Customer Reviews

The Narrow Corner (Works of W. Somerset Maugham)

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

 

 

Maugham writes about a British doctor who lives in the South Pacific. At the outset of this book, Dr. Saunders must travel to China to help out a wealthy man. Once there, he completes his task and must wait for a boat to take him back to his home. During the waiting process, he runs into a pair of traders, who offer to take him back part of the way. The traders, Captain Nichols, and his associate Fred Blake, are two very interesting characters who aren't what they seem to be. During their travels, Dr. Saunders learns more about the pair. Nichols is a scoundrel and has problems holding a job. Fred Blake, a young and handsome man, hides his past, but the reader is given clues that he had to flee from Sydney to avoid the authorities(which is later revealed). During a storm, the trio befriend fellow British people on a beautiful island. They learn some of the history and are introduced to Louise; a beautiful girl who is smitten by Blake. They have a one night fling, which causes the story's tension to begin -- Blake is haunted by his past and Louise's fiancée (who she loves, but not with her heart) commits suicide over the incident. Dr. Saunders is a spectator for the most part in this story. His life's philosophy is take what one can from life and learn to deal with it. He watches the various characters interact -- and Maugham does a great job with the characters. The writing is almost like Hemingway and the reader is drawn into the feeling of the South Pacific. The book is fairly deep -- with hints of Buddhism / Hinduism, karma, and detachment. The book was very slow to start (took about half way before any plot developed) but the writing hooked me and the ending was a gold mine.

Although this book was met with less than glowing reviews and is little known today, it probably best exemplifies the expresson, "That (It) was right out of Somerset Maugham." It has all the trappings that we think of when we think of Maugham. If there is a "Greeneland" (Graham Greene) then this novel is most assuredly, Maughamland. It takes place in the East Indies and has the string of colorful characters, an Opiem taking Doctor, A broken down sea captain and a women who finds herself liberated by the death of a man she is attached to. Probably Maugham's fifth most important novel, it is rather like taking many of his short story themes and elongating them into one novel. The lead character, Dr. Sanders finally resigns himself to a lazy mans view of Buddhist Non-atachment and it becomes a theme Maugham would explore more deeply in the "Razor's Edge." Like most of Maugham it is a alot of fun to read. Even, or maybe especially, today.

For me, one of life's pleasures is reading or rereading Somerset Maugham. The luster of his prose never dulls; his ability to capture a character vividly always intrigues. He never does this with anything as prosaic has a physical description or "He Said," but rather by revealing a telling thought or action. Thus, it was with happy anticipation that I opened THE NARROW CORNER.

Once again Maugham carries us to the far corners of the world and introduces rare characters who meet aboard ship, a lugger to be exact. We meet Dr. Saunders, an opium addicted medic, who has lived and practiced in Fu-chou for 15 years. He is an easy man to get along with, observant and non-judgmental. "Right and wrong were no more to him than good weather and bad weather. He took them as they came. He judged but he did not condemn. He laughed."

Saunders is paid a sizeable sum of money to go to Takana to perform surgery on a nearly blind former patient. It turns out to be an incredible journey both on sea and land.

The lugger is a rather sad vessel captained by Nichols, an unsavory character, happy to be escaping from his nagging missus. Saunders finds but one other passenger on board, Fred Blake, a mysterious young man. It seems that Nichols had been retained to take Blake to sea. Following a horrendous storm the ship puts in at a small island, Kanda, formerly a center for spice trade. Here they not only find refuge but the beginnings of a dark drama.

They meet a meager few islanders who are barely making a living, yet seem content with their lot. Among them is a beautiful young woman, Louise. What follows is unexpected emotional upheaval and death.

Maugham sprinkles his narrative with descriptions of the tropical island so vivid that one can almost feel the heat. To read this author is to recognize a master at work, and to read one of his short novels such as THE NARROW CORNER is simply to leave one wanting more.

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

This book makes for a not very taxing, completely unbelievable, but interesting read. It is told , for the most part, from the viewpoint of one Dr. Saunders who, as he puts it to himself early on, "had long made himself at home in the futility of things." There is also a down and out sea-captain and a mysterious youth from Australia whose plights keep the reader turning the pages throughout the mediocre writing and predictable storyline. Maugham is a very good storyteller, but not a great writer.

In many ways, this story and its narrator are at a diametric opposite to Conrad's truly great novella/short story "Youth." Both are set within distinctly marine environs, the South sea islands, with Britain in its maritime glory, and both are very concerned with youth. But, Conrad's Marlowe glories in the remembrance of it in some of the most powerful language ever set down on paper. Whereas, with Maugham, and his patented washed-up expats, one knows that a rather dreary outcome awaits the reader, but not too dreary, just enough to make one, with Dr. Saunders, sigh and say something more or less the equivalent of, "So goes it."

Maugham takes the title from one of the meditations of Marcus Aurelius: "Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells." The book, in the end, does precious little more than elaborate on the quote a bit.

So goes it.

First of all, perhaps Amazon or the publisher will change the lurid and erroneous Product Description of this book: "these three men (Nichols, Blake and Saunders) fall under the spell of the sultry and stunningly beautiful Louise, and their story spirals into a wicked tale of love, murder, jealousy, and suicide."

Never mind the purple prose, in fact just one of the three men, young Fred Blake, wants to bonk Louise. It's amusing for those of us who have actually read the book to imagine old Captain Nichols or Doc Saunders wanting to get a leg over.

I read a deep thinker earlier today (one Scott Eyman, Palm Beach Post) regurgitating the same thing about the spellbound threesome. Makes one lose one's faith in critics it does.

Anyway, I loved this book. Just about anything Maugham writes I enjoy, but I especially like the tales that take place in the East and the Pacific.

Captain Nichols is a wonderful character. Maugham writes he kept him on ice for years (he was briefly introduced in "The Moon and Sixpence) 'til he could put him in a novel.

Blake I found a bit thin. Same with Frith. I liked old Swan a lot. The young Dane (can't remember his name) was good. The girl, Louise, was OK. I certainly got a stiffy reading about her, but found it ah, hard to believe how cool and collected she was for her age.

Maugham has trouble with a lot of readers because his characters aren't all of a piece: Nichols is a disgusting swine, but is brave. Frith is a selfish fool, but is a gentleman. Blake is a spoiled rich kid, but grows interesting and gets your sympathy in the end. In short, they are not caricatures, but human characters.

But the star of the show is Dr. Saunders. I just read it a couple of weeks ago and I remember it reads (in the third person, btw) like Maugham talking in the first person about himself. Saunders' detached, amused and tolerant outlook on life seems identical to the author's. You can imagine Saunders writing a Maugham story.

I loathe the usual undergraduate approach to lit crit, but Saunders' having been struck from the medical register (or whatever it is when docs get booted) and his apparent opium addiction might be compared to Maugham's shameful stammer. Certainly Saunders' cutie pie Chinese boy is right out of the author's private world. And Maugham was a qualified doctor himself.

Four stars 'cause of the weakness of the Louise character. A gripping story. As always, there is Maughams' wonderful tone. Very funny in parts. Excellent feel for weather and sea and landscape. I enjoyed it a lot. A sultry spiraling wicked tale of love, murder, jealousy and suicide, as Amazon might put it.

This is one of Maugham's best novels. It really reads like one of his short stories which has been very extended and expanded. Highly recommended.

I'm not usually a novel reader; but, I picked this one up because I'm interested in islands and tropical living. This is a wonderful book. Somerset Maugham really knows how to tell a story. I'm going to pick up another one of his books and, unlike my usual practice of giving away a book after I read it, I'm keeping this one to reread.

It's not plotted in the usual sense. If you read the plot summary and expect that from the book, you may be disappointed. That plot as summarized only comes into play at the end. Most of the book deals with the manner in which men deal with their lives and the mistakes they have made. The characters are fascinating. The main character, a doctor, has become a benign misanthrope and a bit of a philosopher. After some unspecified early mishaps he finds himself in a Chinese city. He is helpful toward his fellows but does not really care about them. He is liked, but not loved, a solitary character who enjoys observing everyone else. The captain is a sociable crook with a long suffering wife, and he has a mysterious passenger, young Fred Blake, whose own crimes and his suffering for them will become known only later in the book when it all comes together in a really perfect ending. There are other interesting characters as well, Frith, Swan, Erik and Louise. Read this book for the great writing and the interesting look at the colonial islands. That world is pretty much gone, but it was a fertile ground for all sorts of eccentrics and con men.