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The Moon and Sixpence

W. Somerset Maugham

4.14 · Rating details · 18,644 ratings · 1,237 reviews

Based on the life of Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence is W. Somerset Maugham's ode to the powerful forces behind creative genius. Charles Strickland is a staid banker, a man of wealth and privilege. He is also a man possessed of an unquenchable desire to create art. As Strickland pursues his artistic vision, he leaves London for Paris and Tahiti, and in his quest makes ...more

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Paperback, 192 pages

Published August 1st 2005 by Aegypan (first published 1919)

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Mar 21, 2012 Rajat Ubhaykar rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, british, splendid-prose

Fair warning, this is going to be a long review for this is a book that is close to my heart written by an author whom I deeply admire.

The Right Time

There are some books that walk into your life at an opportune time. I'm talking about the books that send a pleasant shiver down your spine laden with “Man, this is meant to be!” as you flip through its pages cursorily. Or those that upon completion, demand an exclamation from every book-reading fibre of your body to the effect of “There couldn't ha ...more

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Aug 13, 2018 Steven Godin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, france, great-britain

W. Somerset Maugham's Charles Strickland might not be heading onto my list of the most likeable characters in literature, but one thing is for sure, he is certainly one of the most memorable. Strickland, a bourgeois city gent living in London has a dull, soulless exterior that conceals the fact he just may be a genius. He devotes himself to himself, and hides within him a passion for painting that no one else seems to knows about. He doesn't give a stuff about anybody, including his family, and W. Somerset Maugham's Charles Strickland might not be heading onto my list of the most likeable characters in literature, but one thing is for sure, he is certainly one of the most memorable. Strickland, a bourgeois city gent living in London has a dull, soulless exterior that conceals the fact he just may be a genius. He devotes himself to himself, and hides within him a passion for painting that no one else seems to knows about. He doesn't give a stuff about anybody, including his family, and his wife is left baffled when Charles suddenly travels to Paris (and then later on Tahiti) with no intentions to ever come back. She believes he has run away with another woman, but the truth leaves her totally perplexed, after the narrator of Maugham's novel is sent after him, having only meet Strickland briefly before.

Derived from the life of Paul Gauguin, our main character is a man insensible to ordinary human relations, who lives the life of pure selfishness which is sometimes supposed to produce great art, which has always had its fascination for novelists inspired only by the unusual. Accordingly there have been novels in plenty depicting the conflict of the abominable genius with the uncongenial environment, and Mr. Maugham has followed a recognised convention in this story of an imaginary artist of posthumous greatness. He treats him throughout with mock respect, and surrounds his affairs with contributory detail. Maugham's story takes a respectable man who deserts his wife after seventeen years of marriage to get fully behind a great idea - to turn himself into a famous artist, having previously had no experience. His break is succeeded by living destitute with a stubborn determination, and by long periods of work and outbursts of savage behaviour.

Now, here's the thing, does Maugham convince us that Strickland is a real man and a real artist with which we can absorb his traits as part of the essential human creature who lives eternally by his work? It seems he does not. Where every detail should be pungently real, one is constantly checked in belief by the sense of a calculated and heightened effect, and by the passion of Maugham for his subject. Such a passion is sometimes defeated by it's object. Here one is repelled, not so much by Strickland's monosyllabic callousness, but by the knowledge that this callousness is seen and represented without subtlety. This does eventually change towards the end, but what I liked about Maugham's narrative is he never succumbs to the obvious temptation to seek to explain Strickland’s actions to us, we are left in the dark to his motives just like the other characters. Another positive is that he uses the minor elements in the story with an extremely effective manner. There are deeper themes going on here, if you dig hard enough.

The novel is one of a destructive nature, and presents a really terrible philosophy on Modernism which it propounds, but I found it compulsively readable. Maugham’s writing manages to be both powerful and austere, with not a moment wasted. I particularly liked the first-person narrative voice, which captured me with a mix of admiration and disdain for Strickland, something that Maugham struck a masterful balance with. ...more

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Dec 24, 2015 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, 20th-century, pdfs

The Moon and Sixpence, W. Somerset Maugham

The Moon and Sixpence is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham first published in 1919. It is told in episodic form by a first-person narrator, in a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character Charles Strickland, a middle-aged English stockbroker, who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his desire to become an artist. The story is in part based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin.

عنوانها: ماه و شش پشیز (پنی)؛ ماه و شش پن The Moon and Sixpence, W. Somerset Maugham

The Moon and Sixpence is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham first published in 1919. It is told in episodic form by a first-person narrator, in a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character Charles Strickland, a middle-aged English stockbroker, who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his desire to become an artist. The story is in part based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin.

عنوانها: ماه و شش پشیز (پنی)؛ ماه و شش پنی؛ قلب زن؛ نویسنده: سامرست موام؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و چهارم ماه دسامبر سال 1970 میلادی، و خوانش با عنوان: قلب زن؛ در ماه فوریه سال 1991 میلادی

عنوان: ماه و شش پشیز (پنی)؛ نویسنده: سامرست موام؛ مترجم پرویز داریوش؛ تهران، انتشارات پیروز، 1333؛ در 263ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، امیرکبیر، 1344؛ در 263ص؛ چاپ دیگر اصفهان، زمان نو، 1362؛ در 334ص؛ چاپ دیگر: تهران، اساطیر، 1370؛ در 355ص؛ چاپ دوم 1376؛ چاپ سوم 1388؛ شابک 9789645960108؛

عنوان: ماه و شش پنی؛ نویسنده: سامرست موام؛ مترجم: الهه مرعشی؛ تهران، فرهنگ جاوی، 1393؛ در 284ص؛ شابک 9786006182216؛

عنوان: قلب زن؛ نویسنده: ویلیام سامرست موآم؛ مترجم: حسین بدلزاده؛ رشت، انتشارات روزنامه سایبان، 1336، در 220ص؛

ماه و شش پشیز (پنی) را، «سامرست موام»، براساس زندگی «پل گوگن» نقاش، نگاشته، و با ترجمه زنده یاد «پرویز داریوش» به زیور نشر آراسته شده، در کتاب «قلب زن» که عنوان فارسی دیگری برای کتاب «ماه و شش پشیز» است؛ پس از مقدمه ها از مترجم و نویسنده؛ فصل نخست کتاب با عنوان: «در محفل ادبی»، چنین آغاز میشود «هنگامی که اولین داستان خود «جنون عشق» را که خوشبختانه سر و صدای زیادی در محافل ادبی برانگیخت نوشتم؛ جوان بودم ...؛»؛ پایان نقل؛ ا. شربیانی ...more

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Nov 18, 2018 Lyn rated it really liked it

I may not be able to tell a post-impressionist painter from a post hole digger, but if I see a painting by Paul Gauguin I can usually identify it correctly.

W. Somerset Maugham’s 1919 novel about fictional artist Charles Strickland is loosely based on the life of the French painter, but let’s be honest, even though this is a novel and something of a caricature, it is the slings and arrows of Gauguin’s outrageous life that make this so damn entertaining.

That and Maugham’s gifted writing and his de ...more

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Oct 03, 2016 Rowena rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own, classics

"Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand."- W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

I'd only ever read one Maugham before this ("Of Human Bondage") but even with just that one read I could tell Maugham was a very special writer and destined to be one of my favourites. I picked up this thin book thinking it would be a quick, simple read, but I wasn't prepared for the depth and profundity in it. There is a lot going on in this little book, lots to "Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand."- W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

I'd only ever read one Maugham before this ("Of Human Bondage") but even with just that one read I could tell Maugham was a very special writer and destined to be one of my favourites. I picked up this thin book thinking it would be a quick, simple read, but I wasn't prepared for the depth and profundity in it. There is a lot going on in this little book, lots to think about.

Reading the back of the book you'll know that the main character in this book, Charles Strickland, was modelled after Paul Gauguin. There's no way I would have guessed that for most of the book, until Strickland/Gauguin moved to Tahiti.Even without knowing much about Gauguin's life, this book was interesting as it took us on a tour of his life, done by a narrator who operates as an unofficial biographer, taking us through Strickland/Gauguin's life from England to Paris, and finally Tahiti.

Strickland is an awful person and extremely misogynistic. It's been a while since I've read such an odious character in literature. I despised him:

"He was a man without any conception of gratitude. He had no compassion. The emotions common to most of us simply did not exist in him, and it was as absurd to blame him for not feeling them as for blaming the tiger because he is fierce and cruel."

It was surprising to witness how the passion in Strickland seemed to remain dormant for years but eventually caused him to act like a man possessed and completely re-evaluate his life as that passion needed an outlet:

"That must be the story of innumerable couples, and the pattern of life it offers has a homely grace. It reminds you of a placid rivulet, meandering smoothly through green pastures and shaded by pleasant trees, till at last it falls into the vasty sea; but the sea is so calm, so silent, so indifferent, that you are troubled suddenly by a vague uneasiness. Perhaps it is only by a kink in my nature, strong in me even in those days, that I felt in such an existence, the share of the great majority, something amiss. I recognised its social values, I saw its ordered happiness, but a fever in my blood asked for a wilder course. There seemed to me something alarming in such easy delights. In my heart was a desire to live more dangerously. I was not unprepared for jagged rocks and treacherous shoals if I could only have change -- change and the excitement of the unforeseen."

Gauguin comes up a lot in discussions on primitivism and orientalism, and reading up on his time in Tahiti really leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. The discussion on place and how we might be searching for a place where we are free to be really spoke to me, but Gauguin being himself meant taking child brides in the tropics, and that reminded me of the fact that Europeans had/have free reign in some parts of the world all due to their perceived power. But still, the idea that we can be perceived differently in different areas, and therefore be more suited to one area than another, is interesting:

"I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest."

It's hard to summarize this book without bringing up the racist language. There were quite a few racial epithets which, I'm not sure spoke of Maugham's insensitivity to different races, or just that he was reflecting the language and sentiments of the time. Either way, they were shocking, and I could have done without them. ...more

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Apr 18, 2016 Jeff rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: cuz-mah-fah-says-so, buddy-reads

“Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

In addition to plenty of witty bon mots, Maugham dropped several lengthy quotes on t “Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

In addition to plenty of witty bon mots, Maugham dropped several lengthy quotes on the nature of beauty and how relative it is, especially through the eyes of the artist. Maugham’s protagonist, Charles Strickland grows indifferent to pretty much everything in his life: wife, children, luxury, polite society and focuses his passions like a laser on the creation of a vision that’s perceptible to pretty much only him. Few others see it, but Strickland doesn’t care; he’s too focused on the creative process to pay anyone any mind. He’s kind of a brute, who can only articulate his inner perception on the canvas.

Strickland’s a complete ass, losing pretty much all sense of propriety, not caring whether he’s mortally offended anyone who’s willing to lend him a hand, biting that hand with a furious chomp – leaving broken lives in his wake. The further he runs from society (to Tahiti – “a magical place”) and it’s distractions, the closer he comes to being able to extract his conception of “pure” beauty from the dark recesses of his mind.

I’ve known people like Strickland – talented, brilliant, corrosive – people who have that weird light surrounding themselves. Friends and family that have been taken advantage of, cheated, hurt, yet still can’t shake being in the presence of this person; it’s like having one foot in a tornado. The narrator, a writer, who’s been offended by Strickland on numerous occasions still comes around for the proverbial bitch slap. Strickland doesn’t achieve success and recognition until after he’s dead, his family willing to whitewash his transgressions, something that probably wouldn’t surprise or bother him.

The only other Maugham I’ve ever read is The Razor's Edge, that one was a passable read with the same format (first person narrative observer, main character in search of some sort of truth), but this book has a kinetic energy and spirit. You might loathe Strickland and want to throat punch him, but you still have a deep unspoken understanding of his motivations, that although you don’t fully condone, you still respect his vision.

Buddy Read with the artsy, occult branch of the Pantsless Legion of Indecency: Ginger, Kristin, and Stepheny.
...more

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Apr 05, 2016 Henry Avila rated it really liked it · review of another edition

How much do we forgive a great, talented artist who is also a despicable human being? Will his admirers look the other way, thinking since he is no longer around and no more harm can be done by him, it is all right now to forgive and forget, besides he didn't do anything to their family but to other people...Shakespeare said, "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones"... Englishman Charles Strickland a thinly disguised Paul Gauguin, is one of those men, se How much do we forgive a great, talented artist who is also a despicable human being? Will his admirers look the other way, thinking since he is no longer around and no more harm can be done by him, it is all right now to forgive and forget, besides he didn't do anything to their family but to other people...Shakespeare said, "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones"... Englishman Charles Strickland a thinly disguised Paul Gauguin, is one of those men, selfish, cruel, disloyal an unfeeling cad you would loathe if you had ever met, nothing matters but his art, everyone else he can and does step on to reach his higher calling, being a superb painter yet nobody believes in his abilities, they see only a primitive man with the same tendencies on canvas, besides there are hundreds of better painters in Paris. Strickland had abandoned his wife and two children in London, leaving his family without any means of support if they starved he wouldn't care, nothing is really important but his destiny, set at the turn of the 20th century, Somerset Maugham does not try to hide the fact that he is the person narrating this novel. Having briefly met Strickland in London when the future legend was just another boring, ordinary, nonentity a monosyllabic stockbroker, who could guess of his later fame. Maugham is more impressed by the charming Mrs.Strickland though not pretty, she does radiate what the perfect Englishwoman should be in that era. Later the shocked lady embraces the rumors that her husband had fled with a young shopgirl to France , she could not face the truth which would be humiliating....Mr. Strickland had secretly gone because he needed to paint. In Paris living in squalor in an one room, filthy, pungent, airless apartment he ekes out a living by guiding curious Englishmen, to the sordid sections of the city that no respectable person would go, the kind of areas policemen hate foreigners to see. This or any other jobs which puts money in his hands, more so for buying things to continue painting than to eat or pay the rent, he has lost much weight to rather an unhealthy level . None buys his paintings however he doesn't care. Finally meeting a bad Dutch painter the humane Dirt Stroeve, who actually sells his mediocre paintings, short, plumb, gregarious he never takes it personally when fellow artists disparage his product. Still his English wife Blanche does, she has a checkered past and this type of woman can't forgive the man that saved her, Dirt. An ailing Strickland becomes dangerously ill, he is nursed by the generous Dutchman, the only person who perceives his genius in is own home, the reluctant wife helps, the life of this scoundrel will not end here, he pays back his huge debt by taking away his Blanche ... Maugham is now living in Paris, and becomes friends with the always kindly Dirt, writing a play there, is more upset than her husband, he will forgive if she returns... but tragedy ensues. Strickland somehow gets on a ship and after much travels arrives in the beautiful, tropical, south seas island of Tahiti...Years pass, nothing is heard about this fugitive from civilization until during WWI, Somerset Maugham at his government's request, goes to the same island that Strickland was on, there the paintings he had been indifferent to shocks his senses, the sparkling, plethora of colors, the blues, greens, yellows, reds, violets, and whites, bright, brilliant, a glorious stream of unending shades it teases the mind and makes him dizzy, this, never captured before so well on canvas...now he has seen the real Strickland. ...more

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Apr 11, 2010 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, classics, literature, historical, fiction

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Jul 28, 2012 Mary rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 2012

We want the world. We want it all. We want the moon. And still it's not enough.

It's my long term goal to read everything Maguham wrote, a goal that I doubt will be very difficult to reach. He writes with such poignant observation and wit and in The Moon and Sixpence he captures the all encompassing, obsessive and brutal nature that perhaps it takes to be an artist.

Told by an unnamed narrator, we are introduced to Charles Strickland, a beastly yet seemingly ordinary man who one day leaves his wif ...more

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Oct 17, 2017 Nenia ✨️ Socially Awkward Trash Panda ✨️ Campbell rated it really liked it

Shelves: literary-fiction

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I'm working my way through an omnibus edition of Maugham's work, and man, he can write. I'm torn between the impulse to swim leisurely through his prose or just gleefully cannonball into it. Unlike some writers of this time, Maugham is not particularly flowery, but he has an interesting way of presenting ideas and constructing sentences that makes you want to read over them several times, just to appreciate their ideas and form.

MOON AND ...more

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Mar 09, 2015 Sara rated it really liked it

Shelves: american-classics, literary-fiction

It must be said up front that I am a huge fan of Maugham. I like his writing style, which always makes me feel as if I am sitting with a friend and he is telling me about someone he actually knows. With this conversational tone, Maugham leads you into the depths of the human soul and sometimes leaves you to find your own way out.

Based very loosely on the life of Paul Gauguin, this novel is a study in how much a true artist will do for the sake of his art: not only how much he will endure, but h ...more

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Jul 11, 2011 Sarah Booth rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Anyone who likes classic Dramas

I read this right after I read the Painted Veil. I guess I am on a Somerset Maugham kick. His characters are richly developed and yet hard to know. I imagine that he may find them and humanity that way, though he does his best in bringing you along on his journey of discovery. I am never quite sure what he thinks about women. Sometimes, such as in the Painted Veil, he finds them redeemable and then in other instances trifling and slow-witted.
The Moon and Sixpence was the story based upon the pa ...more

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May 14, 2017 Rebecca rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: obscure-classics, reviewed-for-blog, biographical

This was a perfect follow-up to Fabrizio Dori’s Gauguin, a graphic novel I reviewed earlier in the month. Maugham’s short novel functioned like a prequel for me because, whereas Dori focuses on the artist Paul Gauguin’s later life in the South Pacific, Maugham concentrates on his similar character Charles Strickland’s attempt to make a living as a painter in Paris.

The Moon and Sixpence – the unusual title comes from the TLS reviewer’s description of the protagonist in Of Human Bondage as so abso This was a perfect follow-up to Fabrizio Dori’s Gauguin, a graphic novel I reviewed earlier in the month. Maugham’s short novel functioned like a prequel for me because, whereas Dori focuses on the artist Paul Gauguin’s later life in the South Pacific, Maugham concentrates on his similar character Charles Strickland’s attempt to make a living as a painter in Paris.

The Moon and Sixpence – the unusual title comes from the TLS reviewer’s description of the protagonist in Of Human Bondage as so absorbed in reaching for the moon that he doesn’t notice the sixpence at his feet – is narrated by an unnamed author drawn into Strickland’s orbit through his wife Amy Strickland’s attendance at London literary soirées. He hasn’t gotten to know the couple very well at all when he hears that Charles, a stockbroker, has abandoned his family and left for Paris to pursue painting – a hobby for which he’s never previously shown any aptitude.

Amy sends the narrator off to Paris to talk sense into her husband, but Charles never shows the least remorse. The narrator marvels at his insouciance and utter conviction that he is meant to be an artist.

He was single-hearted in his aim, and to pursue it he was willing to sacrifice not only himself – many can do that – but others. He had a vision. Strickland was an odious man, but I still think he was a great one.

I noted familiar themes from Of Human Bondage (published in 1915, four years prior to The Moon and Sixpence), especially the artist’s struggle, nomadism and the threat of poverty. Dirk Stroeve, the talentless Dutch painter who becomes friendly with the narrator in Paris and recognizes Strickland’s brilliance even as he lets the man walk all over him, reminded me of the happy-go-lucky Thorpe Athelny in Bondage.

At less than a third of the length of that earlier novel, though, The Moon and Sixpence struck me as a condensed parable about genius and sacrifice.

Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. … It was the work of a man who had delved into the hidden depths of nature and had discovered secrets. … There was something primeval there and terrible. It was not human. It brought to … mind vague recollections of black magic. It was beautiful and obscene.

This is a fascinating character study, whether or not you’re aware of Gauguin’s life as the inspiration, and would be a great introduction to Maugham’s work if you’ve not read him before.

Originally published with images on my blog, Bookish Beck. ...more

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Nov 05, 2010 Tatiana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nostalgia, 2010, classics

This novel is by far my favorite account of an artist's life in fiction.

The story of Charles Strickland is based on Paul Gauguin's life. To what extent, I don't know. What I do know is that there is something infinitely irresistible about how artistry is portrayed in this novel. I love the idea that a real artist creates art because he cannot not to. That all other aspects of his life - family, money, acclaim, food even - are secondary to his desire to create. Strickland is remarkable in his dri This novel is by far my favorite account of an artist's life in fiction.

The story of Charles Strickland is based on Paul Gauguin's life. To what extent, I don't know. What I do know is that there is something infinitely irresistible about how artistry is portrayed in this novel. I love the idea that a real artist creates art because he cannot not to. That all other aspects of his life - family, money, acclaim, food even - are secondary to his desire to create. Strickland is remarkable in his drive to paint - he abandons his comfortable life, wife and children, career as a stockbroker - to do something that he feels he can't live without.

What I also love about Moon And Sixpence is how Maugham portrays relationships between men and women. He really makes a case that women are very much into men who treat them badly. He does so with humor, even though a bitter and puzzled humor. This is one of my favorite bits of the novel, where Strickland "proposes" to his Tahitian wife and an observer chimes in afterward:

"Well, Ata, he said, "do you fancy me for a husband."
She did not say anything, but just giggled.
"I shall beat you," he said, looking at her.
"How else should I know you loved me," she answered.

Tiare broke off her narrative and addressed herself to me reflectively.

"My first husband, Captain Johnson, used to thrash me regularly. He was a man. He was handsome, six foot three, and when he was drunk there was no holding him. I would be black and blue all over for days at a time. Oh, I cried when he died. I thought I should never get over it. But it wasn't till I married George Rainey that I knew what I'd lost. You can never tell what a man is like till you live with him. I've never been so deceived in a man as I was in George Rainey. He was a fine, upstanding fellow too. He was nearly as tall as Captain Johnson, and he looked strong enough. But it was all on the surface. He never drank. He never raised his hand to me. He might have been a missionary. I made love with the officers of every ship that touched the island, and George Rainey never saw anything. At last I was disgusted with him, and I got a divorce. What was the good of a husband like that? It's a terrible thing the way some men treat women."

I want to laugh at this quote and say that Maugham's views are outdated and plain wrong, but then I read another 5-star review of Hush, Hush, and think - Nah, things, unfortunately, have not changed that much.

On a bright note, I do very much want to visit Strickland's Tahiti.

...more

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Oct 26, 2013 Perry rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: stela-eða-láni

Beguiling Roman à clef of French painter Paul Gauguin: An Artist's Obsessive Quest for Beauty

This rather short novel is Maugham's intriguing, thought-provoking study of the life of the painter Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), and partly his mockery of society's ready willingness to turn sinners into saints, as well as a sobering look at an artist's lifelong pursuit of beauty, at whatever the cost to himself or to loved ones.

Gaugin was a despicable misogynist and a dreadfully negative person who left h ...more

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Jan 24, 2012 Jamie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: the-classics

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 da

...more

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Sep 12, 2007 Matthew rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

my affection for this book may, in part, stem from the fact that it was one of those novels that i read at a period in my life when my tastes in both literature and life outlook were taking shape (that is, while playing hooky from high school) but its appeal has endured far more than the other usual suspects in that category (kerouac's meanderings, pirsig's pretentions, etc.)

apart from its romantic appeal to the Quiet and Solitary Youth demographic (of which i was a card-carrying member) i thin ...more

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Jul 29, 2019 Fergus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book marked a sudden seismic shock in my fractured life.

Reeling from burnout - but finally having swept up the badly burned scrambled eggs that were my brains from off the floor - I hastened with Dante Alighieri into Hades Proper.

It was one of my first Amazon orders after reaching the summit of full retirement.

Having paid off the mortgage and outstanding debts at retirement, I suddenly realized that we once again - for the first time in twenty years - had a decent disposable income.

But it ...more

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Mar 02, 2019 Issicratea rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 1900-1950, reviewed

The Moon and Sixpence (1919) was my first foray into Somerset Maugham, and I don’t think I’ll be hurrying back. The subject is interesting: a seemingly stolid stockbroker who breaks away from his comfortable life in his forties to become an artist, living on the breadline in Paris (and occasionally rather beneath it), before ending his days in Tahiti. I wasn’t put off either by the fact that the protagonist, Charles Strickland, is an unpleasant character, devoid of all human empathy. That can be The Moon and Sixpence (1919) was my first foray into Somerset Maugham, and I don’t think I’ll be hurrying back. The subject is interesting: a seemingly stolid stockbroker who breaks away from his comfortable life in his forties to become an artist, living on the breadline in Paris (and occasionally rather beneath it), before ending his days in Tahiti. I wasn’t put off either by the fact that the protagonist, Charles Strickland, is an unpleasant character, devoid of all human empathy. That can be an interesting challenge, for the reader, as well as the writer.

What I found off-putting in this novel was the style, which was rather leaden and ponderous, and the trite nature of its reflections on life. The unnamed narrator, an acquaintance of Strickland’s, who becomes fascinated by him when he is “discovered” as a great artist after his death in penury, is given to pompous generalizations about art, society, and women—particularly women. There is a whole rancid florilegium of misogynistic maxims to be had in this novel, for anyone who cares for such things. Strickland’s own gender philosophy is classic “mail-order bride:” Western women are castrating harpies and a chap can only get what he needs by looking to the simpler and healthier mores of the “primitive” world. Here is Strickland reflects complacently on his happy bigamous second marriage with a Tahitian teenager: “Women are strange little beasts … You can treat them like beasts, you can beat them until your arm aches, and they still love you.”

The reflections on art and the artist are similarly underwhelming. Near the beginning of the novel, the narrator expresses his own views on the subject, which could not be much farther from my own: “To my mind, the most interesting thing in art is the personality of the artist; and if that is singular, I am willing to forgive a thousand faults. I suppose Velasquez was a better painter than El Greco, but custom stales one’s admiration for him: the Cretan, sensual and tragic, proffers the mystery of the soul like a standing sacrifice.” The whole narrative of The Moon and Sixpence unfolds from this witlessly romantic position, with Strickland’s obnoxiousness redeemed by his fiery genius, etc. etc.

One intriguing aspect of the novel is the way in which Strickland’s life partly maps onto Gaugin’s. That was one of the things that attracted me to it in the first place. Like the thinly characterized narrator figure (who surely just is the author), Maugham did his research, traveling to Tahiti to speak to people who knew Gaugin; yet he was careful to distinguish the final product from a fictionalized biography. “I used only the main facts of his story,” Maugham clarified, “and for the rest trusted to such gifts of invention as I was fortunate enough to possess.” Having seen the results, I might query that “fortunate.” Perhaps he should have stuck with the facts. ...more

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Apr 26, 2018 Stepheny rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: hands-down-favorites, pantsless-platoon, like-a-meth-addiction, books-everyone-should-read, favorites, reads-with-buddies, mentioned-by-stephen-king, jeff-said-so

The Moon and Sixpence is a book that came to be on my TBR list because of Stephen King. He mentions it in Bag of Bones and it peaked my curiosity. As a group of us was scheduled to read BoB in July (some of us are still reading it now), we decided to read that one first. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I’m not sure why I thought I wouldn’t, but it was just a feeling I had going into it.

Our story centers around Charles Strickland. Strickland is a very wealthy man, or was until he decide The Moon and Sixpence is a book that came to be on my TBR list because of Stephen King. He mentions it in Bag of Bones and it peaked my curiosity. As a group of us was scheduled to read BoB in July (some of us are still reading it now), we decided to read that one first. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I’m not sure why I thought I wouldn’t, but it was just a feeling I had going into it.

Our story centers around Charles Strickland. Strickland is a very wealthy man, or was until he decided to give it all up to pursue his need to create art. Seemingly on a whim, he gives up his wife and children, leaving them with no money to go live in Paris.

Strickland gives absolutely zero fucks what anyone has to say or what they may think of his actions. The only thing he cares about is getting this overwhelming need to paint out of his system. It’s like a beast inside him, dying to get out. It’s eating him alive. It consumes him. Morning, noon and night, it’s all he ever thinks about. He has no regrets about leaving his wife and children. He never spares a single thought for them.

He is a vile old bastard, to be honest.

We follow him through our narrator who has happened to meet Strickland at different moments throughout his life. Their paths crossing sometimes intentionally and other times by mere coincidence. Our narrator is both baffled and amazed by Strickland. His fascination results in him getting berated by Strickland on multiple occasions.

I just don’t understand people. I have watched genuine assholes lure people in for so many years of my life. They get the promotions over the deserving. They get acclaim. They get everything it seems. And for what? Speaking their minds? Does that mean they should be made President of the United States of America? Absolutely fucking not. But hey, stranger things have happened. Am I right?’

Strickland is an absolutely appalling character, and his character was based on a real-life artist is sickening to me. But almost worse than Strickland is our narrator who seems to relish Strickland’s despicable behavior. It brings him a joy that reflects everything that is wrong with the world today.

While the book is filled with vile behavior and horrible characters, it is somehow endearing and enjoyable. The writing was both beautiful and profound, content aside. I definitely recommend this one to just about anyone. It’s a fascinating character study and a quick read.
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Aug 23, 2014 Kim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle

Maugham's fictional biography of an artist whose life is based on that of Paul Gaughin, explores the nature of obsession and the creative urge. The central character, Charles Strickland, is a thoroughly unlikeable man: selfish, lacking in empathy and able to abandon his wife and children without a second thought. And yet, as unsympathetic as Maugham makes Strickland, his compulsive pursuit of beauty is understandable.

This is short, powerful and accessible, written in Maugham's beautifully clear ...more

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Feb 04, 2011 Marigold rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: most-unattractive-characters-ever, classics

I admire Maugham’s writing - & I loved The Razor’s Edge. But I didn’t enjoy this book. The extreme misogyny of most of the characters really bothered me - & don’t tell me it’s an accurate depiction of social mores of the time – else I shall have to throw some other books from 1919 at you!

In this book, Charles Strickland leaves his wife & children after 17 years of a conventional life & passionately pursues his art through starvation & being an utter prick in Paris; then goes to Tahiti where his ...more

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Mar 08, 2008 Khinna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: artists

Shelves: favourites

It would be a mistake to read this novel as an inspiring tale of the triumph of the spirit. Strickland is an appalling human being--but the world itself, Maugham seems to say, is a cruel, forbidding place. The author toys with theidea that men like Charles Strickland may somehow be closer to the mad pulse of life, and cannot therefore be dismissed as mere egotists. The moralists among us, the book suggests, are simply shrinking violets if not outright hypocrites. It is not a very cheery concepti ...more

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Sep 12, 2020 Hadrian rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: visual-arts, fiction, historical-fiction

The Moon and Sixpence, I was surprised to find, enjoys greater popularity in China now than it does in the Anglophone world. Only look at how many reviews there are on Douban for a sample. I've heard of a manager who, when asked about the book, said, "If you catch an employee reading that, they're going to quit."

How so? It's loosely based on the life of Paul Gauguin. This novel's Gauguin, a Charles Strickland, was a stockbroker who quits his ordinary life to go to France and then Tahiti to do ar ...more

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Jul 06, 2017 John Farebrother rated it it was amazing

This book is awesome. It's about a middle-aged English stockbroker who gives up his family, job and everything and moves to Paris to live his dream of being a poverty-stricken painter. Still not satisfied, after he has learned the basics he works his way by sea to Tahiti and goes native, living only to paint, and ultimately dying in the midst of his ultimate creation and his new family. Selfish? Yes. Irresponsible? Yes. But you only live once. If you have a dream don't let conventions and routin ...more

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Jun 10, 2018 Aravindakshan Narasimhan rated it really liked it

Origin of the word Vocation: Late Middle English: from Old French, or from Latin Vocatio(n-), from Vocare to "To Call".
- Oxforddictionaries.com

From BBC radio:
He loved the countryside so much he wrote an entire symphony dedicated to it. This first movement to Beethoven’s Sixth ‘Pastoral’ Symphony is titled: Pleasant, cheerful feelings which awaken in one on arrival in the countryside. The composer loved to go for long walks among the hills and woods surrounding Vienna and often holidayed in coun ...more

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Feb 24, 2020 WhatIReallyRead rated it really liked it

Shelves: classics, freebie, art, great-writing, owned-ebook, fiction, read-in-english, e-book, historical-fiction

The Moon and Sixpence is a novel that examines the life of a fictional artist Charles Strickland whose character is based on Paul Gauguin.

The story of Strickland's life is told through the first-person account by his friend, a fictional writer. Strickland is a misunderstood artist tortured by his inner demons and the people around him are hurt by the flying debris of the struggle.

The atmosphere in this book reminded me of Émile Zola's The Masterpiece which I read several months ago. Tragic obs ...more

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Sep 04, 2020 booklady rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: art, 2020, fiction

There’s no denying Maugham’s ability as a writer. It’s a well-written book. But is it a novel or a biographical-novel, i.e., a novel based on a real person? I wanted it to be one or the other. It isn’t satisfying as either. It purports to be a novel loosely based on the life of the artist, Paul Gauguin. So, how loosely? How much of it can the reader believe in? Does that matter? If character matters to you, then the truth of the stories also matters.

Based on only the most cursory reading of Gau There’s no denying Maugham’s ability as a writer. It’s a well-written book. But is it a novel or a biographical-novel, i.e., a novel based on a real person? I wanted it to be one or the other. It isn’t satisfying as either. It purports to be a novel loosely based on the life of the artist, Paul Gauguin. So, how loosely? How much of it can the reader believe in? Does that matter? If character matters to you, then the truth of the stories also matters.

Based on only the most cursory reading of Gauguin's life, Maugham’s fictional Charles Stickland (who is supposed to be Gauguin) deviates enough as to make the two men morally distinct. (view spoiler)

Was he ‘a genius’? Look up his paintings if you are not familiar with them. My edition of Maugham’s book was divided between two artists: Frederic Dorr Steele and Paul Gauguin. Personally, I preferred the first artist, Steele, though probably unknown to you and most of the world, does excellent black and white sketches, which for all their simplicity, are more appealing, realistic and arresting than anything produced by Gauguin though he spent his life chasing ‘Beauty’. Beauty is—after all—in the eye of the beholder. But I do promise that I tried to see what the author saw in Gauguin and his painting and could not.

The three stars are based on Maugham’s writing ability minus my lack of trust in the result.

Have started to read this a couple of times but didn't get very far, but finally I think I am past the hump... Can't help it though I will never like Gauguin's painting... 😖 and that his personality matches it makes this hard to read... ...more

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Jan 04, 2015 Chrissie rated it it was ok

Shelves: tahiti, 2015-read, audible, classics, arts, fiction, great-britain, france

Don’t repeat my mistake. I chose this book because I thought it would give me a better understanding of Paul Gauguin’s life and inner thoughts. This is instead a book of fiction. Maugham creates a new story from a few of the well known facts about Paul Gauguin. Gauguin was a stockbroker who left his wife and family to paint. Maugham creates the fictional character Charles Strickland. He too is a stockbroker who leaves his family. Both go to Tahiti. Neither receives recognition for their artistic Don’t repeat my mistake. I chose this book because I thought it would give me a better understanding of Paul Gauguin’s life and inner thoughts. This is instead a book of fiction. Maugham creates a new story from a few of the well known facts about Paul Gauguin. Gauguin was a stockbroker who left his wife and family to paint. Maugham creates the fictional character Charles Strickland. He too is a stockbroker who leaves his family. Both go to Tahiti. Neither receives recognition for their artistic talent until after death. The differences are however so numerous that you cannot look at Strickland’s life and draw any conclusions about Gauguin’s motivations or thoughts. Here follow just a few of the differences:
(view spoiler)

Because of these differences you cannot draw any parallels. You cannot get inside the head of Gauguin through the character of Strickland. For this reason, the book cannot be classified as a book of historical fiction whose purpose is to teach you more about the artist Gauguin.

OK, what does the book offer? It looks at the motivation of an artist, any artist. What drives them? What motivates them? What pleasures and what sacrifices result from this creative urge? Except…. can you generalize to this extent? Isn’t it better to look at one specific person? The only person we have to follow is Strickland.

Strickland’s story/biography, which constitutes the story of this book, is told by an unnamed author who knew Strickland, his wife and his acquaintances. His story is told in episodic form employing a first-person narrative. However, the narrator himself points out that information is lacking and that some of his sources are unreliable. The unreliable evidence is not weeded out; all is related. By collecting information from different sources the retelling becomes both choppy and disconnected. Few of the characters in the side-stories are well developed. Dirk Stroeve and his wife were the exception. Only this diversional side-story drew me in. I adored Dirk, but then Strickland’s story goes on and that is the last we hear of Dirk. What are we given? A choppy, disconnected and incomplete story about a man who is in some ways similar to Gauguin. You cannot draw any conclusions from such a story.

Still, Maugham has a way with words. How he describes people, the dialogs, the humorous lines and his ability to capture how people behave, talk and interact - all of this is marvelous. It was the details of the story that I liked not how the story is constructed and laid out.

Steven Crossley narrates the audiobook. It is easy to follow. Fine in all respects.

And then there is the title: The Moon and Sixpence. It is fun to think about. What is Maugham saying? Wiki says: “According to some sources, the title, the meaning of which is not explicitly revealed in the book, was taken from a review of Of Human Bondage in which the novel's protagonist Philip Carey, is described as ‘so busy yearning for the moon that he never saw the sixpence at his feet.’ According to a 1956 letter from Maugham, ‘If you look on the ground in search of a sixpence, you don't look up, and so miss the moon.’ One can reason either way. They are not the same. But I would add the question: Do we choose, or is it our personality that decides? Could Gauguin be anything except who he was? I am back to Gauguin again because it is him that I am interested in, not Strickland!
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Aug 27, 2020 Matthew Appleton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, english-literature, read-2020

136th book of 2020.

My blurb, among other things, describes this novel as 'a vivid portrayal of the mentality of a genius'. Said genius is Charles Strickland, the stockbroker who abandons his wife and children to live the life of a painter. The latter word of the blurb quote could be a review's length discussion in itself - what is a genius? By any measure a genius must have something to show of it. Charles Strickland, eventually, does. It doesn't seem uncommon that Strickland's work is first ign 136th book of 2020.

My blurb, among other things, describes this novel as 'a vivid portrayal of the mentality of a genius'. Said genius is Charles Strickland, the stockbroker who abandons his wife and children to live the life of a painter. The latter word of the blurb quote could be a review's length discussion in itself - what is a genius? By any measure a genius must have something to show of it. Charles Strickland, eventually, does. It doesn't seem uncommon that Strickland's work is first ignored (though he doesn't strive for it to be lorded) before being considered genius. We've heard it before. "They weren't appreciated in their time," or else "They were ahead of their time." It seems to be the staple factor of a genius: they are first misunderstood, but finally revered (usually after death). With this alone, Maugham's Strickland then seems a little cliched, at least in today's world, but he is not wholly predictable.

I wonder: is he a sociopath? He is possibly the most interesting character I've read this year, and if not the most, certainly one of the best. Every conversation our protagonist has with him his as sharp and compelling as Maugham's writing. Like many great artists (for Strickland, I should mention, is based on a real artist - Paul Gauguin), he leaves in his wake a great number of broken hearts, and enemies. His indifference to the world is bordering Camus' The Stranger level, but his philosophy is concerned wholly with the creation of art and what that means. The novel in its entirety is a reflection on both love and art, and their interplay. I believe it was Hemingway who said something about sex being vital for the writing of a novel. Others say it is a temptation that draws them away from creation. (Of course, interestingly, sex itself is sometimes a form of creation.) And though elements of the discussion on love and women in this novel are outdated for our modern world, they do provide insight into the time, and above all, the minds of the characters: As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times. A sweeping generalisation, but interesting nonetheless.

'I love her so much better than myself. It seems to me that when vanity comes into love it can only be because really you love yourself best. After all, it constantly happens that a man when he's married falls in love with somebody else; when he gets over it he returns to his wife, and she takes him back, and everyone thinks it very natural. Why should it be different with women?'

Maugham writes with clarity, wit and control. It is astounding that this novel was published in 1919 - it reads like a novel some fifty years older. Though the plot loses itself a little towards the end, it rears itself back in for the ending, which comes as a beautiful rise and fall, like a receding wave. It only makes me desperate to read both Of Human Bondage and The Razor's Edge. If you are interested in either art, love, passion (as in the passions of one's life and what one sacrifices for them) and the concept of the 'genius' (this could be discussed, truly, forever), then this book is a must. For me, too, the novel roared: It is not what we own that matters after we are gone, but what we have created. ...more

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About W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham

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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 almost l ...more