Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
dark
funny
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide
Moderate: Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism
challenging
sad
medium-paced
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
I've never felt the passion that Maugham depicted in this novel. It occurs to a few and flourishes even less but it drives people beyond their control and sometimes crushes them. I cannot tell if this is a blessing or a curse or both. But Maugham lets me know what if might look like in real life.
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Maugham has become one of my most beloved authors - the most primary impression being in the way he writes and also what he writes about. I missed putting down my impressions from The Razor's Edge but I absolutely bought Maugham's genius as an author for me - his smooth, effortless seeming prose. This book just reinforced my belief in what a strong prose flow can achieve without resorting to the modernities of complicated prose or the conventions of classic style. It makes reading a pleasure and the impression pervasive. I brought TRE book in the discussion here because content-wise, this book also deals with Maugham's subject as what he observes, analyses and expresses the best - human behaviour; why different people lead their lives the way they do.
This book gave me what I expected James Joyce's The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man couldn't: an understanding of the life of the man behind the easel. What the world looks to as an artist? And not from how it influences the artwork and the content that they end up creating; instead how they gather and live on the essence of life that they sap out and search for in the world around them. Inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin whose renown reached him the world later than his death, one can only imagine what moved Paul Gaugin into the isolation and primitiveness of the islands of Tahiti. Like other modern artists, his work spouted forms well beyond his times. But what gave him his vision is a mysterious journey, the revelation of which nothing or nobody, let alone this book, can ever convey. What remains are only his work and the only glimpses of his expression of the Truth and Beauty that he was looking for and hopefully found. The best part about this fictional evolution of artist is its utter realism and non-romanticism in depicting the life of an artist. It professes no glory in the instability of an artist's life and no courage in the relentless pursuit of the truth that plagues them. If anything, it evokes sympathy in giving an artist who would stand out like a man not belonging to where he finds himself, only after being hated for being obnoxious, eccentric or incorrigible person he comes out as. The character of Charles Strickland is not pitiful either; he is the one who is an almost inhuman receptacle of the hopes of escaping the conventions that bound human lives.
Maugham's Of Human Bondage gives you reality's inescapability and man's dreams always falling short of what the life promises him. There seems to be an inescapable clause of suffering in the contract of human experience. Maugham's courageous characters go way and beyond in trying to escape this bondage with courage. I can't say either way whether they fail or succeed because I am unable to remember that pattern. But Charles Strickland ends up giving a vision of those unconventional lives which dare to do so. In the stoicism of pursuit, lies their happiness somewhere. The uncertainty of these answers and the limits of our reason is the reality. For some the answer may lie in nature, for some in human lives, and for some in an unreachable spirit beyond the senses. Art is always going to be such a medium through which we will be able to communicate beyond the bounding realities of our reason and existence.
“Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly? Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination.”
This book gave me what I expected James Joyce's The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man couldn't: an understanding of the life of the man behind the easel. What the world looks to as an artist? And not from how it influences the artwork and the content that they end up creating; instead how they gather and live on the essence of life that they sap out and search for in the world around them. Inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin whose renown reached him the world later than his death, one can only imagine what moved Paul Gaugin into the isolation and primitiveness of the islands of Tahiti. Like other modern artists, his work spouted forms well beyond his times. But what gave him his vision is a mysterious journey, the revelation of which nothing or nobody, let alone this book, can ever convey. What remains are only his work and the only glimpses of his expression of the Truth and Beauty that he was looking for and hopefully found. The best part about this fictional evolution of artist is its utter realism and non-romanticism in depicting the life of an artist. It professes no glory in the instability of an artist's life and no courage in the relentless pursuit of the truth that plagues them. If anything, it evokes sympathy in giving an artist who would stand out like a man not belonging to where he finds himself, only after being hated for being obnoxious, eccentric or incorrigible person he comes out as. The character of Charles Strickland is not pitiful either; he is the one who is an almost inhuman receptacle of the hopes of escaping the conventions that bound human lives.
Maugham's Of Human Bondage gives you reality's inescapability and man's dreams always falling short of what the life promises him. There seems to be an inescapable clause of suffering in the contract of human experience. Maugham's courageous characters go way and beyond in trying to escape this bondage with courage. I can't say either way whether they fail or succeed because I am unable to remember that pattern. But Charles Strickland ends up giving a vision of those unconventional lives which dare to do so. In the stoicism of pursuit, lies their happiness somewhere. The uncertainty of these answers and the limits of our reason is the reality. For some the answer may lie in nature, for some in human lives, and for some in an unreachable spirit beyond the senses. Art is always going to be such a medium through which we will be able to communicate beyond the bounding realities of our reason and existence.
“Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly? Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination.”
Rispetto a Il velo dipinto (che adoro) questo libro è scritto in modo più articolato e Somerset Maugham instaura un vero e proprio dialogo a senso unico con il lettore interrogando sulle vicende descritte da diversi punti di vista. In La luna e sei soldi traspare la visione pessimista e cinica dell'autore verso...beh, praticamente qualsiasi cosa! In particolare l'amore passionale ne esce piuttosto male ("l'amore dà corpo a un'illusione") mentre l'unica fiamma che resta sempre accesa nel cuore dell'uomo è l'arte e la ricerca della bellezza attraverso questa. Il suo stile asciutto e privo di vocaboli obsoleti rende i suoi romanzi moderni e capaci di "parlare" con i suoi lettori ancora oggi.
I had always loved Gauguin and the moods he captured of Tahitian lifestyle and landscapes; of afternoons in faraway islands which are so purely imaginative and yet possess an essence quite familiar.
This book was perfect in capturing the soul and mind of the protagonist Strickland, who is based on Gauguin, and paints passages almost as beautiful as his paintings. It follows the life of a simple stock broker who left his "settled" life to paint. His thirst to capture the essence of the surrounding and people rings through the pages and you could feel the suffocation that accompanied it.
It made me question how much are we really ready to embrace art that is truely avant garde.
What is the meaning you attach to life and claim you acknowledge to society and the claim of an individual which makes us live the life we do. Life of Gauguin portrayed here was painful but you don't fail to understand his hunger to paint. Though descriptions of the Tahitian landscapes and paintings are scrumptious, it does pose many uncomfortable questions about life's meaning.
I enjoyed going to and fro from the book to image searches of Gauguin's paintings and that was an utter delight!
This book was perfect in capturing the soul and mind of the protagonist Strickland, who is based on Gauguin, and paints passages almost as beautiful as his paintings. It follows the life of a simple stock broker who left his "settled" life to paint. His thirst to capture the essence of the surrounding and people rings through the pages and you could feel the suffocation that accompanied it.
It made me question how much are we really ready to embrace art that is truely avant garde.
What is the meaning you attach to life and claim you acknowledge to society and the claim of an individual which makes us live the life we do. Life of Gauguin portrayed here was painful but you don't fail to understand his hunger to paint. Though descriptions of the Tahitian landscapes and paintings are scrumptious, it does pose many uncomfortable questions about life's meaning.
I enjoyed going to and fro from the book to image searches of Gauguin's paintings and that was an utter delight!
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
half school read, half leisure
fav chapter: 56
fav chapter: 56
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Violence
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicide, Grief, Abandonment
Minor: Addiction