Charles Strickland is an ordinary London stockbroker with a wife and two children until he abandons them without explanation and moves to Paris to paint. The narrator, a young writer, follows his slide into poverty and rudeness, and later his years in Marseilles and Tahiti. Strickland is selfish and cruel to people who help him, yet he is driven by an urge to create that he cannot resist. Maugham loosely based him on Paul Gauguin, and the novel asks what an artist owes to others and whether genius excuses the damage it leaves.
Anyone curious about the cost of single-minded ambition will find a clear, unsentimental case study here. Maugham's plain, ironic prose makes this an easy read that stays unsettling.
Deep and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Wisdom Collector. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 1919
- Language
- EN
