I read this 1944 book by W. Somerset Maugham because it was listed as funny. I’m not sure it’s the funniest book I’ve read but it has its charms — mostly in the characters and Maugham’s delightful writing. OTOH, it is dated in the its sexist tropes.
The plot is set in 1930s Europe, as four Americans discover themselves: Elliot the would-be nobleman, Larry the ex-flyer and semi-sadhu, and Isabel and Gray, a couple united by their desire for “the good life.” Maugham himself narrates.
Here are some witty bits:
L: I’ve been reading a good deal. Eight or ten hours a day. I’ve attended lectures at the Sorbonne. I think I’ve read everything that’s important in French literature and I can read Latin, at least Latin prose, almost as easily as I can read French. Of course Greek’s more difficult. But I have a very good teacher. Until you came here I used to go to him three evenings a week.” M: “And what is that going to lead to?” L: “The acquisition of knowledge,’ he smiled. M: “It doesn’t sound very practical.”
I: Of course I want to travel. But not like that. I don’t want to travel second-class on steamships and put up at third-rate hotels, without a bathroom, and eat at cheap restaurants.” L: “I went all through Italy last October like that. I had a wonderful time. We could travel all over the world on three thousand a year.” I: “But I want to have babies, Larry.” L: “That’s all right. We’ll take them along with us.”
M: Sometimes he was obviously so far from well that I asked him why he didn’t take things more easily. E: “My dear fellow, at my age one can’t afford to fall out. You don’t think that I’ve moved in the highest circles for nearly fifty years without realizing that if you’re not seen everywhere you’re forgotten.” M: I wondered if he realized what a lamentable confession he was then making. I had not the heart to laugh at Elliott any more; he seemed to me a profoundly pathetic object Society was what he lived for, a party was the breath of his nostrils, not to be asked to one was an affront, to be alone was a mortification; and, an old man now, he was desperately afraid.
M: He [Elliot] was dead. I lit the lamp by his bedside and looked at him. His jaw had fallen. His eyes were open and before dosing them I stared into them for a minute. I was moved and I think a few tears trickled down my cheeks. An old, kind friend. It made me sad to think how silly, useless and trivial his life had been. It mattered very little now that he had gone to so many parties and had hobnobbed with all those princes, dukes and counts. They had forgotten him already.
M: “And are you under the impression that America is a suitable place to practise the particular virtues you mentioned?” L: “I don’t see why not. You Europeans know nothing about America. Because we amass large fortunes you think we care for nothing but money. We care nothing for it; the moment we have it we spend it, sometimes well sometimes ill, but we spend it. Money is nothing to us; it’s merely the symbol of success. We are the greatest idealists in the world; I happen to think that we’ve set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.”
L: “I know. One must adapt oneself to one’s environment and of course I’d work. When I get to America I shall try to get a job in a garage. I’m a pretty good mechanic and I don’t think it ought to be difficult.” M: “Wouldn’t you then be wasting energy that might be more usefully employed in other ways?” L: “I like manual labour. Whenever I’ve got waterlogged with study I’ve taken a spell of it and found it spiritually invigorating. I remember reading a biography of Spinoza and thinking how silly the author was to look upon it as a terrible hardship that in order to earn his scanty living Spinoza had to polish lenses. I’m sure it was a help to his intellectual activity, if only because it diverted his attention for a while from the hard work of speculation. My mind is free when I’m washing a car or tinkering with a carburettor and when the job’s done I have the pleasant sensation of having accomplished something. Naturally I wouldn’t want to stay in a garage indefinitely. It’s many years since I was in America and I must learn it afresh. I shall try to get work as a truck driver. In that way I should be able to travel from end to end of the country.
Suzanne: And then there is my daughter to think of. She is now sixteen and promises to be as beautiful as her father. I have given her a good education. But it is no good denying facts that stare you in the face; she has neither the talent to be an actress nor the temperament to be a whore like her poor mother; I ask you then, what has she to look forward to? A secretaryship or a job in the post office. Monsieur Achille has very generously agreed that she should live with us and has promised to give her a handsome dowry so that she can make a good marriage. Believe me, my dear friend, people can say what they like, but marriage still remains the most satisfactory profession a woman can adopt.
I give this book FOUR stars for its place in the literature of the era (similar to Great Gatsby)