William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) has fallen out of
fashion today and that’s a great shame: there are few writers of such clarity
of prose and consistency of vision who are also so eminently enjoyable to
read. He also wrote of the people he
knew; people who, for today’s world, are increasingly irrelevant. His is a vanished world of the English living
abroad in a developing world, or of the complacent English at home wracked by
an intruding outside world.
Maugham
lived a life as exciting and varied as any of that of his heroes. He was an inveterate traveler and addicted to
romance; his stories usually have a kernel of truth, often something he heard
while aboard ship, over a game of bridge, or in some distant outpost of the
Empire. Many of his short stories are
little better than detailed anecdotes, but the majority of his novels have a
distinct power, commanding a clear-eyed (and often cynical) view of humanity
and a sense of narrative sweep. He is a
writer to be savored, read and re-read.
It was with
a great deal of anticipation that I recently approached The Hero, his novel from 1901.
It is available for free at the invaluable www.ManyBooks.net, and comes highly
recommended.
The finished
book was a huge disappointment both critically and commercially for
Maugham. It did not enjoy a second
printing in the UK, and did not receive US publication until decades
later. It is a stunning indictment of
small time mores and morals, and the small-mindedness that seems to be second
nature with habitual do-gooders. Readers
were unhappy with Maugham’s social satire and blistering criticism, and reacted
accordingly. (Oddly enough, The Hero was
the first book in which Maugham used the Moorish symbol on the cover that would
become associated with him for most of the 20th Century – used,
ironically, for luck. The writer would
have to wait for better luck next time.)
The story
is a tale of the Boer War and its aftermath.
Young Jamie Parsons received the Victoria Cross for bravery in the
Transvaal for his failed attempt to save the life of Reginald Larcher. Now a celebrated war hero, he returns home to
the small town of Little Primpton, Kent.
He is met with a parade and speeches, as well as by his father and
mother, the devout Colonel Richmond and Frances Parsons. Jamie’s bravery is a particular boon to the
Colonel – a deeply Christian man, the Colonel was responsible for the loss of
his regiment after he showed mercy to the enemy, and was repaid with a surprise
attack.
Also waiting
at Little Primpton is Mary Clibborn, his fiancée. She is an extremely tedious person –
constantly doing ‘good’ with little or no regard for the recipients of her
largesse, or any understanding of the real world outside of the homilies of
provincial religious primers.
The worst
part of it all is that Jamie has come back to Little Primpton a changed
man. After his experiences in the wider
world – including war, death and a flirtation with a brother-officer’s wife –
Jamie no longer fits into the way of life nor the mindset of this little
backwater. When Jamie decides to end his
engagement to Mary, the town – led mostly by the parson and his wife – exact revenge.
One of the
chief joys of The Hero is watching Maugham deflate the small-town sanctimony of
many of the characters. Here his ruthless
in his summation of his world. Here he
is on the state of England at the time (and he could have been writing about
America today):
James had been away from England for
five years; and in that time a curious change, long silently proceeding, had
made itself openly felt—becoming manifest, like an insidious disease, only when
every limb and every organ were infected. A new spirit had been in action,
eating into the foundations of the national character; it worked through the
masses of the great cities, unnerved by the three poisons of drink, the
Salvation Army, and popular journalism. A mighty force of hysteria and
sensationalism was created, seething, ready to burst its bonds ... The canker
spread through the country-side; the boundaries of class and class are now so
vague that quickly the whole population was affected; the current literature of
the day flourished upon it; the people of England, neurotic from the stress of
the last sixty years, became unstable as water. And with the petty reverses of
the beginning of the war, the last barriers of shame were broken down; their
arrogance was dissipated, and suddenly the English became timorous as a
conquered nation, deprecating, apologetic; like frightened women, they ran to
and fro, wringing their hands. Reserve, restraint, self-possession, were swept
away ... And now we are frankly emotional; reeds tottering in the wind, our
boast is that we are not even reeds that think; we cry out for idols. Who is
there that will set up a golden ass that we may fall down and worship? We glory
in our shame, in our swelling hearts, in our eyes heavy with tears. We want
sympathy at all costs; we run about showing our bleeding vitals, asking one
another whether they are not indeed a horrible sight. Englishmen now are proud
of being womanish, and nothing is more manly than to weep. To be a man of
feeling is better than to be a gentleman—it is certainly much easier. The halt
of mind, the maim, the blind of wit, have come by their own; and the poor in
spirit have inherited the earth.
James had left England when this
emotional state was contemptible. Found chiefly in the dregs of the populace,
it was ascribed to ignorance and to the abuse of stimulants. When he returned,
it had the public conscience behind it. He could not understand the change. The
persons he had known sober, equal-minded, and restrained, now seemed violently
hysterical. James still shuddered, remembering the curate's allusions to his
engagement; and he wondered that Mary, far from thinking them impertinent, had
been vastly gratified. She seemed to take pleasure in publicly advertising her
connection, in giving her private affairs to the inspection of all and sundry.
The whole ceremony had been revolting; he loathed the adulation and the fulsome
sentiment. His own emotions seemed vulgar now that he had been forced to
display them to the gaping crowd.
The Hero is
highly recommended, though I fear that the people who should read it (small
town America) will not. Its sour
overview of empty-headed churchmen and interfering blue-noses is as needed
today as it was in 1901 … and would probably be just as popular.
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