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yuèdòumáo mǔ William Somerset Maughamzài小说之家dezuòpǐn!!! | |||||||||||||||||
毛姆毛姆（W. Somerset Maugham，1874-1965），二十世纪上叶最成功、最流行的英国小说家和剧作家，生于巴黎。代表作有《月亮和六便士》和《人性枷锁》、《寻欢作乐》等。
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆（William,Somerset Maugham，1874～1965）英国小说家、戏剧家。他创作了近30部剧本，深受观众欢迎。他的主要成就是小说创作,代表作有长篇小说：《月亮和六便士》（1919）、《人间的枷锁》等。毛姆的作品除在英美畅销外，还译成多种外文。1952年，牛津大学授予他名誉博士学位。1954年，英王授予他“荣誉侍从”的称号。
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆-人物生平
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆（William Somerset Maugham，1874～1965），英国小说家、戏剧家。1874年1月25日生于巴黎英国大使馆。他的父亲劳伯特·奥蒙得·毛姆，当时在驻法英国大使馆任法律事务官。毛姆生下时，他父亲已有三个儿子，他是家庭中最小的成员。小毛姆他八岁丧母，十岁丧父，因家中无人照顾，他被送回英国由伯父抚养。在他渡过英吉利海峡，第一次登上祖国的土地时，他简直不会讲英语。由于这个缘故，法语和法国文化一直影响着他。毛姆进坎特伯雷皇家公学之后，由于身材矮小，且严重口吃，经常受到大孩子的欺凌和折磨，有时还遭到冬烘学究的无端羞辱。孤寂凄清的童年生活，在他稚嫩的心灵上投下了痛苦的阴影，养成他孤僻、敏感、内向的性格。幼年的经历对他的世界观和文学创作产生了深刻的影响。中学毕业后在德国海德堡大学肄业。1892年至1897年在伦敦学医，并取得外科医师资格。学医期间，曾赴伦敦兰贝斯贫民窟当了三个星期的助产士，这段经历使他动了写作的念头。他的第一部长篇小说《兰贝斯的丽莎》 （1897）即根据他作为贝可医生在贫民区为产妇接生时的见闻用自由主义写法写成。一八九七年，他因染上肺疾，被送往法国南方里维埃拉疗养，开始接触法国文学，特别是莫泊桑的作品。1892年初，他去德国海德堡大学学习了一年。在那儿，他接触到德国哲学史家昆诺·费希尔的哲学思想和以易卜生为代表的新戏剧潮流。同年返回英国，在伦敦一家会计师事务所当了六个星期的练习生，随后，在接受了坎特伯雷的国王中学和德国海德堡大学的教育之后，毛姆成为伦敦圣托马斯医院的实习医生(1892-1897)。为期五年的习医生涯，不仅使他有机会了解到底层人民的生活状况，而且使他学会用解剖刀一样冷峻、犀利的目光来剖视人生和社会。他的第一部小说《兰贝斯的丽莎》，正是根据他从医实习期间的所见所闻写成的。
这本书出版后销路很好，这使得毛姆下定了弃医从文的决心。从1903年起，毛姆开始戏剧创作。1907年，一部关于婚姻与金钱的喜剧《弗雷德里克夫人》再次为毛姆赢得了声誉。1908年，一时间有四部毛姆的戏剧作品在伦敦上演，真可谓盛况空前。毛姆的轻喜剧作品深受王尔德的影响，通常以中产社会世俗背景下爱情和婚姻中的波折为主题。他一生创作了三十多个剧本，其中较著名的有《圈子》 （1921）， 《东苏伊世》 （1922），和反战戏剧《For Services Rendered》 （1932）等。
从1897年起，毛姆弃医专事文学创作。在接下来的几年里，他写了若干部小说，但是，用毛姆自己的话来说，其中没有一部能够“使泰晤士河起火”。他转向戏剧创作，获得成功，成了红极一时的剧作家，伦敦舞台竟同时上演他的四个剧本。他的第十个剧本《弗雷德里克夫人》连续上演达一年之久。这种空前的盛况，据说只有著名剧作家肖伯纳才能与之比肩。但是辛酸的往事，梦魇似地郁积在他心头，不让他有片刻的安宁，越来越强烈地要求他去表现，去创作。他决定暂时中断戏剧创作，用两年时间潜心写作酝酿已久的小说《人生的枷锁》。
作家这个身份之外,他还从事过间谍活动。萨默塞特·毛姆是20世纪英国最伟大的作家之一，他脍炙人口的作品像他的名字一样在世界各地广泛流传，不用版本的传记作品也屡见不鲜。而他生于高度的爱国主义热情，曾经替军情六处工作的历史，却鲜为人知。第一次大战期间，毛姆先在比利时火线救护伤员，后入英国情报部门工作，到过瑞士、俄国和远东等地。这段经历为他后来写作间谍小说《埃申登》提供了素材。战后他重游远东和南太平洋诸岛；1920年到过中国，写了一卷《中国见闻录》。1928年毛姆定居在地中海之滨的里维埃拉，直至1940年纳粹入侵时，才仓促离去。萨默塞特·毛姆最重要的间谍活动是曾在瑞士当英国军情六处的间谍，试图扶持克伦斯基临时政府，阻止俄国革命；“二战”期间毛姆重新出山，在英国情报处新处长威廉·斯蒂文森麾下效力。英国军事情报第六局第六处（代号M16），亦称秘密情报处，设立于1909年，它的主要工作目标是开展海外谍报活动。
两次大战的间隙期间，是毛姆创作精力最旺盛的时期。二十年代及三十年代初期，他写了一系列揭露上流社会尔虞我诈、勾心斗角、道德堕落、讽刺，如《周而复始》、《比我们高贵的人们》和《坚贞的妻子》等。这三个剧本被公认为毛姆剧作中的佳品。1933年完稿的《谢佩》是他的最后一个剧本。毛姆的戏剧作品，情节紧凑而曲折，冲突激烈而合乎情理；所写人物，着墨不多而形象鲜明突出；对话生动自然，幽默俏皮，使人感到清新有力。但总的来说，内容和人物刻画的深度，及不上他的长、短篇小说，虽然他的小说作品也算不上深刻。
毛姆最知名、最畅销的小说《人性的枷锁》（1915）也是在一战期间出版了。这部书的走红也有一个轶事，据说毛姆成名之前，生活非常贫困，虽然《人性的枷锁》是一部很有价值的书稿，但因为没有名气，出版后无人问津。为了引起人们的注意，毛姆别出心裁地在各大报刊上登了如下的征婚启事：“本人喜欢音乐和运动，是个年轻又富有的百万富翁，希望能和毛姆小说中的主角一样的女性结婚。”几天之后，全伦敦的书店，都再也买不到毛姆的书了。毛姆去世前，这本书的销量就已超过一千万册。在这部半自传性作品中，作者将自己的口吃换成了小说主人公菲利普的跛腿，描述了一个青年成长的历程。
随后出版的《月亮和六便士》（1919）同样也获得了巨大成功。此书中，毛姆以法国画家保罗·高庚的生活为原型，讲述了一个英国股票经纪人查尔斯· 思特里克兰德为逃避世俗到南太平洋的小岛大溪地作画家的故事。毛姆小说中的主人公几乎总是对应著某个对毛姆有重要影响的现实人物，如小说《寻欢作乐》(1930)以英国作家托马斯·哈代为创作原型，晚期作品《刀锋》（1945）映射哲学家维特根斯坦。《刀锋》中主人公拉里在寻求自己精神家园的苦旅中，最终在印度的苦行主义和神秘氛围中感悟到了人生的真谛。除了这些优秀的长篇小说，毛姆还是一个出色的短篇小说家，一个引人入胜的故事大王。他的短篇小说有一百多部。他的短篇小说《雨》，收录于小说集《叶的震颤》（1921），后来还被改编成一部成功的电影。
这一时期的重要小说有：反映现代西方文明束缚、扼杀艺术家个性及创作的《月亮和六便士》；刻画当时文坛上可笑可鄙的现象的《寻欢作乐》；以及以大英帝国东方殖民地为背景、充满异国情调的短篇集《叶之震颤》等。短篇小说在毛姆的创作活动中占有重要位置。他的短篇小说风格接近莫泊桑，结构严谨，起承转落自然，语言简洁，叙述娓娓动听。作家竭力避免在作品中发表议论，而是通过巧妙的艺术处理，让人物在情节展开过程中显示其内在的性格。
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆
1926年，毛姆在法国境内的地中海度假胜地里维埃拉买下了玛莱斯科庄园别墅，毛姆的后半生除去旅行，基本上就是在这里度过的。1940年，毛姆搭上一艘煤船逃离法国。二战期间，毛姆生活在美国。第二次大战期间，毛姆到了美国，在南卡罗莱纳、纽约和文亚德岛等地呆了六年。1944年发表长篇小说《刀锋》。在这部作品里，作家试图通过一个青年人探求人生哲理的故事，揭示精神与实利主义之间的矛盾冲突。小说出版后，反响强烈，特别受到当时置身于战火的英、美现役军人的欢迎。1946年，毛姆回到法国里维埃拉。1948年写最后一部小说《卡塔丽娜》 。此后，仅限于写作回忆录和文艺评论，同时对自己的旧作进行整理。
毛姆一生著述极丰，广受读者欢迎。1903-1933年，他创作了近30部剧本，深受观众欢迎。1908年，伦敦有4家剧院同时演出他的4部剧作，在英国形成空前盛况。他的喜剧受王尔德的影响较深，一般以家庭、婚姻、爱情中的波折为主题，其中最著名的剧本《圈子》 （1921）。 1908年，伦敦有4部他写的舞台剧同时上演；及至临终前，他的自传性长篇《人生的枷锁》 （Of Human Bondage）已售出一千万册以上。他酷爱旅行，足迹遍布中国与东南亚，各地奇闻逸事都成为其小说题材；他的取材与风格还深刻影响了刚出道的张爱玲，在后者短篇《沉香屑 第一炉香》《沉香屑 第二炉香》中尤为明显。
他的主要成就是小说创作。毛姆的重要作品还包括以高更为主角原型的长篇《月亮与六便士》 （The Moon and Sixpence）、以哈代为原型的《蛋糕与麦芽酒》（Cakes and Ale），及《刀锋》 （The Razors Edge）等。 毛姆的作品除在英美畅销外，还译成多种外文。1946年，毛姆设立同名文学奖萨姆塞特·毛姆奖（Somerset Maugham Award），奖励优秀的年轻作家，鼓励并资助他们到周游各国，增广见闻。
毛姆晚年享有很高的声誉，英国牛津大学和法国图鲁兹大学分别授予他颇为显赫的“荣誉团骑士”称号。同年1月25日，英国著名的嘉里克文学俱乐部特地设宴庆贺他的八十寿辰，在英国文学史上受到这种礼遇的，只有狄更斯、萨克雷、特罗洛普三位作家。1952年，牛津大学授予他名誉博士学位。1954年，英王授予他“荣誉侍从”的称号。1961 年，他的母校，德国海德堡大学，授予他名誉校董称号。尽管如此，毛姆本人对自己的评价却很谦虚：“我只不过是二流作家中排在前面的一个。”1965年12 月15日，毛姆在法国里维埃拉去世，享年91岁。骨灰安葬在坎特伯雷皇家公学内。死后，美国著名的耶鲁大学建立了档案馆以资纪念。
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆-婚姻爱情
著名英国小说家、剧作家毛姆（William Somerset Maugham ，1874－1965）是一位有同性恋倾向的文学家，但与其私生活相反，他一生都避写同性爱的题材与人物。作为奥斯卡·王尔德风化案之后的一代英国作家，毛姆在自己的作品中小心避免了与同性恋有关的各种题材，尽管他本人也曾拥有一段长达三十年的同性恋情。追究原因，恐怕在于他那一代人始终活在王尔德审判（1895）的恐怖中。毛姆曾表示，他最大的错误是“努力想说服自己我四分之三是正常的，只有四分之一是同性恋。然而事实恰好相反。”
1915年，毛姆与慈善家托马斯·巴尔那多博士的女儿茜瑞·威尔卡姆（Syrie Wellcome）生下一女，次年结婚，婚后聚少离多，1927年离异。而早在1914年，毛姆就遇见美国青年哈克斯顿（Gerald Haxton），两人成为伴侣，直到哈克斯顿于1944年去世。1926年，毛姆在法国海滨买下别墅，除了旅行与二战期间，一直在那里居住。第一次世界大战爆发后，40岁的毛姆加入了法国的红十字急救团。在西线服役时，他遇到了22岁的美国人吉拉尔德·哈克斯顿。哈克斯顿外向活泼、精力充沛，与由於口吃而不善交际的毛姆恰成互补。毛姆遂雇哈克斯顿为自己的私人秘书，两人的伴侣关系一直保持到哈克斯顿1944年去世。另外值得一提的是，一战中，毛姆受英国军事情报部驻法国总领约翰·瓦林格爵士之邀，作为特派人员往返于伦敦总部和欧洲大陆之间，为军情部在欧陆的其他情报人员穿针引线。毛姆的这些经历为他后来创作的一些间谍小说，如《阿申顿》(1928)，提供了最好的素材。
1915年，毛姆与茜瑞·威尔卡姆生下一个女儿。茜瑞当时是个有夫之妇，但她次年与丈夫亨利威尔卡姆离婚，并与毛姆结婚。但是婚后，毛姆大部分时间与哈克斯顿生活在一起。这对同志伴侣在接下来的几年里，携手同行，游览了中国、印度、拉美等地。毛姆作为“世界旅行家”的称号也由此而来。在这些旅行中，哈克斯顿好比毛姆的眼睛与耳朵，在与旅途中各色人等的交往中，为毛姆搜罗了大量“奇闻轶事”，而这些故事日后则成为毛姆小说创作的源泉。1927年，茜瑞终于不堪这番冷落，与毛姆离婚。茜瑞后来在自己的事业──室内设计──中取得了相当的成功，算是对她婚姻失败的一点补偿。
由于奥斯卡·王尔德事件对英国文化界的冲击和警示，毛姆和他同时代的大部分英国知识分子一样，对“同性恋”这个字眼采取了明智的回避态度。在毛姆的作品中，你很难找到与此有关的内容，甚至在毛姆的生活中，也只有少数较亲近的朋友知道毛姆的同性恋情。也正因为这样一种保守的社会环境，毛姆只好在旅游和写作中寻找自己心灵的避风港湾。
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆-创作经历
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆毛姆作品
毛姆的创作生涯是从医学院学生开始的。一八九二年，他在伦敦圣托马斯医院学医。学医期间，他曾赴伦敦兰贝斯贫民窟当了三个星期的助产士，这段经历使他动了写作的念头。一八九七年，他医科毕业，同时出版了他的第一部小说《兰贝斯的莉莎》。这部写贫民窟女子莉莎悲剧性结局的小说受到批评界的重视，特别是文坛耆宿艾德蒙·戈斯[注]的赞扬，使毛姆决心放弃行医，从事文学创作。他听了安德鲁·郎格的错误劝告，为写历史小说而游历西班牙和意大利，但是，这期间写的小说和短篇很少成功。
一九零三年回国后，他的剧本《正直的人》被戏剧学会搬上舞台，但并未引起重视。直到一九零七年，他的剧本才以《弗莱德理夫人》上演，首次获得成功；一九零八年，他竟有四部剧本同时在伦敦西城的剧院上演；伦敦的滑稽杂志《笨气》还为此登载了一幅漫画，画着莎士比亚看了墙上满贴着毛姆剧本上演的海报，带有恐惧的表情咬着拇指头。人们很容易会设想，经过这次意外成功，毛姆当会象肖伯纳一样以剧本写作为终生事业，但是，不然，他并没有放弃写小说的企图，而且在他的小说获得成功并在经济上使他得到生活保障之后，他于一九三三年反而放弃了剧本写作；然而，他不但从不反对自己的小说和短篇小说搬上银幕，而且还从中襄助。一部小说或电影的成功取决于广大的读者或观众；评论家的毁誉可以起一点影响，但是，群众仍旧是决定性的。一个剧本的成功常要看上演时的卖座率，特别是第一晚演出后的舆论反映，而伦敦西城那些剧院的“第一晚”观众，也就是伦敦上流社会的交际界人士，一个剧本的生死，在相当大的程度上操在这类人的手里。
毛姆的后半生，特别是在里维埃拉购买了一幢豪华住宅之后，虽则招待不少英国上层人士，甚至皇亲国戚，但对欧洲的上流交际界人士却有他的看法。他在《刀锋》中介绍醉心于欧洲交际社会生活的美国人艾略特·谈波登时，有这一段话：
“……以艾略特的机伶，决不会看不出那些应他邀请的人多只是混他一顿吃喝，有些是没脑子的，有些毫不足道。那些响亮的头衔引得他眼花缭乱，看不见一点他们的缺点。……这一切，归根结底，实起于一种狂热的浪漫思想；这使他在那些庸碌的小小法国公爵身上见到当年跟随圣路易到圣地去的十字军战士，在装腔作势、猎猎狐狸的英国伯爵身上见到他们在金锦原侍奉亨利八世的祖先。”
这一段话不妨说也代表了毛姆对这些上流社交人士的看法。他放弃戏剧的写作等于是对这些上流交际界的蔑视。
一九一五年，毛姆的自传性小说《尘网》出版。一个在战争期间和他同住一卧室的达斯蒙德曾经亲眼看见毛姆审阅这部小说的校样；他把这部小说列为与班内特的《老妇故事》，海明威的《永别了，武器》 ，威尔斯的《吉普斯》同样经得起时间淘汰的现实主义小说；这个评价，除掉《永别了，武器》在时代上稍晚，不应列入外，对《尘网》是适当的，而且也为后来的许多评论家所承认。但是，后来竟有人认为《尘网》是毛姆唯一能在文学史上占一席地的小说，这并不准确。《尘网》虽然是在一次大战的第二年出版，但仍属于英国爱德华时代文学；它的构思是在一次大战前，但是，便在它问世的一九一五年，欧洲人对这次大战的认识和后来的认识是有很大的不同的。当时，英国人对战争的艰苦性大概认为与南非波尔战争差不多，不会动摇大英帝国的基础；法国尽管在作战开头时失利，但毕竟顶住了，绝不会料到这次战争对欧洲文明产生那样深远的影响。《尘网》是一部杰出小说，但不应视为毛姆的唯一代表作。毛姆应属于两次大战期间的代表作家，虽则他和海明威所代表的“迷惘的一代”有所不同。
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆-作品列表
小说：
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆毛姆作品
《兰姆贝思的丽莎》（LizaofLambeth）（1897年）长篇小说
《一个圣徒发迹的奥秘》 （Themakingofasaint）（1898年）长篇小说
《东向礼拜》（Orientations）（1899年）短篇小说集
《英雄》 （Thehero）（1901年）长篇小说
《克雷杜克夫人》 （Mrs.Craddock）（1902年）长篇小说
《旋转木马》 （Themerry-go-round）（1904年）长篇小说
《主教的围巾：一个大家庭的来龙去脉》 （1906年）长篇小说
《调情》 （Flirtation）（1906年）短篇小说
《探索者》 （Theexplorer）（1908年）长篇小说
《魔术师》 （Themagician）（1908年）长篇小说
《人生的枷锁》（1915年）长篇小说
《月亮和六便士》（1919年）长篇小说
《一片树叶的颤动》 小说集（1921年）
《阿申登故事集》或《一个英国间谍》 （1928年）短篇小说集
《寻欢作乐》 （Cakesandale）or（Thekeletoninthdcupboard）（1930年）长篇小说
《短篇小说六篇》 （1926年）
《彩巾》 （Thepaintedveil）（1925年）长篇小说
《第一人称短篇小说六篇》 （1931年）
《书包》 （1932年）短篇小说
《偏僻的角落》 （1932年）长篇小说
《啊，国王》短篇小说六篇（1933年）
《法庭》 （1934年）短篇小说
《四海为家的人们》微型短篇小说（1936年）
《戏院》 （Theatre）（1937年）长篇小说
《圣诞节》 （Christmasholiday）（1939年）长篇小说
《九月公主和夜莺》多伦多出版（1939年）短篇小说
《象从前那样的杂拌》 （1940年）短篇小说集
《一打短篇》 （Therounddozen）（1940年）短篇小说集
《别墅里红运高照之人》 （Upatthevilla）（1941年）长篇小说
《黎明前的时分》 （Thehourbeforethedawn）（1942年）长篇小说
《不可征服的人》 （Theunconquered）或（CreaturesofCircumstance）纽约出版（1944年）短篇小说
《刀锋》（Therazor’sedge）（1944年）长篇小说
《时常》 （Thenandnow）（1946年）长篇小说
《环境的产物》 （1947年）短篇小说集
《卡塔琳娜——一段罗曼史》 （Catalina.ARomance）（1948年）长篇小说
《这里和那里》 （1948年）短篇小说集
戏剧：
《一个体面的男人》四幕话剧（1903年）
《弗雷德里克夫人》三幕喜剧（1912年）
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆毛姆作品
《杰克·斯特洛》 （1912年）戏剧
《朵特夫人》 （1912年）戏剧
《珀涅罗珀》 （1912年）戏剧
《探索者》 （1912 年）戏剧
《第十个人》 （1913年）戏剧
《跻身上流社会的人们》 （1913年）戏剧
《史密斯》 （1913 年）戏剧
《可指望的土地》四幕喜剧（1913年）
《陌生人》 （1920年）戏剧
《周而复始》三幕喜剧（1921年）
《凯撒之妻》 （1922年）戏剧
《苏伊士之东》 （1922年）戏剧
《比我们高贵的人们》 （1923年）三幕喜剧
《家庭和美人》三幕滑稽剧（1923年）
《不可企求的人》三幕滑稽剧（1923年）
《私利》四幕喜剧（1924年）
《信》三幕剧（1927年）戏剧
《忠实的妻子》三幕喜剧（1927年）
《圣火》三幕剧（1928年）
《养家活口的人》一幕喜剧（1930年）
《因为效了劳》三幕剧（1932年）戏剧
《谢佩》三幕剧（1933年）戏剧
《喜剧六种》纽约出版（1939年）
《四部曲》（1948年）R.C.雪弗雷根据毛姆的原著改编的电影剧本
《三部曲》——《教堂司事》，《娄威尔先生》，《疗养院》(1950)
游记随笔：
《圣洁的天国：安大路西亚见闻和印象》 （1905年）游记
《中国剪影》 （1922年）游记
《客厅里的绅士：从仰光到海防旅途纪实》 （1930 年）游记
《堂·弗尔南多：西班牙主旋律变奏曲》 （1935年）游记
《我的南太平洋诸岛》芝加哥出版（1936年）随笔
《总结》 （Thesummingup）（1938年）自传
《书与你》 （1940年）随笔
《战争中的法国》 （1940年）随笔
《纯属私事》 （Strictlypersonal）纽约版（1941年）伦敦版（1942年）自传
《一个作家的札记》 （1949年）文艺理论
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆-思想观点
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆毛姆作品
大多得批评家钟爱的作者，多半生时潦落，生后才得桂冠加身。毛姆的遭遇恰好相反，他的作品容易读,不带实验色彩，也不新奇，每一行文字都无比清晰，相异于创意独具，善造趋势却冷漠旁观的天才。他无意成为道德领袖或预言专家，仅自许为提供高尚娱乐的职业作家。在《月亮和六便士》中，毛姆——这个深受法国文学熏陶的作家以画家高更为原形叙述了高更为了追求理想，抛家弃子，放弃金钱地位跑到巴黎去画画，生活穷苦潦倒，最终客死他乡。在太平洋的塔希提小岛上，浪花冲刷着奋斗的步伐。
当大家对他的行为纷纷表示不解和指责时，文中毛姆的代言人——“我”说了这样一段话：“我很怀疑他是否真的糟蹋了自己：做自己最想做的事，生活在自己喜爱的环境里，淡泊宁静、与世无争，这难道是糟蹋自己吗？与此相反，做一个著名的外科医生，年薪一万镑，娶一位美丽的妻子，就是成功吗？我想这一切都取决于一个人如何看待生活的意义，取决于他认为对社会应尽什么义务、对自己有什么要求。”毛姆的人生态度没有比这句话表达得更明显了，一个看似深谙世故的刻薄狡猾的旁观者，事实上居然是一个真正意义上精神至上的理想主义份子。
在小说《刀锋》中集中体现了他终身追求的精神上的归属感和一直寻找的那个过程，这也是打动正是因为无意间切中了人类精神生活最重要、但却是互为矛盾的两个诉求：流浪和家园，人们毛姆许多作品的阅读过程中都获得了这双重诉求的满足和愉悦。至于孤独，那几乎是必然的。毛姆并不真正信任人与人之间以世俗名义命名的各种关系，他的目光超越了亲情、友情甚至爱情，认为真正大智慧者必然超脱在这些纠葛之上，不难看出他笔下许多人物都有这种共性。毛姆说：“今年的你我已不再是去年的你我，不再是去年彼此爱慕的那个人。假如变化中的我们仍然爱着已经变了的对方，那倒是难得的福气，可惜——”这句话充分揭示了他对“永远幸福”这种东西的可操作性的怀疑。同样《刀锋》中的男主角拉里是维特根斯坦的再创造。
英国作家毛姆在文学史上一直是个有争议的作家，一方面他的作品在世界范围内拥有广泛的读者，另一方面却又为文学史所忽视，评论界普遍认为毛姆是个二流作家，因为他一味迎合大众，追求书的畅销和利润，贬低了严肃文学的价值。对于毛姆冷峻犀利的文风，文坛也颇有争议，有批评家就认为：“毛姆解析了没有情感的情感，他毫不同情地操纵着一个在他眼中没有怜悯的世界。事实上，他的清晰而艰难的解决之道使任何主题都变得微不足道。如果伟大的艺术必须要有一种内在的善意，那么毛姆的作品便不是伟大的艺术，而他也只是一个平庸的作家。”但实际上，毛姆在其小说作品中坚持用“讲故事”的传统叙述方式进行创作，重视小说的“娱乐性”和“情节性”，使得他的小说作品有着一个“通俗文学”的外表，但其内里的深刻性和严肃性却一直为人们所忽视，因此造成了对毛姆及其作品的误解。曾有人对毛姆的写作提纲归结为：孤独，家园，钱，女人，以及文学和文学批评。可他自己说只是私人感受而已，或深或浅，不论对错。毛姆还说：钱是人们的第六感，没有它，其它的五感统统发挥不出来。象这样的明智之言在他的书中俯拾皆是。因为他的作品总是在通俗的外壳下包裹着深刻的内涵，所以有人说，第一次看他的书只能是浮光掠影，只有在两三遍之后才可以体悟真正价值。毛姆是个很难归类的作家，假如非要贴个标签，毛姆大致可以归入批判现实主义的类别，但也许在没有达到理想的境地时人人都可以是批判现实。
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆-艺术特点
1、讽刺幽默
威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆威廉·萨默赛特·毛姆
毛姆是公认的深受法国文学熏陶的英国人，他的作品最大的特点就是读起来幽默风趣、兴味盎然。这首先归结于他善于构思，会讲故事，另外也与他在小说中常常表现出的姿态有关。毛姆的文字并不剑拔弩张，语气中总有一种超然于小说和读者之外的英国式的冷淡风度，不免有些尖酸的笔触，准确刻画出自己所见所闻的社会现实。这种表现出的类似“第三者”的角度和手法为自己一向欣赏推崇。毛姆描写的虽然是一些个人，但却代表了他眼里整个人类——轻松和消遣都只是表面，幽默则不无深意，底下还隐藏更多黑暗。例如：
“我对她们那种总是戴着手套吃黄油吐司的怪毛病常常感到十分好笑；她们在认为没有人看见的时候就偷偷在椅子上揩手指头，这让我看着也十分佩服——这对主人的家具肯定不是件好事，但随即我想在轮到主人到这些人家里作客的时候，肯定也会在她朋友的家具上进行报复。”
“瓦特尔芙德小姐拿不定主意，是照她更年轻时的淡雅装扮，身着灰绿，手拿一支水仙花去赴宴呢，还是表现出一点年事稍高时的丰姿——如果是后者，那就要穿上高跟鞋、披着巴黎式的上衣了。犹豫了半天，结果她只戴了一顶帽子。”
“书籍都有镀金的格子护着，并且加了锁，以防止人们翻阅；也许这样做倒好，因为这些书大部分是十八世纪的有插图的淫书。”
“一年后，伊莎贝尔生了一个女儿，根据当时的风气，她给她取名叫琼；隔了两年，又生了一个女儿，又根据当时的风气，取名普丽西拉。”
这种不动声色的揶揄，仿佛让读者看到毛姆如何靠在书房高背椅中带着居高临下的嘲讽神情挥笔写下它们。有人说毛姆的小说过于通俗，不足以担当文学自身应负担的使命，但毛姆不同于许多作家之处就是他从不愿把自己的作品打造得道貌岸然，也无意用先知的口气指导蒙昧的读者们该如何生活，他只在无数细节里不动声色的表达立场，而许多发人深醒的哲学命题在他笔下显得举重若轻——因为一切文学最终都是哲学——文学或许不仅表现为哲学，但是文学却不可能不表现哲学。
2、形象塑造
毛姆塑造过许多个性突出的人物形象，如菲利普（人生的枷锁）、拉里（刀锋）、思特里克兰德（月亮与六便士）等等。其中《人生的枷锁》中个人色彩表现得最为明显。这部小说一部分以画家劳特累克为原型，另有相当一部分则带有浓厚的自传性质，可以说是毛姆最重要的著作之一，酝酿构思长达十几年才写成。另外一个著名人物是《刀锋》中的拉里：这个参加过一战的美国飞行员被战争中屠戮的场面震惊，从此陷入痛苦的反思之中，他尽散家产，四处云游，寻求人生的意义，最终在印度悟道。拉里的原型是著名哲学家维特根斯坦，我对维特根斯坦教授的哲学理论并不熟知，但却对拉里这样总是执著探索人生形而上意义的家伙怀有深深敬意，他一生的境遇无疑具有哲学意义上的无奈和悲壮感。 另一篇代表作《月亮和六便士》则是以著名画家高更为原型创作的传记
式小说，描述高更为追求理想抛家弃子，放弃金钱地位跑到巴黎去画画，生活穷苦潦倒，最终客死他乡。这样的想法正是毛姆对精神生活的要求，是个精神至上的理想主义者。
毛姆终生追求精神上的归属感并一直在寻找的途中，《刀锋》之所以打动无数读者，正是因为无意间切中了人类精神生活最重要、但却是互为矛盾的两个诉求：流浪和家园，人们毛姆许多作品的阅读过程中都获得了这双重诉求的满足和愉悦。至于孤独，那几乎是必然的。毛姆并不真正信任人与人之间以世俗名义命名的各种关系，他的目光超越了亲情、友情甚至爱情，认为真正大智慧者必然超脱在这些纠葛之上，不难看出他笔下许多人物都有这种共性。毛姆说：“今年的你我已不再是去年的你我，不再是去年彼此爱慕的那个人。假如变化中的我们仍然爱着已经变了的对方，那倒是难得的福气，可惜——”这句话充分揭示了他对“永远幸福” 这种东西的可操作性的怀疑。
3、叙事手法
毛姆一生共著有长篇小说20部、短篇小说100多篇，剧本30个，另外还有游记、文学评论和回忆录等多种，可谓高产。做为一个小说家，毛姆公然宣称 “小说就是讲故事”，因为“因为听故事的欲望在人类身上就像对财富的欲望一样根深蒂固”。毛姆批评现代小说有一种倾向：过于注重刻画人物而不注重情节。当然，刻画人物很重要，因为只有当读者熟悉了小说中的人物并对他们产生了同情之后，才会关心发生在他们之间的事情。但是全力于人物刻画而不注重人物之间发生的事情，这只是小说的一种写法，却绝不是关键所在。毛姆嘲笑许多现代作家的作品“行为是千篇一律的；描写是重复冗长的；感觉是索然无味的”，并尖刻指出 “假如山鲁佐德（ 《一千零一夜》 ）只知道刻画人物而不讲那些奇妙的故事的话，她的脑袋早就被国王砍掉了。”毛姆是英国的莫泊桑，都是短篇小说的大师。但是莫泊桑的小说的情绪是绝望的，在这点上卡夫卡继承了莫泊桑；而毛姆的小说很多的情绪都是幽默的，这点应该比较符合今天读者的口味。也许正因如此，毛姆成为英国拥有读者最多的作家之一。
Childhood and education
Maugham's father Robert Ormond Maugham was an English lawyer handling the legal affairs of the British embassy in Marseille, France. Since French law declared that all children born on French soil could be conscripted for military service, his father arranged for William to be born at the embassy, technically on British soil, saving him from conscription into any future French wars. His grandfather, another Robert, had also been a prominent lawyer and cofounder of the English Law Society, and it was taken for granted that William would follow in their footsteps. Events were to ensure this was not to be, but his elder brother Viscount Maugham did enjoy a distinguished legal career, and served as Lord Chancellor from 1938 to 1939.
Maugham's mother Edith Mary (née Snell) was consumptive, a condition for which her doctor prescribed childbirth. As a result, Maugham had three older brothers already enrolled in boarding school by the time he was three and he was effectively raised as an only child. Childbirth proved no cure for tuberculosis: Edith's sixth and final son died on 25 January 1882, one day after his birth, on Maugham's eighth birthday. Edith died six days later, on 31 January, at the age of 41. The death of his mother left Maugham traumatized for life, and he kept his mother's photograph by his bedside until his own death at the age of 91 in Nice, France. Two years after Maugham's mother's death, his father died of cancer. William was sent back to England to be cared for by his uncle, Henry MacDonald Maugham, the Vicar of Whitstable, in Kent. The move was catastrophic. Henry Maugham proved cold and emotionally cruel. The King's School, Canterbury, where William was a boarder during school terms, proved merely another version of purgatory, where he was teased for his bad English (French had been his first language) and his short stature, which he inherited from his father. It is at this time that Maugham developed the stammer that would stay with him all his life, although it was sporadic and subject to mood and circumstance.
Maugham was miserable both at the vicarage and at school. As a result, he developed a talent for applying a wounding remark to those who displeased him. This ability is sometimes reflected in the characters that populate his writings. At sixteen, Maugham refused to continue at The King's School and his uncle allowed him to travel to Germany, where he studied literature, philosophy and German at Heidelberg University. It was during his year in Heidelberg that he met and had a sexual affair with John Ellingham Brooks, an Englishman ten years his senior. On his return to England his uncle found Maugham a position in an accountant's office, but after a month Maugham gave it up and returned to Whitstable. His uncle was not pleased, and set about finding Maugham a new profession. Maugham's father and three older brothers were all distinguished lawyers and Maugham asked to be excused from the duty of following in their footsteps.
A career in the church was rejected because a stammering minister might make the family seem ridiculous. Likewise, the civil service was rejected — not out of consideration for Maugham's own feelings or interests, but because the recent law requiring civil servants to qualify by passing an examination made Maugham's uncle conclude that the civil service was no longer a career for gentlemen. The local doctor suggested the profession of medicine and Maugham's uncle reluctantly approved this. Maugham had been writing steadily since the age of 20 and fervently intended to become an author, but because Maugham was not of age, he could not confess this to his guardian. So he spent the next five years as a medical student at St Thomas' Hospital, Lambeth, London.
Career
Early works
Some critics have assumed that the years Maugham spent studying medicine were a creative dead end, but Maugham himself felt quite the contrary. He was able to live in the lively city of London, to meet people of a "low" sort that he would never have met in one of the other professions, and to see them in a time of heightened anxiety and meaning in their lives. In maturity, he recalled the literary value of what he saw as a medical student: "I saw how men died. I saw how they bore pain. I saw what hope looked like, fear and relief..."
Maugham kept his own lodgings, took pleasure in furnishing them, filled many notebooks with literary ideas, and continued writing nightly while at the same time studying for his degree in medicine. In 1897, he presented his second book for consideration. (The first was a biography of opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer written by the 16-year-old Maugham in Heidelberg.) Liza of Lambeth, a tale of working-class adultery and its consequences, drew its details from Maugham's experiences as a medical student doing midwifery work in the London slum of Lambeth. The novel is of the school of social-realist "slum writers" such as George Gissing and Arthur Morrison. Frank as it is, Maugham still felt obliged to write near the opening of the novel: "...it is impossible always to give the exact unexpurgated words of Liza and the other personages of the story; the reader is therefore entreated with his thoughts to piece out the necessary imperfections of the dialogue."
Liza of Lambeth proved popular with both reviewers and the public, and the first print run sold out in a matter of weeks. This was enough to convince Maugham, who had qualified as a doctor, to drop medicine and embark on his sixty-five year career as a man of letters. Of his entry into the profession of writing he later said, "I took to it as a duck takes to water."
The writer's life allowed Maugham to travel and live in places such as Spain and Capri for the next decade, but his next ten works never came close to rivalling the success of Liza. This changed dramatically in 1907 with the phenomenal success of his play Lady Frederick; by the next year he had four plays running simultaneously in London, and Punch published a cartoon of Shakespeare biting his fingernails nervously as he looked at the billboards.
Popular success, 1914–39
By 1914 Maugham was famous, with 10 plays produced and 10 novels published. Too old to enlist when World War I broke out, Maugham served in France as a member of the British Red Cross's so-called "Literary Ambulance Drivers", a group of some 23 well-known writers including John Dos Passos and E. E. Cummings. During this time he met Frederick Gerald Haxton, a young San Franciscan who became his companion and lover until Haxton's death in 1944 (Haxton appears as Tony Paxton in Maugham's 1917 play, Our Betters). Throughout this period Maugham continued to write; indeed, he proof-read Of Human Bondage at a location near Dunkirk during a lull in his ambulance duties. However, Maugham is also known to have worked for British Intelligence in mainland Europe during the war, having been recruited by John Wallinger, and was one of the network of British agents who operated in Switzerland against the Berlin Committee, notably Virendranath Chattopadhyay. Maugham was later recruited by William Wiseman to work in Russia.
Of Human Bondage (1915) initially received adverse criticism both in England and America, with the New York World describing the romantic obsession of the main protagonist Philip Carey as "the sentimental servitude of a poor fool". Influential critic and novelist Theodore Dreiser, however, rescued the novel, referring to it as a work of genius, and comparing it to a Beethoven symphony. This review gave the book the lift it needed and it has since never been out of print.
The book appeared to be closely autobiographical (Maugham's stammer is transformed into Philip Carey's club foot, the vicar of Whitstable becomes the vicar of Blackstable, and Philip Carey is a doctor) although Maugham himself insisted it was more invention than fact. Nevertheless, the close relationship between fictional and non-fictional became Maugham's trademark, despite the legal requirement to state that "the characters in [this or that publication] are entirely imaginary". In 1938 he wrote: "Fact and fiction are so intermingled in my work that now, looking back on it, I can hardly distinguish one from the other."
Although Maugham's first and many other sexual relationships were with men, he also had sexual relationships with a number of women. Specifically his affair with Syrie Wellcome, daughter of orphanage founder Thomas John Barnardo and wife of American-born English pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome, produced a daughter named Liza (born Mary Elizabeth Wellcome, 1915–1998). Henry Wellcome then sued his wife for divorce, naming Maugham as co-respondent. In May 1917, following the decree absolute, Syrie and Maugham were married. Syrie became a noted interior decorator who popularized the all-white room in the 1920s.
Maugham returned to England from his ambulance unit duties to promote Of Human Bondage but once that was finalised, he became eager to assist the war effort once more. As he was unable to return to his ambulance unit, Syrie arranged for him to be introduced to a high ranking intelligence officer known only as "R", and in September 1915 he began work in Switzerland, secretly gathering and passing on intelligence while posing as himself — that is, as a writer.
In 1916, Maugham travelled to the Pacific to research his novel The Moon and Sixpence, based on the life of Paul Gauguin. This was the first of those journeys through the late-Imperial world of the 1920s and 1930s which were to establish Maugham forever in the popular imagination as the chronicler of the last days of colonialism in India, Southeast Asia, China and the Pacific, although the books on which this reputation rests represent only a fraction of his output. On this and all subsequent journeys he was accompanied by Haxton, whom he regarded as indispensable to his success as a writer. Maugham himself was painfully shy, and Haxton the extrovert gathered human material that Maugham steadily turned into fiction.
In June, 1917 he was asked by Sir William Wiseman, an officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service (later named MI6), to undertake a special mission in Russia to keep the Provisional Government in power and Russia in the war by countering German pacifist propaganda. Two and a half months later the Bolsheviks took control. The job was probably always impossible, but Maugham subsequently claimed that if he had been able to get there six months earlier, he might have succeeded. Quiet and observant, Maugham had a good temperament for intelligence work; he believed he had inherited from his lawyer father a gift for cool judgement and the ability to be undeceived by facile appearances.
Never losing the chance to turn real life into a story, Maugham made his spying experiences into a collection of short stories about a gentlemanly, sophisticated, aloof spy, Ashenden, a volume that influenced the Ian Fleming James Bond series. In 1922, Maugham dedicated On A Chinese Screen, a book of 58 ultra-short story sketches collected during his 1920 travels through China and Hong Kong, to Syrie, with the intention of later turning the sketches into a book.
Dramatised from a story which first appeared in his collection The Casuarina Tree published in 1924, Maugham's play The Letter, starring Gladys Cooper, had its premiere in London in 1927. Later, he asked that Katharine Cornell play the lead in the 1927 Broadway version. The play was later adapted for film in 1929 and again in 1940. Later, Cornell would play the lead in his comedy, "The Constant Wife in 1951, and was an enormous success.
Syrie and Maugham divorced in 1927–8 after a tempestuous marriage complicated by Maugham's frequent travels abroad and strained by his relationship with Haxton.
In 1928, Maugham bought Villa Mauresque on 12 acres (49,000 m2) at Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera, which was his home for most of the rest of his life, and one of the great literary and social salons of the 1920s and 30s. His output continued to be prodigious, including plays, short stories, novels, essays and travel books. By 1940, when the collapse of France forced Maugham to leave the French Riviera and become a well-heeled refugee, he was already one of the most famous and wealthiest writers in the English-speaking world.
Grand old man of letters
Maugham, by now in his sixties, spent most of World War II in the United States, first in Hollywood (he worked on many scripts, and was one of the first authors to make significant money from film adaptations) and later in the South. While in the US he was asked by the British government to make patriotic speeches to induce the US to aid Britain, if not necessarily become an allied combatant. Gerald Haxton died in 1944, and Maugham moved back to England, then in 1946 to his villa in France, where he lived, interrupted by frequent and long travels, until his death.
The gap left by Haxton's death in 1944 was filled by Alan Searle. Maugham had first met Searle in 1928. Searle was a young man from the London slum area of Bermondsey and he had already been kept by older men. He proved a devoted if not a stimulating companion. Indeed one of Maugham's friends, describing the difference between Haxton and Searle, said simply: "Gerald was vintage, Alan was vin ordinaire."
Maugham's love life was almost never smooth. He once confessed: "I have most loved people who cared little or nothing for me and when people have loved me I have been embarrassed... In order not to hurt their feelings, I have often acted a passion I did not feel."
In 1962 he sold a collection of paintings, some of which had been assigned to his daughter Liza by deed. She sued her father and won a judgment of £230,000. Maugham responded by publicly disowning her and claiming she was not his biological daughter; adopting Searle as his son and heir; and launching a bitter attack on the deceased Syrie in his 1962 volume of memoirs, Looking Back, in which Liza discovered she had been born before her parents' marriage. The memoirs lost him several friends and exposed him to much public ridicule. Liza and her husband Lord Glendevon contested the change in Maugham's will in the French courts, and it was overturned. Nevertheless, in 1965 Searle inherited £50,000, the contents of Villa Mauresque, and Maugham's manuscripts and copyrights for 30 years. Thereafter the copyrights passed to the Royal Literary Fund.
There is no grave for Maugham. His ashes were scattered near the Maugham Library, The King's School, Canterbury. Liza, Lady Glendevon, died aged 83 in 1998, survived by Somerset Maugham's four grandchildren (a son and a daughter by Liza's first marriage to Vincent Paravicini, and two more sons to Lord Glendevon). One of the next generation is autistic savant and musical prodigy Derek Paravicini.
Achievements
Commercial success with high book sales, successful theatre productions and a string of film adaptations, backed by astute stock market investments, allowed Maugham to live a very comfortable life. Small and weak as a boy, Maugham had been proud even then of his stamina, and as an adult he kept churning out the books, proud that he could. Yet, despite his triumphs, he never attracted the highest respect from the critics or his peers. Maugham himself attributed this to his lack of "lyrical quality", his small vocabulary and failure to make expert use of metaphor in his work. (In 1934 the American journalist and radio personality Alexander Woollcott offered to Maugham this bit of language advice: “The female implies, and from that the male infers.” Maugham: “I am not yet too old to learn.”)
Maugham wrote in a time when experimental modernist literature such as that of William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf was gaining increasing popularity and winning critical acclaim. In this context, his plain prose style was criticized as "such a tissue of clichés that one's wonder is finally aroused at the writer's ability to assemble so many and at his unfailing inability to put anything in an individual way".
For a public man of Maugham's generation, being openly gay was impossible. Whether his own orientation disgusted him (as it did many at a time when homosexuality was widely considered indefensible as well as illegal) or whether he merely took a stance to cover himself, Maugham wrote disparagingly of the gay artist. In "Don Fernando", a non-fiction volume about his years living in Spain, Maugham pondered a (perhaps fanciful) suggestion that the painter El Greco was homosexual: "It cannot be denied that the homosexual has a narrower outlook on the world than the normal man. In certain respects the natural responses of the species are denied to him. Some at least of the broad and typical human emotions he can never experience. However subtly he sees life he cannot see it whole... I cannot now help asking myself whether what I see in El Greco's work of tortured fantasy and sinister strangeness is not due to such a sexual abnormality as this".
But Maugham's homosexual leanings did shape his fiction, in two ways. Since, in life, he tended to see attractive women as sexual rivals, he often gave the women of his fiction sexual needs and appetites, in a way quite unusual for authors of his time. Liza of Lambeth, Cakes and Ale and The Razor's Edge all featured women determined to service their strong sexual appetites, heedless of the result. Also, the fact that Maugham's own sexual appetites were highly disapproved of, or even criminal, in nearly all of the countries in which he travelled, made Maugham unusually tolerant of the vices of others. Readers and critics often complained that Maugham did not clearly enough condemn what was bad in the villains of his fiction and plays. Maugham replied in 1938: "It must be a fault in me that I am not gravely shocked at the sins of others unless they personally affect me."
Maugham's public view of his abilities remained modest; towards the end of his career he described himself as "in the very first row of the second-raters". In 1954, he was made a Companion of Honour.
Maugham had begun collecting theatrical paintings before the First World War and continued to the point where his collection was second only to that of the Garrick Club. In 1948 he announced that he would bequeath this collection to the Trustees of the National Theatre, and from 1951, some 14 years before his death, his paintings began their exhibition life. In 1994 they were placed on loan to the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden.
Significant works
Maugham's masterpiece is generally agreed to be Of Human Bondage, a semi-autobiographical novel that deals with the life of the main character Philip Carey, who, like Maugham, was orphaned, and brought up by his pious uncle. Philip's clubfoot causes him endless self-consciousness and embarrassment, echoing Maugham's struggles with his stutter. Later successful novels were also based on real-life characters: The Moon and Sixpence fictionalizes the life of Paul Gauguin; and Cakes and Ale contains thinly veiled characterizations of authors Thomas Hardy and Hugh Walpole. Maugham's last major novel, The Razor's Edge, published in 1944, was a departure for him in many ways. While much of the novel takes place in Europe, its main characters are American, not British. The protagonist is a disillusioned veteran of World War I who abandons his wealthy friends and lifestyle, travelling to India seeking enlightenment. The story's themes of Eastern mysticism and war-weariness struck a chord with readers as World War II waned, and a movie adaptation quickly followed.
Among his short stories, some of the most memorable are those dealing with the lives of Western, mostly British, colonists in the Far East, and are typically concerned with the emotional toll exacted on the colonists by their isolation. Some of his more outstanding works in this genre include "Rain", "Footprints in the Jungle", and "The Outstation". "Rain", in particular, which charts the moral disintegration of a missionary attempting to convert the Pacific island prostitute Sadie Thompson, has kept its fame and been made into a movie several times. Maugham said that many of his short stories presented themselves to him in the stories he heard during his travels in the outposts of the Empire. He left behind a long string of angry former hosts, and a contemporary anti-Maugham writer retraced his footsteps and wrote a record of his journeys called "Gin And Bitters." Maugham's restrained prose allows him to explore the resulting tensions and passions without appearing melodramatic. His The Magician (1908) is based on British occultist Aleister Crowley.
Maugham was one of the most significant travel writers of the inter-war years, and can be compared with contemporaries such as Evelyn Waugh and Freya Stark. His best efforts in this line include The Gentleman in the Parlour, dealing with a journey through Burma, Siam, Cambodia and Vietnam, and On a Chinese Screen, a series of very brief vignettes which might almost be notes for short stories that were never written.
Influenced by the published journals of the French writer Jules Renard, which Maugham had often enjoyed for their conscientiousness, wisdom and wit, Maugham published selections from his own journals under the title A Writer's Notebook in 1949. Although these journal selections are, by nature, episodic and of varying quality, they range over more than 50 years of the writer's life and contain much that Maugham scholars and admirers find of interest.
Influence
In 1947, Maugham instituted the Somerset Maugham Award, awarded to the best British writer or writers under the age of thirty-five of a work of fiction published in the past year. Notable winners include V. S. Naipaul, Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis and Thom Gunn. On his death, Maugham donated his copyrights to the Royal Literary Fund.
One of very few later writers to praise his influence was Anthony Burgess, who included a complex fictional portrait of Maugham in the novel Earthly Powers. George Orwell also stated that Maugham was "the modern writer who has influenced me the most". The American writer Paul Theroux, in his short story collection The Consul's File, updated Maugham's colonial world in an outstation of expatriates in modern Malaysia. Holden Caulfield, in J. D. Salinger's 1951 The Catcher in the Rye, mentions that although he read Of Human Bondage the previous summer and liked it, he wouldn't want to call Maugham up on the phone.
Portraits of Maugham
There are many portraits of Somerset Maugham, including that by Graham Sutherland in the Tate Gallery and several by Sir Gerald Kelly. Sutherland's portrait was included in Painting the Century 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900-2000 at the National Portrait Gallery.
Bibliography
Main article: W. Somerset Maugham bibliography
Film adaptations
* The Circle (1925) Directed by Frank Borzage, based on the 1921 play of the same name.
* The Magician (1926) Based on the 1908 novel of the same name.
* Sadie Thompson (1928), a silent movie starring Gloria Swanson and Lionel Barrymore. Based on the short story "Miss Thompson", which was later retitled "Rain".
* The Letter (1929) featuring Jeanne Eagels, O. P. Heggie, Reginald Owen and Herbert Marshall. Based on the play of the same name.
* Rain (1932), the first sound version of the story, with Joan Crawford and Walter Huston.
* Of Human Bondage (1934) starring Leslie Howard and Bette Davis. Based on the book of the same name.
* The Painted Veil (1934) featuring Greta Garbo and Herbert Marshall. Based on the novel of the same name.
* Secret Agent (1936) with John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, and Robert Young, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Based on Ashenden.
* The Vessel of Wrath (1938) starring Charles Laughton; released in the USA as The Beachcomber. Based on the novella of the same name.
* The Letter (1940) featuring Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson, Frieda Inescort and Gale Sondergaard. Based on the play of the same name.
* Too Many Husbands (1940) featuring Jean Arthur, Fred MacMurray, and Melvyn Douglas. Based on the play "Home and Beauty".
* The Moon and Sixpence (1942) with George Sanders. Based on the novella of the same name.
* Christmas Holiday (1944) starring Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly, based on the novel of the same name.
* The Hour Before The Dawn (1944) starring Veronica Lake, based on the novel of the same name.
* Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A.(1946). Unauthorized film version of "Miss Thompson" with an all-black cast, directed by Spencer Williams.
* The Razor's Edge (1946) featuring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney. Based on the book of the same name.
* Of Human Bondage (1946) version starring Eleanor Parker.
* Quartet (1948) Maugham appears as himself in introductions. Based on four of his short stories.
* Trio (1950) Maugham appears as himself in introductions. Another collection based on short stories.
* Encore (1951) Maugham appears as himself in introductions. A third collection of Maugham short stories.
* Miss Sadie Thompson (1953), a semi-musical version in 3-D, featuring Rita Hayworth and José Ferrer.
* The Seventh Sin (1957) with Eleanor Parker. Based on the novel The Painted Veil.
* The Beachcomber (1958). Based on the novella The Vessel of Wrath; not to be confused with the 1938 film.
* Julia, Du bist zauberhaft (1962) starring Lilli Palmer and Charles Boyer. Based on the novel Theatre.
* Of Human Bondage (1964) with Laurence Harvey and Kim Novak.
* The Letter (1969) starring Eileen Atkins. Based on play of the same name. (made for television)
* The Theatre (1978) starring Vija Artmane. Based on play of the same name.
* The Letter (1982) featuring Lee Remick, Jack Thompson and Ronald Pickup. Based on play of the same name. (Made for Television)
* The Razor's Edge (1984) with Bill Murray. Based on the novel by the same name.
* Up at the Villa (2000) starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Sean Penn, directed by Philip Haas. Based on the novella of the same name.
* Being Julia (2004) featuring Annette Bening. Based on the novel Theatre.
* The Painted Veil (2006) with Naomi Watts and Edward Norton. Based on the novel of the same name.
Michael Maglaras has begun shooting a documentary film about Maugham in France...scheduled for release in 2011