by W. Somerset Maugham
My 99-year-old mother is a huge Somerset Maugham fan, whom I had never read, and she suggested this as a good novel to start with. When I heard that a close friend had read it as well, I decided to give it a try.
The setting is London and Paris immediately after World War I through the stock market crash of 1929, and the main characters are wealthy British people navigating their changes of fortune. For me personally, at our point in history, I find it quite hard to rustle up much empathy for these rather silly, spoiled rich people. Still, Maugham is a master of prose, and one device he used in this novel was fascinating. It is written in the first person as Maugham himself, as the novelist he was, vaguely claiming that he had to turn his actual experience into a novel to be able to share the story without “outing” the real people the characters are based on. Whether or not this is true I have no idea, but it does offer a very interesting and unusual first person point of view. I suppose the title refers to one of the main characters, Larry Darrell, a veteran WWI pilot whose search for an upright, ethical life almost reads like a that of flower child of the 1960s.
Even with personal recommendations I doubt I will be reading any more Maugham any time soon. Every now and then I do get in the mood for a good classic British novel, so I think I’ll just wait until the next time that fancy strikes.