Lord Mountdrago

by W. Somerset Maugham

Book by Maugham, W. Somerset

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Audiobook, Fantasy

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

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 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.

Reviews

[Adina ( catching up..very slowly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved one of Maugham's novels but abandoned another so I was still undecided about the author. I think my less successful experience with the author was a one of. I really liked this short story and I hope to read more by the author.

Lord Mountdrago is a snobbish member of the parliament. Dr. Audlen is a brilliant psychoanalyst with a less than ordinary ways to treat his patients. The two meet due to Mountdrago's vivid dreams about Owen Griffiths MP, a commoner. The problem of the dream is that the day after, when he meets the MP, he seems to know exactly what the other dreamed. The dreams become more and more outlandish, putting the Lord in some very uncomfortable situations. The characterisation was well done and so was the plot.

[Cecily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr Audlin is a reluctant and very successful psycho-analyst: a man of science who is troubled because he neither understands nor believes the dramatic cures he’s apparently achieved. (If his first name doesn’t start with M, it should.) This story concerns his reluctant patient, Lord Mountdrago (another wonderful name), the government’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs.

Maugham describes both men brilliantly. I felt I really knew them and was a fly on the wall of their sessions.
“Dr. Audlin had never taken his eyes off him. He saw a great deal. He saw behind his patient's pompous manner and arrogant pride an anxiety that he could not dispel.”

At 42, Mountdrago is precociously successful, but he’s arrogant, selfish, and a terrible snob.
“He looked upon any service that was rendered him as a right due to his rank and intelligence and therefore deserving of no gratitude. It never entered his head that he was called upon to do anything for others.”

He is plagued by nightmares which bleed into real life - but in a perplexing, intriguing, and original way. As a reader, they’re quite amusing, but:
“I'm not the man of my dreams; it's not fair to judge me by them.”

When Dr Audlin eventually thinks he’s discovered the reason, Mountdrago won’t follow his advice. Instead, he thinks of a much cleverer, darker, and more dangerous solution. Can revenge beat karma?

The final sentence is chilling, and not even a spoiler:
“With some kind of spiritual sense he seemed to envisage a bleak, a horrible void. The dark night of the soul engulfed him, and he felt a strange, primeval terror of he knew not what.”


Image: Black and white photo of a despairing man, seen in profile. (Source)

Faith or fake?

I’m a sceptic through and through. I have no belief in the supernatural, and think fortune-telling is skill with ambiguous words and reading body language, and that “alternative therapies” are just sort of placebo effect. For people who find them fun or helpful, that’s great, but when people are hurt and harmed, I wonder if the practitioner truly believes and is genuinely trying to help, or is an outright con-artist, preying on the vulnerable. Dr Audlin is in a third category: he doesn’t believe, but nor does he want to withhold the help he demonstrably provides.

Genesis

According to Manguel’s introduction to this story, Maugham’s nephew said Maugham would send his secretary to dark alleys and bars to collect stories he could later develop. I have no idea if this is one such.

Quotes

• “Punctuality is a compliment you pay to the intelligent and a rebuke you administer to the stupid.”

• “In the House of Commons the most devastating weapon is ridicule.”

• “The politicians have made such a mess of the world during the last five-and-twenty years, I don't suppose it makes much odds if they're mad or sane.”

See also

I wasn’t hugely keen on Maugham’s realistic(ish) novel The Painted Veil (see my review HERE), and the anthology I read this in (see below) has rather too many apparitions for my taste, but this long short story, with a strong psychological aspect, was much more fun.

Short story club

I read this in Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, by Alberto Manguel, from which I’m reading one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 4 September 2023.

You can read this story here.

You can join the group here.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the superb characterizations of the snobbish Lord Mountdrago, his psychoanalyst Dr Audlen, and the subject of his dreams Owen Griffiths MP. Griffiths, a commoner from a mining region of Wales, has been showing up in Mountdrago's dreams--and Griffith seems to know the content of the dreams the next day as if he had actually been present in them. Lord Mountdrago is getting increasingly agitated and finding difficult to function in his demanding job.

Dr Audlen asks Lord Mountdrago, "Have you done anything to this man that he might look upon as an 'injury?'" Lord Mountdrago acknowledges that he had done great harm to Griffith's career in Parliament. The story goes on to a macabre ending, leaving us to think about the analysis of dreams, conscience, and the paranormal.

I read this story with the Short Story Club. It's one of the better stories in the anthology "Black Water."

[Kushagri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read with the Short Story Club.
It’s a captivating short story which delves into the psychological realm. It’s a thought provoking tale revolving around politics and power which makes for a compelling read and leaves an enduring impact!

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“He knew by now that men were liars, he knew how extravagant was their vanity; he knew far worse than that about them; but he knew that it was not for him to judge or to condemn. But year by year as these terrible confidences were imparted to him his face grew a little greyer, its lines a little more marked and his pale eyes more weary.”

A superb psychological tale.

Dr. Audlin has been treating mental health issues ever since he had success with traumatized men during the war. He is patient, persistent, and surprised by his successes. His patient Lord Mountdrago is a cruel snob whose conscience has started to bother him. The story explores the blending of our subconscious world, the world we share with others, and the supernatural.

I adore Maugham. He’s yet to disappoint me.

[Emad · Rating 4 out of 5]

What distinguishes Maugham stories from the others is his profound contents in his simple writing style, something that is rarely seen in other pieces. This fact is obvious in Lord Moundrago, a subject that can present something like Fight Club, William Wilson, etc., but, in the form of Maugham writing, it just narrates a simple story as if it is adapted from a teenager diary. The good thing with such styles is that they can feed a wide spectrum of readers. They can fit to amateur readers taste and professional ones as well. However, they may fail to satisfy particular readers who look for strong prose or complex narrative technique.

Lord Mountdrago is an able and distinguished politician with threads of smugness in his substance that stimulate his nationalism. His arrogance finally leads him to defaming a Welsh Member of Parliament, called Owen Griffiths, discomfiting him and precluding him from reaching his office in Parliament. He now suffers from an agony caused by his conscienceness in the form of nightmares. He sees Griffiths in his nightmares mocking him in public. More peculiar things happen when he sees the same thing in day time in real world. It seems that his nightmares are related to his real life somehow. Lord Mountdrago comes to Dr. Audlin, a professional a psycho-analyst, to find a solution for his problem.

Good story! Maybe I'll write more about it someday.

[Tom Mathews · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an engaging psychological thriller of a tale dealing with the intersection of the dreamworld and reality. I highly recommend it. I have not read any Maugham before but I fully intend to correct that.

[Mark André · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written. Easy reading. Sort of clunky ending. OK, but hardly recommendable.

[Ⰰⱃⰿⰰⱀⰴ Ⱆⰾⰴⰵⱃⰻⰽⱁ Ⱅⰵⱄⰾⰰ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dositej
Beograd,1989.
Prevela Gordana V. Popović
Sveznajući pripovjedač.
Jezik je osrednji.
Atmosferično osrednji.
U pogledu aktualizacije jezika može se konstatirati da ona praktički ne postoji, stil je jednostavan.
Sadržajno gledajući ova novela je jako dobra.
Kao i brojna ranomodernistička djela ova kratka priča podastire igru s granicom jave i sna.
San je taj faktor koji briše granicu između dimenzija, otvara vrata drugim svjetovima.
Glavnog lika proganja jedan drugi lik u njegovim vlastitim snovima, u javi mu lik koji ga proganja daje znakove koji nesumnjivo upućuju da njih dvojica sanjaju iste snove, da protagonist ne doživljava tek ponavljajuće more.
U tom vidu radnja je poeovska.
¡Hasta luego mis murcielagos!

[kiho · Rating 4 out of 5]

tags:

narcissism
shame
denial
conscience
narcissistic injury

[Yomna Saber · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thrilling read indeed! Maugham captures the darkest recesses of human nature through the character of Lord Mountdrago with his psychological complexities and sinister nature as he becomes haunted by his own mischief. A great story by all means.

[Kacie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have learned that patience is power and Dr. Audlin oozes patience and non-judgment. (he gave me an Anthony Hopkins vibe). His ability to heal others in such a miraculous way helps build his character and exposes the talent we need to be aware of.

Lord Mountdrago is the more common type of person we know or have come across. He is driven by power and control as so many humans are. His subconscious is so eager to clear his karma yet Owen Griffith is unable to forgive the acts of Mountdrago. They are so energetically connected they are both forced into the astral realm. Both sub-consciences are allowed to bury the hatchet, yet neither can let go of their ego, leading to further conflict. It is believed that a soul is attached to a body while here on earth so the soul must return to the body safely from the astral. We will never know what happened in the last dream between Mountdrago and Griffith. What we do know is that the power of this entire situation finally broke Audlin of his stoic self and sent him into the dark night of the soul.

It was a short story yet it had me constantly gripping at the words eager to hear more. I loved every second of it and it made me love the beauty of short stories even more.

[Iona Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many years ago, my father used to read books by Somerset Maugham, but I was never aware of the greatness of his writing.

This is the first piece of his writing I have read.

Dr Audlin was a psycho-analyst with a special gift in that he could miraculously cure certain patients. Therefore many with insurmountable problems consulted him. But Dr A was a sceptic and felt he was a quack.

He tells us about Lord Mountdrago, who is Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He is a brilliant and eminently capable man.

He consults Dr A; his problem is he is having distressing dreams involving a Welsh MP called Griffiths. Lord M regularly sees this man in the House of Commons.

He makes a fool of himself in these dreams, which after all are only dreams, but when he encounters Griffiths in real life it seems that the latter witnesses what occurs in his dreams.

On one occasion Lord M hits G on the head with a bottle in dream, and the next day G says in the House of Commons that he has a bad headache as though he’d been cracked over the head with a bottle.

Ergo, G is physically affected by what happens to him in Lord M’s dreams.

Lord M realizes that G is dreaming his dreams.

He declares that if Dr A can’t do anything he will kill himself or G.

He imparts that he will kill G in a dream and no-one will know that he was the one who did it.

When pressed by Dr A, Lord M reveals that he has made a fool of G in the House and in front of G’s parents. He has ruined G’s career.

Dr A could not help Lord M. The terrible dreams continued night after night.

Finally, the doctor tells Lord M under hypnosis that he must apologize to G but Lord M refuses.

Dr A is waiting for Lord M to come to him but he is late.

Then he sees a huge headline in the evening paper; Tragic Death of Foreign Minister. He had been standing on the edge of the Tube platform and somehow fallen on to the rails.

But Dr A knows it was no accident,

Then Dr A sees a small paragraph in the newspaper reporting the sudden death of G; he had fallen ill and when taken to hospital was found to be dead.

So Lord M had done what he threatened, in some way killed G in a dream.

Dr A cancelled his next appointment.

“He seemed to envisage a black, a horrible void. The dark night of the soul engulfed him, and he felt a strange, primeval terror of he knew not what.”

Does Dr A feel that it is his fault because he was unable to cure Lord M?

[David Jakab · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have so many Maugham collections I can not even estimate the number of stories. Maugham was so prolific that when I searched on "list" it included collections as single entries! Further, this is probably the third time for this particular story.

It is from an audio book collection; number three I think. Maughams greatest virtue is reliability. Almost all his stories are four stars or above, and this is another solid four plus.

The reader of these collections is perfect for the part. One reason I like audio books is so many of them become performances! Further, Maughm and Kipling provide invaluable windows into the era of British empire. Kipling's "Plain Tails From The Hills" narrated by Pigot-Smith is like that as well.

[George Ilsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mountdrago knew no one who merited his assistance, his sympathy or his compassion.

Dr. Audlin believed himself to be something of a quack; yet his patients believed in him, and his psycho-analytical practice was thriving.

Lord Mountdrago comes to see the busy doctor. The doctor is a cypher, whose eyes never give anything away, whose tone of voice is monotonous.

Mountdrago is a terrible snob — is that to be his downfall?

[PulpMonkey (Chompa) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably my first Somerset Maugham. I listened to it on YouTube from a new narrator, Jasper L'Estrange of Encrypted Horror.

The story could be called horror possibly, but the best part of it is that you really don't know exactly what happens with the main character and his nemesis by the end of it. The story ends and ends well, but I like that it leaves you with your own interpretation of events.

[Larrry G · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would consider adding another star (as if it matters) to this for holding my interest momentarily, but when an author not so subtlety bashes his co-authors for lack of complex development, and then proceeds quite circuitously in a similar failing flailing manner, the only saving grace could lie in the anticipated ending, which also fails to materialize . . .

[Petergiaquinta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lucid dreaming gone wrong...you might even think of Freddy Krueger while reading it! Nonetheless, I found the lengthy tale to be rather dull, something that seems to always be the case with Maugham and me. I do, however, intend to read The Razor's Edge before I die.

[Mohammed Noman · Rating 5 out of 5]

fantastic story

[Zhe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple and plain text, wonderful little story with deep meaning

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cleverly written and relevant story

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

First line - Dr Audlin looked at the clock on his desk.

Strange tale impeccably penned.
3*

[Safdar · Rating 5 out of 5]

You may not wish to have dreams!