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61st out of 312 books
—
310 voters
Cakes and Ale
Cakes and Ale is a delicious satire of London literary society between the Wars. Social climber Alroy Kear is flattered when he is selected by Edward Driffield's wife to pen the official biography of her lionized novelist husband, and determined to write a bestseller. But then Kear discovers the great novelist's voluptuous muse (and unlikely first wife), Rosie. The lively,...more
Paperback, 308 pages
Published
December 5th 2000
by Vintage
(first published 1930)
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Random reading. I wanted to read Maugham and I chose this one for no particular reason. I was almost tempted to put the book back on the shelf because of the uninspired Romanian translation - Life's pleasures - which sounds totally cheap, but I congratulate myself for checking the English title; at least it sounds interesting :)
I like a good satire every now and then. And this one was absolutely delicious. English society, mannerism, a writer's life, all these covered in witty, sharp and ironica...more
I like a good satire every now and then. And this one was absolutely delicious. English society, mannerism, a writer's life, all these covered in witty, sharp and ironica...more
Mar 08, 2010
K.D. Oliveros
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to K.D. by:
501 Must Read Books, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
Cakes and Ale: or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard is a light but fascinating read. The story is about Rosie Driffield, the sexually-liberated first wife of the British author, Edward Driffield. What made this novel controversial during its first publication in 1930, was that people said that the character of Edward Driffield is actually the novelist Thomas Hardy (Far From the Madding Crowd, Tess of the d'Ubervilles, Jude the Obscure, etc). So what? Answer: Rosie Driffield had an affair with the na...more
"One of the difficulties that a man has to cope with as he goes through life is what to do about the persons with whom he has once been intimate, and whose interest for him has in due course subsided."I Would Go Out Tonight, But I Haven't Got A Stitch To Wear.
At its heart, the main emphasis of Cakes And Ale is a first-love/ older-woman story in the vein of Flaubert's Sentimental Education. But that's the innermost layer of narrative in a structure built up inside brackets and frames, and storie...more
I have read lots of books I've loved, but few have had the influence "The Razor's Edge" has had on me. W. Somerset Maugham really struck me and I've returned to Larry Darrell a half dozen times - like an old friend. I've also enjoyed Maugham's short stories and the movie adaptation of The Painted Veil. So, his work is always on my list of books to read. I picked up "Of Human Bondage" and "Cakes and Ale". "Cakes and Ale" being a shorter book, I thought I'd knock it out before beginning the larger...more
Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham is an excellent novel about novel writing and about how life interacts with novel writing and how humans interact with each other. The narrator, Willie Ashenden is a novelist with strong, sometimes hilarious opinions about his colleagues. In the opening chapter, he describes the successful novelist Alroy Kear in seemingly kind terms, but the kindness has a bite to it.[return][return]Much of Cakes and Ale is made up of Ashenden� s memories of the esteemed nove...more
The last sentence on the back of the Penguin Classic jacket cover of this book reads, "A controversial novel when it was published, Cakes and Ale brings us a heroine so sensual and modern that she's still able to raise an eyebrow today." Unfortunately, the reader doesn't get to the sensual, controversial part of the novel until over 200 pages into it. The rest of the book is about a writer writing in England. It is well done but I would only recommend it to those, like myself, who are Anglophile...more
Maugham is the perfect summer holiday read. As the back of my '63 edition declares, most accurately, "Of all Somerset Maugham's novels Cakes and Ale is the gayest."
Light, rude, witty and snobbish; I put it right up there with his collections of short stories.
Here's my favorite passage:
"The wise always use a number of ready-made phrases (at the moment I write 'nobody's business' is the most common), popular adjectives (like 'divine' or 'shy-making'), verbs that you only know the meaning of if you...more
Light, rude, witty and snobbish; I put it right up there with his collections of short stories.
Here's my favorite passage:
"The wise always use a number of ready-made phrases (at the moment I write 'nobody's business' is the most common), popular adjectives (like 'divine' or 'shy-making'), verbs that you only know the meaning of if you...more
I love books about sluts. And Rosie Driffield was a big ol' slut. Everyone who knows Rosie loves her. Everyone that doesn't know her hates her. She's a former barmaid and very much known for her promiscuity. Rosie slept with nearly every man that she met if she took the slightest liking to him, and she didn't feel even remotely bad about it. When Willie Ashenden was a boy, Rosie and her husband Edward befriended him. Many years later, he is asked to give his own personal recollections of Mr. Dri...more
Somerset Maugham writes real life like no one else. His characters are not heroes or villains, they are full of the maddening contradictions of real people. In Cakes and Ale, he lays bare the literary profession, the origins of the so-called greats and how a place in posterity is really created.
Edward Driffield, a writer and his pathologically unfaithful wife, Rosie form the axis around which this revealing tale and its varied characters spin. Ashenden is the wry, cynical narrator who knew the...more
Edward Driffield, a writer and his pathologically unfaithful wife, Rosie form the axis around which this revealing tale and its varied characters spin. Ashenden is the wry, cynical narrator who knew the...more
The thing about Maugham is at the turn of the 20th century he was considered one of the English Languages best author's; but that reputation has since eroded as far a acadamiea are concerned. I first disocvered him at a college bookstore where the novel, "the Moon and Sixpence" was required reading and subsequently sold. A love affair was born at 16 years of age with his works and that relationship has been a true companion in good standing to this day at the approaching age of 44. Cakes and Ale...more
This book convinced me of one thing: Maugham is a superlative short-story writer, not-so-superlative a novelist. `Cakes and Ale' is about a woman who has sex with everyone who asks her and, well, that's pretty much it.Obviously, the intention is to portray her as a woman beyond the petty strictures of bourgeois society, but it doesn't really work. She is never allowed to develop a personality beyond that of someone-who-has-sex-whenever-she-wants. Still,being the writer he is, Maugham manages to...more
I read this book for for the Slaves of Golconda bookclub. Written in 1930, it is narrated by the midlist writer William Ashenden.
As a young man in the 1890's, Ashenden knew the British literary icon, Edward Driffield (ostensibly based on Thomas Hardy, which Maugham denied). At that time Driffield was a little known working class writer married to Rosie, an earthy sexually promiscuous woman. Later in life, Driffield rose to fame and acclaim and a second wife. Now, after Driffield's death and bein...more
As a young man in the 1890's, Ashenden knew the British literary icon, Edward Driffield (ostensibly based on Thomas Hardy, which Maugham denied). At that time Driffield was a little known working class writer married to Rosie, an earthy sexually promiscuous woman. Later in life, Driffield rose to fame and acclaim and a second wife. Now, after Driffield's death and bein...more
If you take "Daisy Miller," double the length, and fast forward 30 or so years historically, you basically have this novel by Maugham. "Cakes and Ale" is more explicit in it's discussion of sexuality and infidelity (as frank as an author could be in 1930 and still be considered respectable), but the basic context is the same...a character study of a young woman (though Rosie is significantly older and more worldly than Daisy) who flounts society mores for her own salacious benefits. That may be...more
Dec 14, 2009
Alexander Arsov
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
maugham-novels
W. Somerset Maugham
Cakes and Ale
Modern Library, Hardback, 1950.
12mo. xii, 272 pp. With a special introduction for this edition by Mr. Maugham [v-xii:].
First published by Heinemann in 1930.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This 1950 Modern Library Edition of Maugham's Cakes and Ale is remarkable and has acquired something of a legendary status because of its famous introduction. Written by Maugham himself, as usual with his books, the preface is just...more
Cakes and Ale
Modern Library, Hardback, 1950.
12mo. xii, 272 pp. With a special introduction for this edition by Mr. Maugham [v-xii:].
First published by Heinemann in 1930.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This 1950 Modern Library Edition of Maugham's Cakes and Ale is remarkable and has acquired something of a legendary status because of its famous introduction. Written by Maugham himself, as usual with his books, the preface is just...more
This book was a pure delight. Maugham is such an interesting writer and although he did not think himself a great writer, I believe he does have his moments of greatness. I loved Of Human Bondage and this one again uses material from his own life yet again – particularly stuff to do with his childhood spent with his vicar uncle and his aunt in the country.
The book starts off with a bit of a pattern to it. The book is written in first person singular – we will talk a bit more about that later –...more
The book starts off with a bit of a pattern to it. The book is written in first person singular – we will talk a bit more about that later –...more
Maugham's novel is about writers and the English class system and particularly it's about the responses of the moderns to the Victorians, in particular to Edward Driffield, a character based on Thomas Hardy. Driffield becomes known as one the greatest novelists of the age, and the novel moves back and forth between the narrator's reminiscences of him and, rather more so, of his first wife, who he knew in his youth. The narrator has a dry sense of humor, and besides the second-rate literary lions...more
I was given this book by a girl I dated a couple of times last year. On our second meeting she brought it along and dropped it into my lap with a casual “I think you’ll like this”. It was a bit of a surprise, as I don’t recall us having any particularly literary conversation the first time we met – and I’m certain that we never discussed Somerset Maugham. Nothing lasting developed between myself and this young lady, but I am thinking of getting in touch with her again to thank her once more – as...more
I am a Thomas Hardy fangirl. I've read everything he's ever written, save for his last two poetry collections that are currently out of print. So when I heard that a character in this book was based on him, naturally I had to read it.
The similarities are there: the last great Victorian novelist, a realist censored for his plots. Two marriages, the second to a woman who functioned as his secretary and an interest in architecture. All well and good right? Except that the book's not really about Ed...more
The similarities are there: the last great Victorian novelist, a realist censored for his plots. Two marriages, the second to a woman who functioned as his secretary and an interest in architecture. All well and good right? Except that the book's not really about Ed...more
Oct 03, 2012
Gloria
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommended to Gloria by:
sonoma co. library classics bk club
This book deals with the differences & attitudes of classes about 40 years after the Victorian period. The narrator is fascinated with Rosie, Driffield's 1st wife who was scandalous.
Cakes and Ale
by W. Somerset Maugham
3.70 · rating details · 1,772 ratings · 144 reviews
Cakes and Ale is a delicious satire of London literary society between the Wars. Social climber Alroy Kear is flattered when he is selected by Edward Driffield's wife to pen the official biography of her lionized novelist husb...more
Cakes and Ale
by W. Somerset Maugham
3.70 · rating details · 1,772 ratings · 144 reviews
Cakes and Ale is a delicious satire of London literary society between the Wars. Social climber Alroy Kear is flattered when he is selected by Edward Driffield's wife to pen the official biography of her lionized novelist husb...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This is a classic that I had never read, but that was recommended in the book, Book Ends, which I finished recently. It also counts toward my 1001 Books to Read Before You Die challenge. It took about half the book to really get into it. In the first half I was a bit put off by the biting wit that seemed mean-spirited, about some of the writer characters. However the delving of the main character into his past and a woman that he knew in his youth, the wife of a famous writer, made the book come...more
May 30, 2012
Stephen Hayes
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction-general,
our-books
Alroy Kear has been asked by the widow of Edward Driffield to write her late husband's biography, and he asks the narrator, fellow writer Willie Ashenden, for some information about obscure parts of Driffield's life that Ashenden knew something about. But Kear also makes it clear that he plans to censor any stories, since it was well known that Driffield's first wife was unfaithful to him.
The request sparks of Ashenden's own reminiscences of Driffield and his first wife Rosie, and the story jum...more
The request sparks of Ashenden's own reminiscences of Driffield and his first wife Rosie, and the story jum...more
Somerset Maugham wrote Cakes and Ale in 1931 about English writers and literature in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The title represents what the English cherished, an emblem of the good life going back as far as Aesop and Shakespeare. Maugham had hoped that he would be best remembered for this particular work. However, today we remember The Razor’s Edge.
He writes in first person about his life in the literary world remembered when he was asked to help with a biography of another famous auth...more
He writes in first person about his life in the literary world remembered when he was asked to help with a biography of another famous auth...more
Mar 22, 2013
Wayne
rated it
1 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
one learns much from a failure
Recommended to Wayne by:
Maughams's wonderful short stories...this is not a short story,alas!!
Oh,dear !!! Willie, oh dearie me!!!!
There is something so so dated about this novel.
OR is it just the embarrassment of something badly written.
Just as there was with "The Moon and Sixpence".
That at least hung together.
I've heard that this novel is about a new wife attempting to make sure that in her famous dead husband's biography the former wife will be hopefully deleted.
That is certainly there.
But so are several other strands.
Maugham says the novel is about a writer's lot.
Elsewhere he says...more
There is something so so dated about this novel.
OR is it just the embarrassment of something badly written.
Just as there was with "The Moon and Sixpence".
That at least hung together.
I've heard that this novel is about a new wife attempting to make sure that in her famous dead husband's biography the former wife will be hopefully deleted.
That is certainly there.
But so are several other strands.
Maugham says the novel is about a writer's lot.
Elsewhere he says...more
William Ashenden knew the author Edward Driffield and his wife Rosie before Driffield became a literary lion. Now Driffield's biographer and Driffield's second wife ask him to share his memories of the author and Rosie in their earlier days. A very clever, acutely observed look at authors, literary society, the British class system of the time and the limitations of biography. I loved it. Interestingly enough, the character of the biographer Alroy Kear is supposed to be based on the author Hugh...more
The first Maugham I read was "The Painted Veil". After the seriousness of "Veil", I was happy to read something lighter from this writer. While I use the word light to describe it, this is not to say that it is without depth. In fact, it is that very lightness that Maugham acheives depth, much like his heroine Rosie. In this novel, the nicer a description of someone, the less flattering it is to them. Like many of the great English satirists, Maugham can be devistatingly viscious in his portraya...more
Jul 26, 2011
John Harder
added it
I love Somerset Maugham (platonically of course, as Maugham was a poof of the first caliber). Cakes and Ale however fell short of my expectations. No one can develop a character better than Maugham, but I never felt the penetration (stop giggling, you know what I mean) that I experienced with The Razor’s Edge, The Magician or Of Human Bondage.
The narrator of the novel, William Ashenden, is called upon to provide background information for a biography of Edward Driffield, a noted literary figure...more
The narrator of the novel, William Ashenden, is called upon to provide background information for a biography of Edward Driffield, a noted literary figure...more
Cakes and Ale is a witty (and sometime malicious) take on the London literary circle in 1930s. I found this book by chance in a friend's place in a pile of books he was discarding. Since I hadn't read any book by Maugham, I took this.
Maugham is a master of wit and sarcasm. His portrait of Edward Driffield (said to be modeled after Thomas Hardy) and Driffield's anointment as the last great Victorian novelist is a delightful read. The narrator is surprisingly sentimental about Driffield's first w...more
Maugham is a master of wit and sarcasm. His portrait of Edward Driffield (said to be modeled after Thomas Hardy) and Driffield's anointment as the last great Victorian novelist is a delightful read. The narrator is surprisingly sentimental about Driffield's first w...more
This was a scandalous book in its day, not because of the plot - which is sexy as hell - but because Maugham based one character on the revered English writer Thomas Hardy, and another character on one of his best friends Hugh Walpole - and both portrayals were really lethal and catty. This is a book where there are essentially two plots woven together in time and space, connected by a narrator in the present who is remembering the past. Roy Kear, a respected, dull, but socially ambitious writer...more
Okay. This is W. Somerset Maugham's version of "Breakfast at Tiffany's," written about thirty years earlier than Truman Capote's version and set at least thirty years before that. Like "Breakfast at Tiffany's," it is narrated by a writer with a crush on a woman who may or may not be sexually available to him, it skewers the accepted "bourgeois" norms and values of the author's milieu, and most of the action is centered around a blonde, buxom girl (Rosie Gann in Maugham's version, Holly Golightly...more
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William Somerset Maugham was born in Paris in 1874. He spoke French even before he spoke a word of English, a fact to which some critics attribute the purity of his style.
His parents died early and, after an unhappy boyhood, which he recorded poignantly in 'Of Human Bondage' , Maugham became a qualified physician. But writing was his true vocation. For ten years before his first success, he alm...more
More about W. Somerset Maugham...
His parents died early and, after an unhappy boyhood, which he recorded poignantly in 'Of Human Bondage' , Maugham became a qualified physician. But writing was his true vocation. For ten years before his first success, he alm...more
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“It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.”
—
76 people liked it
“It must be that there is something naturally absurd in a sincere emotion, though why there should be I cannot imagine, unless it is that man, the ephemeral inhabitant of an insignificant planet, with all his pain and all his striving is but a jest in an eternal mind. ”
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Nov 14, 2008 02:26pm