Captain Pike
03-21-2012, 10:18 PM
I am reading one of my favorite authors, W. Somerset Maugham, and enjoying it (why would I continue, right?). I'm reading Liza of Lambeth and I want to just give you an example of something that I like about reading these a-little-less-than-contemporary Englishman. On my copy, it's page 12, in any case, it's right in the beginning of the chapter.
… they were invariably nursing babies, and most of them showed clear signs that the present object of the maternal care would soon be ousted by a new arrival.
On the one hand, a lot of Maugham's work is rife with this kind of lengthy, almost poetic description of landscape, and yet I don't feel bored and anxious for him to get on with the story. I am perfectly capable and often do feel this way about some more modern writers who seem to be, "taking the long way around the barn" – meaning, I believe I already know what is trying to be said, so that I'm dragging it out of the text, frustratingly.
Obviously, there is no pat answer to this question. Maybe it's the mood I prefer to be in when reading Henry James or Somerset Maugham. Today's setting was in the fairly early morning, outside on my patio, in a comfortable chair with the sun beaming down warmly on me, coffee near at hand. I smile while reading along, perfectly willing to go back and make sure I understand just what was being said. I trot along through the character descriptions and plot settings, much the way some of the Impressionists have painted; significant detail in places your liable to be looking and want the artist to show you just how hungry the eyes were but with plenty of nearly open canvas elsewhere, so that the mind can generate its own, more plausible detail according to the particular observer.
Were these guys really good? I mean there is so much fiction being produced today that none of us will ever be able to pursue more than a small pile of authors' complete works. I guess I'm getting old.
I like how the British authors sometimes say, "coming round the barn", rather than, "around", as we, of the colonies have gotten used to – just like strip malls and multiplex cinemas. Yes, and I know, Henry James was technically an American – but he wrote, "The Portrait of Lady", a book which I might very possibly owe my life to, because of the wonderful depiction of a man more or less confined to a chair, but with dignity to spare. But that is another story.
… they were invariably nursing babies, and most of them showed clear signs that the present object of the maternal care would soon be ousted by a new arrival.
On the one hand, a lot of Maugham's work is rife with this kind of lengthy, almost poetic description of landscape, and yet I don't feel bored and anxious for him to get on with the story. I am perfectly capable and often do feel this way about some more modern writers who seem to be, "taking the long way around the barn" – meaning, I believe I already know what is trying to be said, so that I'm dragging it out of the text, frustratingly.
Obviously, there is no pat answer to this question. Maybe it's the mood I prefer to be in when reading Henry James or Somerset Maugham. Today's setting was in the fairly early morning, outside on my patio, in a comfortable chair with the sun beaming down warmly on me, coffee near at hand. I smile while reading along, perfectly willing to go back and make sure I understand just what was being said. I trot along through the character descriptions and plot settings, much the way some of the Impressionists have painted; significant detail in places your liable to be looking and want the artist to show you just how hungry the eyes were but with plenty of nearly open canvas elsewhere, so that the mind can generate its own, more plausible detail according to the particular observer.
Were these guys really good? I mean there is so much fiction being produced today that none of us will ever be able to pursue more than a small pile of authors' complete works. I guess I'm getting old.
I like how the British authors sometimes say, "coming round the barn", rather than, "around", as we, of the colonies have gotten used to – just like strip malls and multiplex cinemas. Yes, and I know, Henry James was technically an American – but he wrote, "The Portrait of Lady", a book which I might very possibly owe my life to, because of the wonderful depiction of a man more or less confined to a chair, but with dignity to spare. But that is another story.