1957-01-07 — Page 4

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