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The Summing Up Paperback – January 26, 1978

by W. Somerset Maugham (Author)

5 customer reviews

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By 1938, Maugham had become a legend as a playwright, novelist and magician of the short story. He then wrote The Summing Up to give some account of how he learned his craft and why he became such an acute observer of human beings.

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Product Details

Paperback: 202 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books (January 26, 1978)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0140018522
ISBN-13: 978-0140018523
Product Dimensions: 7 x 1 x 5 inches
Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #278,694 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #18865 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary
- #27137 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs

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Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

Old-school writing about writing

By Shagbark on September 28, 2014

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

This is a short book that gives you considerable insight into what it was like for W. Somerset Maugham to write fiction. It is a curious fact that, as writers have shifted over the past 120 years into post-modernism, changing their fiction to do less and less summarizing and judging and more holistic "objective recording of events", they have changed their books about writing in just the opposite way, so that we now have bookshelves full of books with pithy, inflexible writing advice based on faulty abstractions of just the sort modern writing is supposed to avoid. This book is not like that; it is holistic, talking about this one author's writing in the context of his life.

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

very insightful

By asantana on December 13, 2012

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

The book is very insightful. Maugham covers art and literature and philosophy. A great read for those who are introverts.

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and a good read.

By My Name Is Nobody on January 12, 2015

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

Thick with keen and pithy insights into life and human nature, not all of which are obvious, and a good read.

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Thanks!

By R. J. Karger on June 26, 2015

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

Book delivered in good condition as advertised. Thank you!

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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful

Selection of quotes by way of review

By Alexander Arsov on March 7, 2015

Format: Paperback

This is not an autobiography nor is it a book of recollections.

I write this book to disembarrass my soul of certain notions that have hovered about in it too long for my comfort. I do not seek to persuade anybody. I am devoid of pedagogic instinct and when I know a thing never feel in myself the desire to impart it to others. I do not much care if people agree with me. Of course I think I am right, otherwise I should not think as I do, and they are wrong, but it does not offend me that they should be wrong. Nor does it greatly disturb me to discover that my judgement is at variance with that of the majority. I have a certain confidence in my instinct.

This book must be egoistic. It is about certain subjects that are important to me and it is about myself because I can only treat of these subjects as they have affected me. But it is not about my doings. I have no desire to lay bare my heart, and I put limits to the intimacy that I wish the reader to enter upon with me. There are matters on which I am content to maintain my privacy.

Criticism to my mind is a personal matter, but there is nothing against that if the critic has a great personality.

I have more character than brains and more brains than specific gifts.

My sympathies are limited. I can only be myself, and partly by nature, partly by circumstances of my life, it is a partial self. I am not a social person. I cannot get drunk and feel a great love for my fellow-men. Convivial amusement has always somewhat bored me. When people sitting in an ale-house or drifting down the river in a boat start singing I am silent. I have never even sung a hymn. I do not much like being touched and I have always to make a slight effort over myself not to draw away when someone links his arm in mine.Read more ›

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