Pago
THE · CHINA MAIL
MONDAY, JANUARY
1957.
He is now 83—and, his pen has entertained the world for 60 years. What is beneath the smooth, outer
SOMERSET MAUGHAM, THE TIDY NOVELIST
S
OMERSET MAUG-
HAM is a tidy man, ' as tidy as his prose. His trousers .in- variably have a razor-sharp crease. His jackets look de though they came from his tallor only yesterday.
His villa in the south of France is na meticulously ordered as the office of a great corporation.
By Les Armour
Ho needed. a protective crust very carly.
And
he must have needed 16 syym moro when he went to live with his stom, religi ously bigoted uncle.
Nor does the tidiness merely affect his exterior. His words ara always measured. Hils sentence in the most casual From there conversation are perfectly con ho structed. His facial are Inevitably
went to the
Univer- expressions exactly apally of Heldle- berga TC- splic perhaps. But
propriate.
It is dimeult to resist the temptation to believe that there must be something behind all this order. Somewhere there must be the struggling creative mind, the sensitive soul which feels the discorderly world.
Perhaps. But perhaps not. Perhaps the exterior orderliness has at last conquered the man
within.
Perhaps, indeed, Maugham is spending his last years trying
to find the man within.
ONE
Only Himself
NE by one he has abandoned
his activities.
He gave up –
Heidie
berg was fol- lowed by St Themade Medical School In
London..
A
great London teach-
ing
hospital
in
Victorian
tim
times was a
hard place,
Human
But,
fering and
mizery in one of them would have
overwhelmed strongest,
ali but
His novels were
successful,
the sharp. But compassion showed through, and here and there medicine after the First World And they had to take refuge was uncertainty and hesitancy.
which, War, stopped writing plays in in the stern cynicism
evch now, is often a part of but he wanted, then, to capture the medical profession's stock the theatre. in trade.
Hig first trics were not
1933, abandoned the novel after the Second World War, dropped short stories a few years later, and finally, a year ago, gave up writing excys.
Now he has only himself to concentrate upon.
He is 82 this month (January 25). Yet he look and talks much as he did at 00. His mind
testimony of his friends
If Ute was hard, he
men must successful, and he settled down be harder. Maugham did not to master the conventions of find it easy.. We have the the comedy of manners,
and It was on the stage that the the testimony of the semi- ordered. cynical workd at autobiographical novel. "O! Somerset
Maugham was first Human Bondage."
revealed.
His plays sparkledi medicine after his
Indeed, he withdrew from with wit The vices of his
graduation,
had A characters
logical and resumed its practice only inevitability about them which for a short time during the took away their sting. Sentiment First World War.
was swept aside with a stroke of the pen.
any
of them. Marriage was among the institutions Maughon delighted to mock.
Yet Maugham, was · clearly not sationed that he had succeeded In packaging the human soul
After the First World War, ho turnext to religion. "The Unknown" told the story of a coldler who had lost his fath
the First World War.
in
Fut
BUL his faith, as the play progressed, turned out to be a sballow thing, the product of habit and convention, easily shattered at the first adversity.
Whether Maugham himself. really thought that the
war was conclusive evidence for the non-existence of God, there is no way of telling.
Certainly, anyway, the play looks like a struggle to reduce religious experience to the neat shallowness of Maugham's atage-world.
Queer Plays
THE Unknown" was followed by "Sheppey" - perhaps the greatest of Maughtin's plays. But it is a queer play
Sheppey is an Irish barber who wins £8,000 in the Irish sweepstake. He Teads St Luke's account of the young man who came to Jesus, and asked what he should do to ensure eternal life. Jesus told him to sell all his
give his possessions and
Then he money to the poor. would have treasures in heaverL Sheppey determines to do what the young man apparently dict not do obey the injunction.
Hig farmily immediately decide that he is insane and have him certified, The dimculty
Maugham
is
that in the play--- and says in a
a preface that the man is insane or, at least, that' he has "a disordered mind."
If he is, it is difficult to see what is the point of the play that anyone who Christ's Injunction obey must be mad. For Sheppey does not seem
has not stagnated. And it a only be working en himself.
It is not
discover
unless it is hard to how he lost hingelf,
did He was born in Paris where his father was a diplomatie lawyer. Law was deep in his family.
But his father died when he was eight, his mother when he wag 10.
St John Ervine read through Maugham's early play& and discovered
He wanted to write, His first novel "Liza of Lambeth" showed how well he had built his protective covering-but it meticulously showed chinks in it to Even that there was not a single then, is prase was hard and happy marriage recorded In
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to show
other signs of madness.
any
But If so, religion crumbles. the theory does not stem very convincing either in the play or as a piece of medico-theology. There are signs in the play. again, that Maugham's hard crust is breaking. Certainly the very fact that he was driven to the theme is itself evidence that Maugham war troubled by the problem.
But tho smooth outer Maugham very quickly recovers
his balance, even if the rest of the world cannot be convinced.
A
Uncertainty
FTER "Sheppey," --Maughom
gave up plays. His novels, meanwhile with some curious exceptions like "Of Human Bondage" and "The Moon and Sixpence," almost 1 blography of the painter Gauguin, ... successful broker, who in middle age, suddenly casts off his family and his business to Batisfy his urge to painti followed the pattern of his early plays,
In both
of these exceptions there
are signs of uncertainty again. The painter is treated harshly, and, aguin, ncar- insanlly is brought forth as a plea to explain. the depths of experience. But there is an evident sympathy for him and, in places, something very near an understanding.
In the twenties,
Maugham's
*****
THE TROUBLE
WITH BEING
MARILYN...GINA
or
ME!
THE ME' BEING- MARTINE CAROL
MARTINE CAROL ON LOCATION IN SPAIN
OUT OF THE BATH-AND INTO (THE LAKE
A THREE-CORNERED
BUILD
TEAM of British technicians working for
the Rolls Royce for
years
too,
two personal life lacked past
FIRST
By DAVID LEWIN
ARTINE
Ma
CAROL,
French actress who is celebrated for her film appearances in a bath, was shooting a picture in Lon" don for which she wore:-
Ditly denims. A casual shirt. And uncombed hair.
Arst
Miss Carol sees her English picture, "Action Of The Tiger," as taking her out of the bath-ngo,
Exacting
" do swim in the sea with- out nay clothes on, because the producers said it would be a wasto of Carol if I didn't--but it la for a few seconds only. Otherwise I have the chance to act a normal healthy girl,
"It is useless meraly to be known for having a good figure, That is the problem that faces Marilyn
Monroo Lollobrigida-or me,
Con
and
"We appear in a picture and immédiately the titles everyone say, 'So she looks good. What else can she do?",
"What no one seems to realise le that girls who
who have good gures have to be better actresses than girls who don't, It is not so easy just to walk
screen displaying curves. You have to be able to act and act well,
across
קי
A
"Before I went into fims and appeared to a bath I was alago actress for nine yenţe: 1, arted In everything-comedy, tragedy, the classics. That 19 why I have been ablo to succeed in pictures. In Franco anyway."
The friends
Now Martine Carol spends her time in Europe.
One of Mias Carol's friends is Gina Lollobrigida-because they share the same problem
of
having good figures and uying to surmount the problem.
We
are not rivals,"
ls," said Miss Carol, "Gina is a nice, simple girl.
She is not an actress off the ect. I cannot stand women who want to act all the time. They are usually the ones who' cannot act at any time. ...
RACE TO
PLANE
A-POWER
{
By GEORGE HOGAN
appearance, although it neces- sarily has unusual featuros. “It is, of course, on the secrot Hist and in the experimental stage,
in a guided missiles. It gives the Junkers, Focke-Wulf and but it is probably the mot
into a revolutionary future that
the tidiness of his novels. "He|| $4,000,000 research labora- names of seven British Henschol. Mainly light ajr- advanced research unit prering had married Syrie Barnardo, tory at Derby are experi- makers, including the Royal craft are being built at, will include the vertical take- the daughter of Dr Barnardo, menting in an effort to build Aircraft Establishment, and present but negotiations are off of giant supersonic bombers founder of Britain's famous
for. Britain the orphanages
first includes all the available proceeding to build foreign and airliners: It is undoubtedly atomic powered aircraft in roliable 'data
guided the world.
craft, Japan, also, is active the greatest advance since Bri- weapons, research rockets in the air again with seven jet engine.
tain invented and developed the and test vehicles in service or known to be under de. aircraft.companies.
The marriage was dissolved in the French courts in 1929 on grounds of incompatibility and, since then, Maugham has lived alone, essentially a lonely man.
The Surface
In America the U.S. Navy has given contracts to five firms for the development of atomic plane engines, and
velopment.
on
A glimpse into what ap
It quotes United States pears to be the hectic and it has been officially forecast opinion that America will comparatively small world there that an atomic plane perfect the first long-range of the future is afforded by will fly within the next five nuclear missile, with Britain the news of the contract the United
TT was not until 1944, when he wrote "The Razor's Edge." a novel about Brahminism, that ho returned again to deep themes. And, ogalo, he was years. Russia, too, is second and Russia third, awarded by driven to skate easily across the working on designs for at although the Russsians have States to North American surface of a complex system of lenat one type of atomic already declared that they Aviation to develop the
and emotions, The is carried along
tremendous speed scarcely
at powered plane.
NO REFUELLING
nilowed time to think, but, In the end, he cannot help think- there is something
EMTEBING 14 there wa
By
les of
have an
inter-continental X15. This is a manned re. ballistic missile. The USSR search aircraft intended to is not, however, included in have a speed of Mach 10 this section because of lack 10 times as fast as sound-
but Mr and to be capable of reach-
These facts are revealed of Information,
in the new 1956-57 edition Bridgman says that Soviet ing a height of 250,000 feet. the inner doubting Maugham of Jane's All the World's missiles stated to be in ser- 4 mcdium
inwards, leaving only a minute
Aircraft. Mr Leonard Bridge vice include
髯
STRAIGHT-UP PLANE
Meanwhile, since 'Jane's
was
left. The crust had, spread
area of the Inner man,
man, the editor, believes range solid propellant artil- Perhaps, now, that 'area is that in the not-so-distant lery rocket, an improved published Britains has “an- spreading
But, perhaps, as Maugham future, aircraft will be fly- V.2, a jeb propelled medium rounced the development of the ing at supersonic speeds range winged bombardment "straight up" "plane, and -leade
the
himself would *Bay, such speculation 1. beside the point for thousands of miles with missile and a supersonic principle of their
of Rolls Royce has entertained a suffering out refuelling. They will be glide bomb,
-ifying | bedstend", to a "Axed humanity for sixty years and powered by small light-res
frakkeraft,,This first British let dono his job well. He has never weight nuclear reactors Wastern Germany is in-aircraft, which can tako. DET presumed to do more corner suitably, shielded to protect cluded among the aircraft vertically, our hover like a
In all, his book bave
trollcopter, a million the crew and prevent inter manufacturing countries for ordinary axed wing Job, ple and fly forward like of him three-quarters pounds, and it is a safe bet foranice with the plane's the first time since the the Short SC1--Altendrech that almon no one of the instrumenta,
war. Familiar names being seed 9krange Contraption milliosis who have bought h book has earns retretted, the For the first time Jane's used again are Messers burubase,
Caerlos: #{sub-section on schmitt, Dornier, Heinkel, devastating to.
|POCKET CARTOON
by OSBERT LANCASTER
Fitn", the 'Ste Counti
nine of UNO? godi
teland that they've