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Сборник "экзотических" рассказов Сомерсета Моэма о необычных людях, необычных местах и необычных событиях, которые никак не могли бы произойти в скучной и чопорной Англии 1930-х годов.
Герои этих рассказов пытаются сохранить в далеких от цивилизации странах родные им нравы и обычаи, - но неизменно терпят поражение, оказываясь в плену изменившихся обстоятельств...
Герои этих рассказов пытаются сохранить в далеких от цивилизации странах родные им нравы и обычаи, - но неизменно терпят поражение, оказываясь в плену изменившихся обстоятельств...
- GenresShort Stories
192 pages, Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 2010
43 people want to read
About the author
W. Somerset Maugham
2,125 books6,133 followersWilliam 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 almost literally starved while pouring out novels and plays.
Maugham wrote at 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.
During World War I, Maugham worked for the British Secret Service . He travelled all over the world, and made many visits to America. After World War II, Maugham made his home in south of France and continued to move between England and Nice till his death in 1965.
At the time of Maugham's birth, French law was such that all foreign boys born in France became liable for conscription. Thus, Maugham was born within the Embassy, legally recognized as UK territory.
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 almost literally starved while pouring out novels and plays.
Maugham wrote at 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.
During World War I, Maugham worked for the British Secret Service . He travelled all over the world, and made many visits to America. After World War II, Maugham made his home in south of France and continued to move between England and Nice till his death in 1965.
At the time of Maugham's birth, French law was such that all foreign boys born in France became liable for conscription. Thus, Maugham was born within the Embassy, legally recognized as UK territory.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 28, 2023
A gripping sad story and the author's short study of the unhealthy addictive relationship and its causes. What profound knowledge of the psychology of a vulnerable and traumatised personality.
On addiction to books (and many of us can recognise themselves here):
'Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent nor praiseworthy. Of that lamentable company am I. Conversation after a time bores me, games tire me, and my own thoughts, which we are told are the unfailing resource of a sensible man, have a tendency to run dry. Then I fly to my book as the opium–smoker to his pipe. I would sooner read the catalogue of the Army and Navy Stores or Bradshaw’s Guide than nothing at all, and indeed I have spent many delightful hours over both these works. At one time I never went out without a second–hand bookseller’s list in my pocket. I know no reading more fruity. Of course to read in this way
is as reprehensible as doping, and I never cease to wonder at the impertinence of great readers who, because they are such, look down on the illiterate. From the standpoint of what eternity is it better to have read a thousand books than to have ploughed a million furrows? Let us admit that reading with us is just a drug that we cannot do without–who of this band does not know the restlessness that attacks him when he has been severed from reading too long, the apprehension and irritability, and the sigh of relief which the sight of a printed page extracts from him?–and so let us be no more vainglorious than the poor slaves of the hypodermic needle or the pint–pot.'
On addiction to books (and many of us can recognise themselves here):
'Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent nor praiseworthy. Of that lamentable company am I. Conversation after a time bores me, games tire me, and my own thoughts, which we are told are the unfailing resource of a sensible man, have a tendency to run dry. Then I fly to my book as the opium–smoker to his pipe. I would sooner read the catalogue of the Army and Navy Stores or Bradshaw’s Guide than nothing at all, and indeed I have spent many delightful hours over both these works. At one time I never went out without a second–hand bookseller’s list in my pocket. I know no reading more fruity. Of course to read in this way
is as reprehensible as doping, and I never cease to wonder at the impertinence of great readers who, because they are such, look down on the illiterate. From the standpoint of what eternity is it better to have read a thousand books than to have ploughed a million furrows? Let us admit that reading with us is just a drug that we cannot do without–who of this band does not know the restlessness that attacks him when he has been severed from reading too long, the apprehension and irritability, and the sigh of relief which the sight of a printed page extracts from him?–and so let us be no more vainglorious than the poor slaves of the hypodermic needle or the pint–pot.'
June 20, 2025
The Book Bag by Somerset Maugham – he is one of my favorite writers, author of The Ant and The Grasshopper https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... and other mesmerizing tales
10 out of 10
There is a warning sign in this short story, The Book Bag has in fact one rather incestuous – probably platonic, but still, quite bizarre – relationship, and the one aspect that interests me more, would refer to reading and books, putting the Umberto Eco quote in perspective “The person who doesn’t read lives only one life. The reader lives 5,000. Reading is immortality backwards.” But Maugham brings something else to the game
"Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent or praiseworthy…’ the narrator is of the latter category, and I presume that there is a habit that I have formed as well, and here we have the Talmud:
“Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” And that would make a good habit, helping character, immortality (according to Eco), if reading the magnum opera
As for The Book Bag, the introduction gives readers the background, the narrator who has found himself in some places where he had nothing to read with him, ergo he found entertainment in something like the phone book (not really, but an item equally lackluster) and since, he started carrying this Book Bag along
In Tengarrah, on the island of Java, the host borrows the biography of Lord Byron, and that sparks a dialogue about the connection that the poet had with his half-sister, the one he seems to have loved most, and then we move on to Tim Hardy, they have played cards with him, and he has a story we need to hear
He lived in seclusion, except for his sister, Olive Hardy, and the two of them were so happy with their own company that it seemed strange – and with the hindsight readers have and a spoiler alert, it was more than just bizarre and awkward – and Mark Featherstone, the one telling our narrator the story, was a visitor there
So, we have a narrator for the narrator, Featherstone becomes infatuated with Olive, but she in turn is in love with someone else – we have to stop and ponder this, measuring it against the standard that I have been using for about forty years, one discovered in a short story by another favorite of mine, Thomas Mann
This mesmerizing writer https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/06/... has a character that is aghast at the way people keep saying ‘they love so much, there are no words to describe it’, when the fact is that we have words that cover way more territory than humans can feel
Indeed, love has long been one of those words that have lost their significance, being so much abused, love is used for anything from color to this drink, but in the case of Olive Hardy, we may be on to something, albeit a very strange situation, where she is so attached to her brother, that this can be love, sick, but near the real thing
For at one point, Tim Hardy leaves Java and sails to Britain, to get some machinery and for other reasons, and whereas he was expected after some time, he does not return, sending instead a telegram saying a letter will follow, sending his sister into a frenzy, she talks to Mark Featherstone, who loves her, maybe he fits the description
What could this mean, she is frantic, worried, the friend is soothing, think that the one who travels loses the sense of distance and time – words to that effect, or maybe I am making this up, thinking I remember what was said – and eventually, the news arrives and the brother has married, stating he had to…
Olive Hardy is devastated – again, spoiler alert, seeing what she will do, this is somehow unquestionable, she had to be at her lowest, to take that ghastly action, which I may, or may not reveal – and Mark sees an opportunity, if this is not still part of this game of smoke and mirrors, best described by the Zen Master story
It is told at the end of the fabulous Charlie Wilson’s War https://realini.blogspot.com/2017/06/... by the CIA agent played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, to the senator from the title, portrayed by Tom Hanks and it has to do with this Master, whose horse has run away, and the villagers express their compassion
We shall see, says the Zen Master, and when the horse returns with other, wild horses, the community rejoices, but the Master still says we shall see, and indeed, his son breaks a leg, when he tries to tame a wild animal, so we have sympathy, and the same, unchangeable we shall see, which is validated, when the recruiters come, and the son is spared from going to be killed for the emperor – this will reflect the fate of the Taliban and Afghanistan
For our story, it looks as if Olive will be more mailable, agreeable towards Mark, who asks her to marry him, and she accepts, probably in part because of a need for revenge, jealous, trying to show she will have spouse too, it is a complex, if weird situation, waiting for catastrophe, we could say, when we know what will happen…the brother comes to Java, with the bride, they are not welcome by Olive, who wants them to have breakfast with Mark, at his home, and this is what they do, before coming into a nightmare, a tragic ending
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’
“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”
10 out of 10
There is a warning sign in this short story, The Book Bag has in fact one rather incestuous – probably platonic, but still, quite bizarre – relationship, and the one aspect that interests me more, would refer to reading and books, putting the Umberto Eco quote in perspective “The person who doesn’t read lives only one life. The reader lives 5,000. Reading is immortality backwards.” But Maugham brings something else to the game
"Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent or praiseworthy…’ the narrator is of the latter category, and I presume that there is a habit that I have formed as well, and here we have the Talmud:
“Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” And that would make a good habit, helping character, immortality (according to Eco), if reading the magnum opera
As for The Book Bag, the introduction gives readers the background, the narrator who has found himself in some places where he had nothing to read with him, ergo he found entertainment in something like the phone book (not really, but an item equally lackluster) and since, he started carrying this Book Bag along
In Tengarrah, on the island of Java, the host borrows the biography of Lord Byron, and that sparks a dialogue about the connection that the poet had with his half-sister, the one he seems to have loved most, and then we move on to Tim Hardy, they have played cards with him, and he has a story we need to hear
He lived in seclusion, except for his sister, Olive Hardy, and the two of them were so happy with their own company that it seemed strange – and with the hindsight readers have and a spoiler alert, it was more than just bizarre and awkward – and Mark Featherstone, the one telling our narrator the story, was a visitor there
So, we have a narrator for the narrator, Featherstone becomes infatuated with Olive, but she in turn is in love with someone else – we have to stop and ponder this, measuring it against the standard that I have been using for about forty years, one discovered in a short story by another favorite of mine, Thomas Mann
This mesmerizing writer https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/06/... has a character that is aghast at the way people keep saying ‘they love so much, there are no words to describe it’, when the fact is that we have words that cover way more territory than humans can feel
Indeed, love has long been one of those words that have lost their significance, being so much abused, love is used for anything from color to this drink, but in the case of Olive Hardy, we may be on to something, albeit a very strange situation, where she is so attached to her brother, that this can be love, sick, but near the real thing
For at one point, Tim Hardy leaves Java and sails to Britain, to get some machinery and for other reasons, and whereas he was expected after some time, he does not return, sending instead a telegram saying a letter will follow, sending his sister into a frenzy, she talks to Mark Featherstone, who loves her, maybe he fits the description
What could this mean, she is frantic, worried, the friend is soothing, think that the one who travels loses the sense of distance and time – words to that effect, or maybe I am making this up, thinking I remember what was said – and eventually, the news arrives and the brother has married, stating he had to…
Olive Hardy is devastated – again, spoiler alert, seeing what she will do, this is somehow unquestionable, she had to be at her lowest, to take that ghastly action, which I may, or may not reveal – and Mark sees an opportunity, if this is not still part of this game of smoke and mirrors, best described by the Zen Master story
It is told at the end of the fabulous Charlie Wilson’s War https://realini.blogspot.com/2017/06/... by the CIA agent played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, to the senator from the title, portrayed by Tom Hanks and it has to do with this Master, whose horse has run away, and the villagers express their compassion
We shall see, says the Zen Master, and when the horse returns with other, wild horses, the community rejoices, but the Master still says we shall see, and indeed, his son breaks a leg, when he tries to tame a wild animal, so we have sympathy, and the same, unchangeable we shall see, which is validated, when the recruiters come, and the son is spared from going to be killed for the emperor – this will reflect the fate of the Taliban and Afghanistan
For our story, it looks as if Olive will be more mailable, agreeable towards Mark, who asks her to marry him, and she accepts, probably in part because of a need for revenge, jealous, trying to show she will have spouse too, it is a complex, if weird situation, waiting for catastrophe, we could say, when we know what will happen…the brother comes to Java, with the bride, they are not welcome by Olive, who wants them to have breakfast with Mark, at his home, and this is what they do, before coming into a nightmare, a tragic ending
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’
“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”
Read
July 17, 2025Another Maugham story, like The Human Element, in which a clueless male narrator pines for a beautiful woman occupied with things he can't quite see. I liked its economical vagueness, and speedy path to tragedy. I laughed at the bluntness with which Maugham moves from the teller of the tale back to the framing device narrator at the end:
"I, the writer of this, hadn't spoken in a long time."
Just what is needed to distinguish between the two I's. The love of reading as a set-up is great, it's the small detail that teases out this big story, and which one would think would be inspired by Maugham's own reading habits, just as some of his scandalous tales come from life. But that could be a mistaken perception. (It is similar to his praise of nautical mapbooks at the start of The Vessel of Wrath.)
Unusually Featherstone and the Hardys are without a specific moment of villainy or transgression, the nature of the siblings' relationship left unclear. (Though thinking on what I just read, Sally must have heard from Tim something that was beyond the pale, leading to her leaving her lover immediately.) Featherstone outside of being blind exists mostly to suffer in the future over the past.
I liked the doomed sense of it all, and the detail that a harsh childhood bound the Hardys together. Trauma bonding. You feel great sorrow for Olive. As always, Maugham, with the social club that must always be visited, the various station agents and bridge games, makes colonialism sound quaint. Here on the page, without the attendant terror of being colonized, it can be.
(And with the tragedy being just words.)
"I, the writer of this, hadn't spoken in a long time."
Just what is needed to distinguish between the two I's. The love of reading as a set-up is great, it's the small detail that teases out this big story, and which one would think would be inspired by Maugham's own reading habits, just as some of his scandalous tales come from life. But that could be a mistaken perception. (It is similar to his praise of nautical mapbooks at the start of The Vessel of Wrath.)
Unusually Featherstone and the Hardys are without a specific moment of villainy or transgression, the nature of the siblings' relationship left unclear. (Though thinking on what I just read, Sally must have heard from Tim something that was beyond the pale, leading to her leaving her lover immediately.) Featherstone outside of being blind exists mostly to suffer in the future over the past.
I liked the doomed sense of it all, and the detail that a harsh childhood bound the Hardys together. Trauma bonding. You feel great sorrow for Olive. As always, Maugham, with the social club that must always be visited, the various station agents and bridge games, makes colonialism sound quaint. Here on the page, without the attendant terror of being colonized, it can be.
(And with the tragedy being just words.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 13, 2024
I read this story today, I don't understand what this story wants to tell us. First, the author talks about how he loves books, then he talks about how he was talking to his friend where he talks about books to him. Then he talks about how his friend talks about how he loves the girl he loves and wanted to marry her but she refused to marry him and called him her brother, then that girl I don't know somehow made an affair with the author (I don't know if this information is right because I skipped many pages because the story was very boring), she shot herself in the head, I don't understand what this story is.... Can someone answer some of my questions "who is tim? Is he the author? Or is he the author's friend?", "why did olive refuse to marry tim?", "why did olive out of nowhere started romance with the author?", "who is sally? Is sally olive? Is olive sally? Why did olive tell the author to call herself sally as a nick name?" This story is confusing, can someone summarise it?
June 3, 2024
Попытка Сомерсета Моэма в триллер. Получилось неплохо, но при этом и не особенно будоражаще. Таинственность и напряжение присутствует в истории, но кульминация при этом получилась какая-то невзрачная что ли.
Схожий троп любви между сиблингами исследуется у Дианы Сеттерфилд в Тринадцатой сказке, но там эта тема раскручена значительнее и произведение в целом получилось более мрачным.
Схожий троп любви между сиблингами исследуется у Дианы Сеттерфилд в Тринадцатой сказке, но там эта тема раскручена значительнее и произведение в целом получилось более мрачным.
May 24, 2023
A short story from a book containing 65 short stories from Maugham. I didn't mind the writing or story except how it ended. I hate that we never find out why Olive killed herself. One can imagine a probable reason but I don't like that. I thought the story was going to be about books/reading around that line but it went some other way. I rate it 2.5
September 6, 2017
Witty, observant, great Maugham!
Want to read
March 22, 20221932
Twenty short stories.
Somewhere I heard that the story called "The book bag" is about incest.
[or maybe the whole collection is?????]
Twenty short stories.
Somewhere I heard that the story called "The book bag" is about incest.
[or maybe the whole collection is?????]
May 25, 2025
3.5 stars
September 17, 2025
A quiet, absorbing tale about memory, regret, and the complicated ways we love. Maugham’s writing is sharp yet tender, and the story lingers with a bittersweet calm.
A classic short that is elegant, and quietly powerful.
A classic short that is elegant, and quietly powerful.
February 5, 2017
Amazing language and descriptions of the main character's thoughts. Very deep. But the plot is a bit familiar.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews