A New Life for Somerset Maugham

Book Reviews elements of Indian folklore, Nury applauds Kipling's understanding of the Indian mentality and his mastery of a more complex narrative technique. Taken together, these appreciations reveal the gradually maturing Kipling to the French reader while conceding weaknesses that would remain constants in his prose. While some of the opinions expressed may seem derivative to American and English scholars, it must be noted that the contributors to this first volume have scrupulously acknowledged their debt to earlier commentators, and their judgments, informed by an irreducibly French optique, are all the more palatable because they are devoid of the animus that often inspired the criticism of Kipling's own compatriots. One has the sense that these Frenchmen are grateful for Kipling. More important, they have avoided the pitfalls of modern French literary theory in evaluating Kipling's achievement, and they are to be commended for applying to his work the criteria that have always determined the survival of art. Having read their prefaces, one is more likely to know which of Kipling's tales are the best and the most enjoyable, and why. Kathleen Bulgin University of North Carolina at Greensboro A New Life for Somerset Maugham Robert Calder. Willie: The Life of Somerset Maugham. London: Heinemann , 1989. xviii + 429 pp. $25.00 OF ALL THE MAJOR BRITISH FICTION WRITERS whose long lives spreadeagled the reigns of Victoria and four or more subsequent monarchs—Shaw, Wells, and Forster come to mind—W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) has been the least fortunate in his biographers. This is not to suggest that Mr. Maugham's 91 years have been mined with any less thoroughness by Ted Morgan (Maugham: A Biography, 1980, 711 pp.) than Mr. Shaw's 94 are currently being excavated by Michael Holroyd. Rather, it is the double-barreled collision of changing modes in literary criticism and biography with the anticipated prurience of Maugham's vast popular readership that has always prevented a serious assessment of his considerable contributions to the arts of fiction and theater. Now the first full-dress biography since Morgan's a decade ago has surfaced in London. Robert Calder's Willie: The Life of W. Somerset Maugham, nearly 300 pages shorter than the Morgan and 95 ELT: Volume 33:1, 1990 with only 20 pages of notes compared to Morgan's 40, tells us nothing new about its subject. No matter. Predictably, Calder's only mission would be to rewrite Morgan; to convey gently what Morgan conveyed zestfully: Maugham's homosexuality, which, although long known in literary circles, didn't become common knowledge until Morgan proclaimed it—and named names. The new biography comes to its point in the preface: "Though [Morgan's] treatment of Maugham's homosexuality is more explicit than anything previously published, it always emphasizes the nasty, procuring side of homosexual life. At no time is there a recognition that a homosexual relationship might be supportive, sensitive, compassionate , and loving." Granted, Morgan is of the Kitty Kelly school of biography; he often quotes gossip as though it were fact. Still, Morgan's book never dragged. Calder's first 300 pages feature long guest lists, often without embellishment as if he were more concerned getting the names right than forging their connections to Maugham. Morgan came as close to the always elusive WSM as anyone ever will—Victoria Glendinning called him The Great Untouchable— and drew on the material about the private Maugham that was made available for the first time, and against orders, by his executor. Above all, Morgan did what any chronicler of this particular author must do. He told his story well. "My own interpretation of Maugham," says Calder, "is obviously different from Ted Morgan's." He continues: "I am convinced that the longstanding and inaccurate perception of him as a malicious, bitter, and spiteful misanthrope must be replaced by a portrait which recognizes his sensitivity, wit, loyalty, and numerous kindnesses to many people." Calder, in sum, writes to redress the wrongs he believes done his man by the previous book. After the first eight chapters, carrying his subject into his seventies and the end of the Second Great War, Calder devotes his final two chapters to a passionate...