Discussing Somerset Maugham
Dec. 20th, 2021 09:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloJudy and I were discussing Somerset Maugham. Specifically his story "The Colonel's Lady"- which means a lot to her- and because of her love for it I suppressed my opinion that it's a gimcrack little thing, clever but with characters so stereotypical they might have time-warped out of a Monty Python sketch. She said she was disappointed to discover that Maugham was beastly to his wife and I said it wasn't unheard of for writers to expend so much of their humanity on their art that they had little left over for living their lives- (a truism, but one worth holding in mind in a time when the slightest deviation from received opinion or accepted behaviour can get a person cancelled.) I added that we have a copy of Maugham's Writer's Notebook lying around- a collection of jottings and journal entries that are clever, entertaining and wise- and I frequently dip into it. You'd never guess, I said, that it's author was a reptile.
By the way, I said, you probably know that the title "The Colonel's Lady" comes from a poem by Kipling. Indeed, she said, you've told me that before. (Ah well, we all have our hobby horses!) She can't teach it, she said because it has the "N" word in it, besides which she doesn't think her students would get much out of it. The only thing of Kipling's she does teach is "If". Which is a pity, I snideily remarked, because "The Ladies" is a better poem- (and I don't think Kipling himself would have disagreed.) My guess, I said, is that Maugham would have seen Kipling as the competition- as the one to beat in the short-story writing line- but didn't add, because she loves "The Colonel's Lady"- that Kipling is far and away the greater artist.
By the way, I said, you probably know that the title "The Colonel's Lady" comes from a poem by Kipling. Indeed, she said, you've told me that before. (Ah well, we all have our hobby horses!) She can't teach it, she said because it has the "N" word in it, besides which she doesn't think her students would get much out of it. The only thing of Kipling's she does teach is "If". Which is a pity, I snideily remarked, because "The Ladies" is a better poem- (and I don't think Kipling himself would have disagreed.) My guess, I said, is that Maugham would have seen Kipling as the competition- as the one to beat in the short-story writing line- but didn't add, because she loves "The Colonel's Lady"- that Kipling is far and away the greater artist.
