so-soThis book didn‘t make much sense. Maybe that was the point. We often divulge secrets to complete strangers feeling naked and free and oh so daring. At the same time, we get caught up in an affair so flat and fleeting it just fades away. We move to a new country and call it our home as a foreigner that never makes it so. We feel compelled to set the record straight and to be remembered, thinking it matters, while not being able to articulate why.
pickFrom the cover of the Penguin edition. What happens when a stubborn, passionate woman marries a pragmatic man who just wants a comfortable life and there is no chance of divorce? Bertha and Edward are undoubtedly extremes, but this is well observed and quite ahead of its time in the way Bertha is portrayed. Heartbreaking and frustrating at times, particularly the way Bertha's friends react to a tragedy she suffers.
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Oddly I am not panning this even though it had me in fits of pique about his casual misogyny, racism, and classism. It certainly cannot be criticised for being dull. Maugham is a veritable storyteller and he paints a picture of the fading era of British colonialism in Malaysia and beyond and if nothing else it‘s a great travel narrative. It‘s just very dated and every single female is terribly maligned, so much so it is almost comedy.
Some more old school thinking by the sometimes indefensible short stories of Somerset Maugham. This is kind of interesting as a record of historical thinking ?
Old Maugham knows how to cheer a girl right up... between this and all the assaults to modern notions of class privilege, ageism, colonialism not to mention his hatred of anybody that is not lithe - it‘s a challenging read.
That happy coincidence when you realise your baking matches your book😀
pickThree different editions (mine, my father's, my sister's) of the same book...in my family we sure love this novel! 😁
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