The Moon and Sixpence (Vintage International) (Dover Value Editions) (The collected edition of the works of W. Somerset Maugham)

by W Somerset Maugham

Inspired by the life of noted French painter Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence is the story of a rebellious stockbroker. Driven by passion, he decides to abandon civilization and convention in order to pursue his destiny as a painter in the South Pacific. In Charles Strickland, the main character, Maugham gives the reader a penetrating and fascinating study in personality with a savage truthfulness and an icy contempt for heroics and sentimentality.

• ISBN10: 1484912209
• ISBN13: 9781484912201
• Publish Date: 9 May 2013 (first published 1 January 1970)
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Createspace
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 182
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

Someone would have had to physically pry this book out of my clutches last night to get me to eat dinner. Finished it in five hours flat without intending anything of the sort. I couldn’t put it down. I know I say this a lot but Maugham, goddamn.

“But who can fathom the subtleties of the human heart? Certainly not those who expect from it only decorous sentiments and normal emotions.”

And this:

I remember saying to him: “Look here, if everyone acted like you, the world couldn’t go on.”

“That’s a damned silly thing to say. Everyone doesn’t want to act like me. The great majority are perfectly content to do the ordinary thing.”

And once I sought to be satirical.

“You evidently don’t believe in the maxim: Act so that every one of your actions is capable of being made into a universal rule.”

“I never heard it before, but it’s rotten nonsense.”

“Well, it was Kant who said it.”

“I don’t care; it’s rotten nonsense.”