Customer Reviews

The Skeptical Romancer: Selected Travel Writing (Everyman's Library)

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W. Somerset Maugham is renowned for his highly regarded novels like of Human Bondage. However, less known is that the late author was a world traveler who wrote articles and letters about the locations he saw as a boy in Spain, a spy in Russia, traveling in Asia during the Great Depression and much more including the United States. Although a few of these short observations are known by readers especially those from The Land of the Blessed Virgin released in 1905 (included as a section As A Very Young Traveler) most probably are not remembered. The other chapters are Sketches of China (from On a Chinese Screen, 1922), Across Southeast Asia (from The Gentleman in the Parlour, 1930) and A Life in Retrospect (from The Partial View, 1954). With over sixty entries and a chronology of the author's life matched up again major world events, fans of Mr. Maugham or those who appreciate a different type of travelogue that looks at the human condition will want to read this fine collection. Fans will understand better the underlying motives to the late writer's masterpiece plays and novels as he matured from that boy in Spain to an adult horrified with what man can do to man yet somehow remained optimistic even into his sixties and beyond when the obituary column was constantly loaded with his peer group.

Harriet Klausner

W. Somerset Maugham

The Skeptical Romancer
Selected Travel Writing

Everyman's Library, Hardback, 2009.
8vo. xli, 196 pp. Selected and with Introduction [xi-xxiv] by Pico Iyer.

First published thus, 2009.

Contents

Introduction
Select Bibliography
Chronology

A Very Young Traveller in Spain
(from The Land of the Blessed Virgin)
The Spirit of Andalusia
The Churches of Ronda
The Mosque of Cordova
The Court of Oranges
Seville
The Giralda
Gaol
Corrida de Torros
Wind and Storm
Jerez
Cadiz
Adios

Sketches from China
(from On a Chinese Screen)
My Lady's Parlour
The Cabinet Minister
Dinner Parties: Legation Quarter
The Inn
Her Britannic Majesty's Representative
The Last Chance
Henderson
Romance
The Song of the River
The Stranger
The Philosopher
The Missionary Lady
The Plain
A Student of Drama
A City Built on a Rock

Across Southeast Asia
(from The Gentleman in the Parlour)
Pagan
Mandalay
The Nuns at Mengon
On the Trail
The Salween
The Market
Keng Tung
The Solitary
Siam
Bangkok Buddha
The Fever
Angkor
A Last Day in Angkor
Saigon and Tourane
Hue
A Night in the River
A Classmate in Haiphong

A Life in Retrospect
(from The Partial View, comprising The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook)
Early Travels
Mobility
Capri
At War
Hawaii
The Missionary and Miss Thompson
A Castaway
Tahiti
Russia
The Nevsky Prospekt
Opium Dream
The Sultan
A Dream
India
Benares
The Taj
Madura
In Texas

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Let me first say this: the rating has nothing to do with Somerset Maugham and everything to do with Pico Iyer.

Pico Iyer is the world famous travel writer I have never heard of who also happens to be the one who selected the contents of the present volume. The dust jacket bears the inscription "edited by" but I do hesitate to call Mr Iyer an editor. Now, strictly speaking, his selection is not that bad; he has chosen some of Maugham's best travel writings - but he has missed a good many more as well. At the same time, he has included pieces - like the first ones in the first two parts, for instance - which are far from Maugham's best in the genre. Still more debatable, much more so indeed, is his method, for it is indicates an outstanding indolence. Mr Iyer simply took Maugham's three travel books - "The Land of the Blessed Virgin" (1905), "On a Chinese Screen" (1922) and "The Gentleman in the Parlour" (1932) - and selected what in his opinion is the best from them. This will certainly do for a high-school homework, but I am truly surprised that Everyman's Library has published it at all. The first three parts at least have some semblance of unity. The fourth Mr Iyer selected mostly from Maugham's notes published as "A Writer's Notebook", with very occasional glimpses into his spiritual autobiography "The Summing Up". The result is a deplorable hotchpotch: now you are in the South Seas, then you jump to Russia and the Far East, until you finally arrive in Texas - but through India. In this last part Mr Iyer does not trouble himself even to indicate the book, let alone the year, of the excerpts, but he did have the audacity to supply them with his own titles, sometimes positively pedestrian ("Mobility"), sometimes quite a bit misleading: "A Classmate in Haiphong" is in fact chapter 43 from "The Gentleman in the Parlour" which appears in Maugham's numerous collected editions with short stories under the title Mirage.

Apart from his introduction, the editorial work of Mr Iyer is - well, missing. He has made absolutely no attempt to trace Maugham's evolution of style, even though he had one of the most excellent opportunities in Maugham's oeuvre: The Land of the Blessed Virgin is much more typical travel writing, with tons of purple patch and sightseeing, which would have been completely unremarkable had Maugham's two mature travel books not been so vastly different. Neither has Mr Iyer attempted at all to trace, explain or merely to note Maugham's fascination with Capri, his lifelong love for Spain, or the immense impact of his Far Eastern travels over his writing. Stripped of all that, Maugham's travels loose an essential part of their charm. Mr Iyer's attempts to investigate their effect on Maugham's personality are just pathetic. His introduction is nothing but a purple, incoherent and dull rambling of the most obvious general stuff about Maugham's travels and character, mostly a paraphrase of his writings in a truly and embarrassingly inferior style (not to mention the awkward and completely irrelevant attempts for book reviews). Actually, the best feature in this piece - always a bad sign - are few comparisons with other notable travel writers like D. H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley. Very seldom does Mr Iyer come with something charming and fairly perceptive about Maugham, like the following remark:

"...Maugham, one feels, is the rare traveller who would not have looked down on Las Vegas, but would instead have found there poignant dramas of paid love and failed resolve..."

Mr Iyer finishes his introduction with the startlingly presumptuous notion of improving Maugham's travel writings by cutting the dull passages from them. Well, such passages in Maugham's travel books there may well be, but if I am allowed to paraphrase (in greatly inferior style of course) his famous words about Proust, I should say that I would rather be bored by Maugham's books as they were originally published than entertained by such mishmash of a selection like Mr Iyer's.

The Chronology and the Bibliography, not surprisingly, are anonymous for both are very short of being disgraceful. The former manages to mention almost all of Maugham's books but, ironically, omits almost all of his travels. The latter is not just short and without any annotations, but it doesn't mention absolutely the best introduction to Maugham's travel writing there is. The Travel Books (Heinemann, 1955) is a single volume which contains three complete books - "On a Chinese Screen" (1922), "The Gentleman in the Parlour" (1930) and "Don Fernando" (1935, revised 1950) - with a fascinating preface by Maugham himself. Don Fernando is of course no travel book, but it is infinitely superior tribute to Spain than the youthful "The Land of the Blessed Virgin". The volume has been dismayingly out of print for well over 50 years and second hand copies may be somewhat hard to find, but they are well worth both your time and your money. The Skeptical Romancer isn't worth either.

I daresay if one is completely unfamiliar with Maugham's travel writing, this book, superficial, shoddy, perfunctory and amateurish as it is, might - just might - give him some faint idea about this part of his oeuvre. But don't think it has anything to do with the real thing. The notion held by Mr Iyer that it is in any way superior to the original travel books is frankly preposterous. If you are a collector, you may also be happy to have the volume. It is a very handsomely bound one that cannot but adorn your shelves; if only the picture of Maugham on the dust jacket had not been so blurred by these hideous yellow stripes.

I do wish Everyman's Library would take the trouble to publish in their series of beautifully bound hardbacks complete books by Maugham, not such ridiculously mediocre selections. Somerset Maugham deserves so much more than that.

This is my first reading of Maugham and it may not be my last. This disjoint set of essays and ramblings lets the reader come to know its author, and he seems an inquisitive fellow who would be entertaining to meet on travel. There's not much structural unity, and that is not really a bother. The only oil paintings here are miniatures; most pieces are fine watercolors, and there are a few charcoal sketches. It is fascinating to read about how places have changed and remained the same since the author visited them several decades ago.

Is as good as a writer... It only makes you wish to have the opportunity to travel together at least one time.

In the meantime, this is a good substitute...