrated with his contemporaries D.H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, and even James Joyce. Maugham saw inside the human heart as clearly as any of them, but perhaps modern audiences are not as pleased with what he saw.