The Moon and Sixpence
Reviewed by Mark Berman, Fri., July 28, 2000
The Moon and Sixpence
by W. Somerset MaughamVintage, 160 pp., $11 (paper)
Charles Strickland is a well-to-do, well-married, and well-behaved London stockbroker, to all appearances without a spiritual bone in his body. So when the 40-year-old Strickland deserts his wife, family, and business for Paris, convention suggests that it's to live in opulence with some woman. But Strickland's overwhelming desire is to paint, and in a most unpainterly way at that. Inspired by the life of Gauguin, Maugham's portrait of a man tormented by his genius continues to fascinate 80 years after its initial publication. Sacrificing secure bourgeoisie existence, Strickland provides us the awesome spectacle of the relentless need to create. Maugham also fully plumbs his character's monstrosity: his abandonment of his wife and his betrayal of a friend and benefactor. With Maugham, they're all part of Strickland's fullness, a basis for expostulation rather than dismissal. Whether in London, Paris, or in his final years in Tahiti, we follow Strickland as fascinated observers.
