Customer Reviews

Liza of Lambeth

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

 

 

This was Maugham's first published work which appeared 102 years ago. Maugham had just graduated from medical school almost the day the book was published and the modest success and good reviews convinced him to dedicate his life to a career of letters. The story takes place in the Lambeth section of London and is baised of his internship and residence at St. Thomas Hospital where he was required to call on the lower classes in the most dangerous section of town. Later in his life he joked about being a Midwife in his youth and delivering over a hundered babies for the poor. Maugham was influenced by "Sister Carrie" and "Mean Streets." and other books in the realistic tradition of the day. It is a rather short book and is written in the Cockney dialect of conversation like Dickens "Hard Times." It is well worth reading and a must for any Maugham fan.

"Liza of Lambeth," Maugham's literary debut, is a less accomplished and complex novel than later masterpieces such as "The Razor's Edge" and "The Moon and Sixpence." Nevertheless, this novel is well worth the read. It chronicles Liza, a young woman who lives in a lower class London neighborhood. She struggles as she works in a factory and helps her alcoholic mother. Despite the rather grim setting, the characters are suprisingly full of life and humor. Liza is a bit of a social butterfly in the neighborhood and is well-liked until she garners the attention of a married man. This connection grows with tragic consequences. There is little sentimentality in the novel, and Maugham was apparently inspired by his work as a medical student in the London slums. Overall, a quick read and a good character study of a young, head-strong woman in late 19th century London.

The story plot is nothing extraordinary, nor are the characaters unique, but what sets this short novel apart from the rest is the vivid picture that Maugham creates of the lower section of the London society. The story flows freely with a lucid style of writing, arresting the reader's attention from the first pages to the last, and touches a chord in the reader's heart somewhere deep, all along the way. Definitely a work of class, more so, it was Maugham's first novel. The old adage 'morning shows the day' aptly describes what the writer achieves in this work and the masterpieces that follow (Of Human Bondage, The Moon and the Sixpence, The Razor's Edge, etc.).

Maugham's very first published work has many of the elements that would be evident in his later works and that set him apart as one of the truly accomplished men of letters of his era. Lisa Of Lambeth is set in a poor working district of South London where Maugham practiced medicine as a younger man and demonstrates the remarkable powers of observation that were crucial to his later success. The tragic story of a bright young girl's affair with a married man has the pacing and feel not only of Maugham's later novels but has dramatic buildup and dialogue so predictive of his later success as a playwright.

The novel certainly stands on it's own since the story and the characters are very engaging. The style captures the local accents and atmosphere of the close living quarters perfectly.
A truly remarkable debut from one of the best.

I've read several books since reading Liza of Lambeth, yet Liza continues to come to mind. Her need for attention, naivete, search for affection - made me want to reach out to her. Her story could have gone in so many other directions.

I will definitely have to try more Maugham.

This was Somerset Maugham's first novel and reflects the naturalistic tendencies popular with many novels written at the time. Set among the working poor in the slums of Lambeth, Liza Kemp rejects the marriage proposal of the decent and worthy Tom and becomes the lover of a married blackguard Jim Blakeston. He treats her horribly and when she becomes pregnant with his child, his wife savagely beats her, causing a miscarriage and her eventual death. Maugham does not moralize but writes in an almost clinical manner (much of it is based on his experiences as a doctor among the poor in London). There is some humor in the dialect writing and in some of the scenes (the street dance where Liza is chased and finally "caught" by Blakeston, for example), but basically it's a pretty grim affair. The characterization of Liza is realistic and believable: she is not a total innocent and victim of evil, though she is forced to take an awful amount of abuse. Perhaps her rejection of Tom (twice!) stretches our credulity, but she is faithful to the no-good Jim right to the bitter end. It's a realistic slice-of-life portrait of life among the underclass.

W. Somerset Maugham

Liza of Lambeth

Vintage Classics, Paperback, 2000.
8vo. xx, 138 pp. Preface for the The Collected Edition, 1934 [v-xx].

First published by T. Fisher Unwin in 1897.

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This is most certainly the last book of Somerset Maugham I would recommend to somebody who wants to read him for the first time. It is actually his first novel which Maugham wrote as a medical student in London's St. Thomas hospital. It was published in 1897 when the author was only 23 years old. No doubt it has nothing to do with his later works, even with his early books from the beginning of the XX century, let alone with his mature works written after Of Human Bondage published for the first time in 1915. (Interestingly, this novel was actually Maugham's second book; the first was a biography of Meyerbeer which was never published and apparently burned by the author.)

''Liza of Lambeth'' has a certain charm with its simplicity of plot and characters. It is written in straightforward and convincingly realistic manner, I guess mainly because Maugham used his own experience as medical student visiting the suburbs and little imagination as he himself confesses in the preface to The Collected Edition the first volume of which is his first novel. By the way, this preface contains a lot a interesting biographical details about Maugham and is actually much more absorbing than the novel itself. Maugham rarely wrote of his works at all, let alone of his early attempts, and that's why a preface in which he discusses many of his youthful books, and why they didn't find place in The Collected Edition, is to be treasured. A most fascinating biographical essay of 15 pages, it is just wonderful that it is reprinted complete in the Vintage classics edition.

Back to ''Liza'', despite a touching moment here and there, and the highly charged and brutal ending which is skilfully written, the novel has nothing remarkable to offer. Moreover, I myself at least find the dialogs in cockney very hard to read. In terms of characters' description and development ''Liza'' is a very far cry from Maugham's mature works. Were it not for his name on the cover, I would never guess that Maugham is indeed the author. As a matter of fact, incorrigible Maugham buff as I am, this is the only novel of Maugham I don't think I will ever re-read; or if I do, it will be solely for studying the development of his style, rather than for pleasure. Even Maugham's second novel, a historical one called ''The Making of a Saint'' (1898), wooden and immature and unrealistic as it is, is actually a great step forward compared to ''Liza''.

I guess Maugham chose to include ''Liza'' in The Collected Edition mainly because of its historical importance. I think it is an interesting read mainly for Maugham fans who, knowing what heights he reached later, want to know where the great writer started. It is nothing short of miracle that the same person wrote ''Liza'' and, say, ''The Moon and Sixpence'' twenty years later. It is a well known fact that Maugham was not a born writer; he had to learn his craft at his own expense. Between ''Liza'' and his first masterpiece, Of Human Bondage he wrote no less than seven novels, seventeen short stories, one travel book and Heaven knows how many plays. In my very humble opinion, his indefatigable industry and constant striving for improve his writing is a valuable example how one should live one's life and, as Maugham himself usually put it, to make a pattern of it.

But this is neither here nor there. Maugham's ''Liza'' remains, for me, a perfectly dispensable short piece of fiction which has but historical interest only. Perhaps I am too harsh, viewing the novel too much in the light of Maugham's later masterpieces, but since I can't be any other person than myself, I can't give more than one star to ''Liza'' either.