Carol Storm's Reviews > Maugham: A Biography

Somerset Maugham is the opposite of Sylvia Plath. She was a genius who wrote electrifying poetry, full of rage and unconventional images. But when you read books about her life they are all unbelievably boring, like, "and then Sylvia refurbished the kitchen and built a crib and found out her husband was cheating and wrote sixteen brilliant poems in two weeks and then she stuck her head in the oven and died."

Maugham is the opposite. The vast bulk of his stories and novels are dull, sour, and filled with distaste for sex and emotions and the irritating way people get so passionate about so many things when really, a gentleman just wants a cocktail. Yet when you read about his life from the outside it just seems incredibly exciting and interesting and you can't believe that at the center of it was a bitter old fruit who just wanted a cocktail. "And then Maugham went to Cairo and seduced six young Egyptian men in one night while doing undercover work for the British government and writing a new play for the London stage. He ran into Winston Churchill and the two of them raced each other up the pyramids and then Maugham rode a camel on to the Red Sea, where he hopped a tramp steamer for Singapore. And in Singapore it rained all the time and he wrote twelve short stories while winning the club poker championship and seducing the wife and son of a prominent American businessman. In the same night."