William Somerset Maugham “Selected stories”
This methodical handbook reveals the lingvostylistic approach in classical
literature through the selected stories of an outstanding English writer as
William Somerset Maugham.
Somerset Maugham was the master of the short, concise novel and he could
convey relationships, greed and ambition with a startling reality. The
remote locations of the quietly magnificent yet decaying British Empire
offered him beautiful canvasses on which to write his stories and plays. The
real-life inhabitants of these locations were frankly shocked at being
portrayed as so trivial, parochial and vacuous creatures. Maugham would
enjoy the undying hatred of many a South-East Asian planter and his wife
for the rest of his life. Yet, for the rest of us, his realistic depictions of the
boredom and drudgery of plantation life, and the desire and trappings of
what they would regard as civilization, can re-evoke what were perhaps the
more genuine feelings felt by many of the planters and civil servants in the
further flung reaches of the Empire. He disclaims expertise in certain topics
such as, for example, American dialect and philosophy. "Slang is the great
pitfall" he tells us. Maugham's English is clear and lucid and this makes his
books easy to come to terms with. His works are often full of the basest,
and yet more interesting, of the human vices but can still evoke the day to
day feelings and emotions that allow us to understand and identify with his
characters. A complex and interesting character, Somerset Maugham
managed to catch much of the darker essence of Empire. He sums up a
great deal about himself and his views in Looking Back, a semiautobiographical essay he penned in his later years.
All stories are based on two main literal trends as naturalism and
existentionalism (existence problem). Life in general is very hard,
oppressive, crestfallen, pathetic and tragic. Usually any man faces the
bugbears and hardships and accepts them as something necessary and
obliged after the second time, and even on the third it’s the sense of
existence in reality not in illusion.
As result, Maugham just has wanted to depict all sides of a real human life
in the vindictive and jealous world and how a person fights and surmounts
the following social and psychological difficulties: for example, in the story
“The Luncheon” – the complacency and mean, “Gigolo and Gigolette” –
profitable prudence in spite of miserable consequence, “Appearance and
reality” – fusion of two beginnings or two bases: soul and body, mind and
heart, the looks of a young man and the wreath of a middle-aged man,
physical mighty and mental resourcefulness, young body is so natural for
love and the middle-aged man’s package of money is natural for happy
existence for good.
The same sense is hid under the context of the others stories. Also, the
author wrote with irony and sarcasm in order to amuse his reader or even to
stir his imagination.
So, the reading of Maugham’s stories can’t leave anybody aloof and make
any reader instructive, exciting, ironic and realistic.
The structure of the methodical handbook is convenient in usage and
advantageous for learning English, especially the following aspects, as the
task for enrichment the lexical stratum, then, the task for improvement
grammar minimum and translation-ability due to creative task, and finally,
task-discussion stimulates oral abilities and leads to mental and logical
activity.
“Appearance and reality”
1. Lexical strarum:
1. Translate the following words into Russian and find them in the
story, then reproduce the laconic content with each used word (pay
attention to your grammar):
To vouch for
integrity
perfidy
Mainstream
to gain
effrontery
Ribaldry
to persuade
treachery
Horse sense
to riot
Dignity
to apprise
Vainglory
to accost
Frivolous
inquiry
Tightrope
solace
Establishment
well-brought up
Sullen
vice
To induce
to dote on
To bewilder
debonair
Heiress
embarrassment
To dower
to ransack
2. Give the definition to the expressions and find them in the text:
To draw the attention of smbd to smth.
To establish the reconciliation of irreconcilables
That is a horse of another colour
To keep an eye on smbd.
To get in touch with
Air of contempt
At first sight
Love by blue
To be abreast of the times
To devote to affairs
Keep out of mischief
With impunity
Row of beans
3. Look at the following French words and say: Why did the author
use bilinguism?
 bon sens
 gauloiserie










panache
le sueur
bon soir, mademoiselle
boulevard
Place de la Madeleine
Cette vieille carpe
Et ta souer
Bois de Boulogne
Chateau de Madrid
Tiens
2. Task for translation:
1. Translate the sentences into Russian (find all sentences with the
words and expressions from ex. 1-2 and translate them literally).
2. Translate from Russian into English (pay attention to highlighted
words):
1) Он поступил легкомысленно, приветствуя грубость сына при
теще.
2) Сегодняшняя
современная
молодежь
приветствует
непристойность, браваду, наглость, доступность ко всем
социальным источникам и порой находит утешение в
жизненно опасных средствах.
3) Он не отступает от жизни. Ничего его не смущает.
4) Он влюбился в нее с первого взгляда. Неожиданная любовь
полностью изменила его отношение и видение мира.
5) Ничто не сходит с рук просто так.
6) Малейшие пустяки приводят к бунту.
7) Ему сообщили хорошую новость, которая привела его в
восторг.
8) Отец души не чает в своей дочери.
9) Когда она выйдет замуж, я дам за нее приданое.
10) Правда была движущей силой, которая определяла все, о чем
он думал, что говорил или делал.
3. Creative task:
1. Make a literal and adequate translation of the passage ( I don’t
vouch for….to give it all away)/
2. Compose a story, a dialogue or a situation with the lexics from the
ex.1-2.
4. Task-discussion:
1. Answer the questions:
1) To which French writers did the professor draw the attention of
students? Which literal categories did they elaborate?
2) What does “panache” stand for”?
3) Is it a story in a story? Why? How does it call in modern
literature?
4) What is the linguistic style of the second story?
5) Find some author’s ironic and sarcastic complements to Lisette’s
appearance.
6) Why did M. Raymond marry Mrs. Raymond?
7) Is it adequate to name Raymond’s son a professional tennis
player, a brilliant gigolo? And why?
8) How could such a sullen woman like Lisette attract M.
Raymond’s attention ?
9) Describe the first meeting between Raymond and Lisette.
10) Was Raymond’s love by blue? Prove the episode from the story.
11) How did Raymond act to find out everything about Lisette?
12) Did Raymond dote on Lisette? What made him to look twenty
years younger by his friends’ words?
13) What was that unexpected visit of Raymond to Lisette at one of
the weekend? Did Lisette commit perfidy?
14) Find rather suitable explanation of the title of the story. It’s an
episode where Lisette gave a complete interpretation of her
choice between him and the young lover (so, he(Raymond) is
reality and the young lover – appearance).
2. Retelling of the story
“Gigolo and Gigolette”
1. Lexical stratum:
1. Translate the following words into Russian and find them in the
story, then reproduce the laconic content with each used word (pay
attention to your grammar):
Refinement
to plunge
blank
Lay-down
to subside
torture
Stunt
frock
To gamble
deprecating
Bluff
puzzled
Integrity
the slump
To bash
to vex
Fraud
filthy
Marvelous
funk
A spotlight
miserable
2. Give the definition to the expressions and find them in the text:
To catch sight of smbd.
To be a dud
To steady the old nerves
To make a packet
To get on terms
To run through one’s money
To be as tight as drums
Packet of fun
To strike while the iron’s hot
To got to pot
2. Task for translation:
1. Translate the sentences into Russian (find all sentences with the
words and expressions from ex. 1-2 and translate them literally).
2. Translate from Russian into English (pay attention to highlighted
words):
1) Он был достаточно честен, чтобы не взымать высокие налоги с
жильцов.
2) Он выступает против воины.
3) В его характере была какая-то определенная утонченность, за
которую его все любили.
4) Его озадачил никчемный человек своей бестактностью.
5)Куй железо, пока горячо.
6) Он выглядел несчастным и растерянным. Поэтому он притих и
лишь изредка ловил взгляд окружающих.
7) Платье Лиз было восхитительным, хотя камни и стразы оказались
поддельными.
8) В странах третьего мира часто назревает экономический кризис.
9) Глупая болтовня может и святого вывести из себя.
10) Он быстро разорился, поскольку безрассудно все промотал.
3. Creative task:
1. Make a literal and adequate translation of the passage ( Mrs.
Barrett….to be a dud).
2. Compose a story, a dialogue or a situation with the lexics from the
ex.1-2.
4. Task-discussion:
1.Answer the questions:
1) Describe the main heroes of the story.
2) Why did the gigolo Syd persuade Stella in diving?
3) Who said the following proverb “strike while the iron’s
hot” and for what event?
4) Why was Stella called as “human cannon-ball”?
5) Which type was their Syd and Stella’s “old life”?
6) What is the denouement of the story?(open or close)
7)
2. Retelling of the story
“The Escape”
1.
Lexical stratum:
1.
Translate the following words into Russian and find them in the
story, then reproduce the laconic content with each used word (pay
attention to your grammar):
To be convinced
prudence
confess
Instant
suffering
pathetic
Loom
hefty
to wring
Fickle
hazard
shrewd
Fled
persuade
solemn
To extricate oneself
callous
oath
Careful
rotten
to induce
Render
scheming
to jilt
Dispossessed
lamb
to reconsider
Peevish
inspect
Assiduous
behave
2. Give the definition to the expressions and find them in the text:
To make up one’s mind
To fall in love with smbd.
Common sense
To be on the point of doing
Plenty of money
Upon my word
As hard as nails
Well up into smth.
Fall out of love
To be in a quandary
To be in possession of smth.
To deal with
To be apt to do smth.
To lose one’s temper
By the way
To take care of
To get over the blow
3. Find and built up a chain of the synonyms from the text and the
dictionary (more than 3):
To convince
Plenty
Hazard
Lovely
Callous
Common sense
House-hunting
Lodging
4. Find the antonyms from the text and the dictionary:
To fall in love
To deal with
As hard as nails
To lose one’s temper
To be in a quandary
Fickle
Peevish
Assiduous
2. Task for translation
1. Translate the sentences into Russian (find all sentences with the
words and expressions from ex. 1-2 and translate them literally).
2. Translate from Russian into English (pay attention to highlighted
words):
1)Честное слово, я не знал, что она настолько упряма в своих
суждениях. Ты был прав. Она непреклонна.
2) В любой ситуации нужно прислушиваться здравого рассудка.
3)Не терзай ее сердце несбыточными обещаниями. Очень тяжело
будет оправиться от такого удара.
4)Настало тяжелое время. В стране царствует нестабильная
система управления. Народ не знает как поступить с ужасным
правительством.
5)Если собираешься достичь успеха, то действуй решительно и
обдуманно.
6)Я признаю, что ребенок вел себя отвратительно.
7)Страдание терзает душу и сердце.
8)Трагичный взгляд склоняет к милосердию и сочувствию.
9)Зло может увлечь и обмануть.
10)В любой момент можно находиться во власти чувств и эмоций,
но нужно уметь контролировать их, а не терять самообладание.
3. Creative task:
1. Make a literal and adequate translation of the passage ( They visited
house….lost her temper).
2. Compose a story, a dialogue or a situation with the lexics from the
ex.1-2.
4. Task-discussion:
1.Answer the questions:
1) Why can Ruth Charing render most men defenseless?
2) What’s the reason of Roger’s hefty situation between the
hazards of life and his “helpless little thing like Ruth”?
3) Why does he call her as “helpless little thing” if she was
as hard as nails?
4) Is the marriage hefty, rotten, happy or instant moment
between Ruth and Roger?
5) How did they separate in spite of Roger’s gallant and
assiduous courts to Ruth?
2. Retelling of the story
“The ant and the grasshopper”
1. Lexical stratum:
1. Translate the following words into Russian and find them in the story,
then reproduce the laconic content with each used word (pay attention to
your grammar):
Fable
burden
To be devised to do smth
scapegrace
Industry
to chuck
Giddiness
expostulation
Laborious
rumour
Store
unscrupulous
To beg for smth
enticement
Larder
amendment
Perversity
to blackmail
Disapproval
gamble
To prosecute
to philander with
Prudence
Gloom
2. Give the definition to the expressions and find them in the text:
To bring home to smbd
Reconcile oneself to smth
Couldn’t help doing smth
Wear an expression of
Sit on one’s shoulders
To be in hilarious spirits
To cause trouble
To make friends
To make a fresh start
Look as if one had just come out of a bandbox
To make a point of doing smth
To rub one’s hands
3. Explain the meaning of the idiom in form of a mini situation:
Every family has a black sheep.
4. Find juridical terms and translate them, also make up own sentences with
them.
2. Task for translation:
1. Translate the sentences into Russian (find all sentences with the words
and expressions from ex. 1-4 and translate them literally).
2. Translate from Russian into English (pay attention to highlighted
words):
1) Жизненный девиз повесы – кутить и флиртовать с красавицами.
Его лицо всегда выражает беспечность и холодный расчет.
2) Не всегда удается справиться с хандрой в тяжелую минуту.
3)Трудолюбие награждается, а легкомыслие наказывается в форме
горького испытания.
4) Соблазн порождает непомерный интерес и стремление к овладению
источника возбудителя.
5) Он как истинный денди всегда одет с иголочки и обходителен с
дамами.
6) Несмотря на превратности судьбы, он смог начать заново свой
профессиональный путь.
7) Нелегальные действия караются законом.
8) Он осужден за шантаж родного брата.
9) Жизнь – испытание, которое нужно выстоять или окажешься за ее
пределами.
10) Мстительный человек не сможет решиться на отступление,
поскольку изменит свой жизненный принцип.
3. Creative task:
1. Make a literal and adequate translation of the passage ( I suppose
….spent on luxuries).
2. Compose a story, a dialogue or a situation with the lexics from the
ex.1-4.
4.Task-discussion:
1. Answer the questions:
1) Who was a black sheep in the Ramsay?
2) Why did Tom begin to blackmail his elder brother George?
3) Describe two personages: Tom and George (mention about their
traits, appearances, way of life etc.)
4) How do you reveal the proverb: “Industry is rewarded and
giddiness is punished”?
2. Retelling of the story.
“The Happy Couple”
1. Lexical stratum:
1. Translate the following words into Russian and find them in the story,
then reproduce the laconic content with each used word (pay attention to
your grammar):
Trial
chatter
Ermine
austere
Harsh
to mellow
Gallow
to entrance
To sip
alacrity
Port
nuisance
Guilty
intrude upon
To condemn to
flounder
Trepidation
pang
Indignation
suppress
Presumably
to pan out
Barbarous
To deter from
2. Give the definition to the expressions and find them in the text:
To feel as old as hills
Stuff and nonsense
To strike up an acquaintance
To make no attempt to
To hold oneself well
To give a pat
To make up a story
To make up one’s mind
To keep body and soul
For good
3. Find juridical terms and translate them, also make up own sentences
with them.
4. Find gastronomic terms (especially, alcoholic beverages and hot,
heart-starting drinks).
5. Find and built up a chain of the synonyms from the text and the
dictionary (more than 3):
Weather-beaten
Flimsy
To make up one’s mind
Schedule
Poverty
Grim
Haggard
Dismay
Stock-hill
Commonplace
Vagary
Gossip
6. Find both French and Latin terms and translate them, also compose
your own sentences with them.
2.Task for translation:
1. Translate the sentences into Russian (find all sentences with the words
and expressions from ex. 1-4 and translate them literally).
2. Translate from Russian into English (pay attention to highlighted
words):
1) Ты умеешь очаровывать. Я испытываю особый прилив эмоций.
Тяжело понять и совладать с трепетным волнением.
2) Меньше болтайте о глупостях, больше работайте и проявляйте
проворство в делах.
3) Необходимо подвести годичный итог.
4) Раньше за доказанное убийство полагалась смертная казнь.
5) Как тебе удается поддавить капризы детей?
6) Она выполнила все указания шефа: составила график, устроила
успешную деловую встречу с итальянской компанией и ответила
на всю электронную почту.
7) Он даже не попытался удержаться от соблазна. Его
предупреждали, что завязывать знакомство с такими девицами
очень опасно.
8) Мой дед всегда выдумывает поучительные истории, чтобы
научить меня здраво думать и логически высказывать мысли.
9) Разве хорошо, когда человек все делает исподтишка: подпаивает,
околдовывает и подавляет благородные желания, вторгается в
личную жизнь.
10) Не неси вздор! Разве можно в 20 лет чувствовать себя старым. У
тебя вся жизнь впереди.
3. Creative task:
1. Make a literal and adequate translation of the passage ( What do
….brandy).
2. Compose a story, a dialogue or a situation with the lexics from the ex.14.
4. Task-discussion:
1. Answer the questions:
1) Why can we say that is a story in a story?
2) What type of literal trend does this story belong to?
3) What’s type of alcohol drink civilized to author’s standpoint?
4) Retell the story about the Wingford murder.
5) Why is human nature very odd?
2. Retelling of the story.
“The romantic young lady”
1. Lexical stratum:
1. Translate the following words into Russian and find them in the story,
then reproduce the laconic content with each used word (pay attention to
your grammar):
Decency
dowager
Outcome
prosperous
Escort
saunter
Recollection
live in penury
Regret
vivacity
Picturesque
alluring
Exuberant
seductiveness
Outstretched
alliance
Pretend
shilly-shally
Alter
humble
Conceal
consent
2. Give the definition to the expressions and find them in the text:
To hand on a platter
To break the old conventions
To get wind of
The fat was in the fire
To fall in ruin
To be at heart
To take breath away
To be at ease
3. Find French terms, translate into English and compose the sentences
with them.
4. Find an adequate translation to an American proverb (The fat was in the
fire). Try to disclose its sense with the help of lexics from ex.1-3
2. Task for translation:
1. Translate the sentences into Russian (find all sentences with the words
and expressions from ex. 1-4 and translate them literally).
2. Translate 3 sentences and one situation and retell it from Russian into
English (pay attention to highlighted words):
1) Никто не имеет права лишать человека жизни.
2) Он даже не потрудился позвонить.
3) Распространять слухи – его конек.
Они бедствуют. Доход отца едва хватает на питание, поэтому семье
придется поменять место жительство, чтобы не влезть в долги. Если
бы кто-нибудь протянул им руку помощи. Тогда исход их нетвердой
позиции изменился бы в положительную сторону. Отец и мать
согласны на все ради своих чад и их благополучное будущее. Они
представляют все в живописных эпизодах: семейный очаг, полного
изобилием и достойную красивую жизнь. Они устали от скромного
заработка за невыносимо тяжелый труд. Соблазн на красивую и
счастливую жизнь так притягателен. Поэтому приходится всегда
надеяться и при этом обдуманно действовать.
3. Creative task:
1. Make a literal and adequate translation of the passage ( in those days
….at hand).
2. Compose a story, a dialogue or a situation with the lexics from the ex.1-4
4. Task-discussion:
1. Answer the questions:
1) Describe the main heroes of the story.
2) What’s the difference between southern and northern people? Which
category does the romantic young lady belong to?
3) What type of relationship was between Countess de Marbella and
duchess de Dos Palos?
4) Is Pilar’s love to Jose Leon sincere, true-to-life or anything else?
2. Retelling of the story.
“Mr. Know-all”
1. Lexical stratum:
1. Translate the following words into Russian and find them in the story,
then reproduce the laconic content with each used word (pay attention to
your grammar):
Accommodation
loquacious
To exclude
overweening
Ebony
acrimonious
Sturdy
interminable
Lustrous
to bulge out
Sleek
demeanour
Exuberant
peal
Prohibition
vehement
Bone-dry
rot
Tumbler
deprecating
Exasperating
swarthy
2. Give the definition to the expressions and find them in the text:
To put up with
To look upon with dismay
To play patience
A bit of luck
To the backbone
To born under a bluer sky
To have a pal
To put on airs
Like a flower on a coat
To go to somewhere on an errand
To get a chance of easy money
3. Find the antonyms to the lexics from ex.1-2.
2. Task for translation:
1. Translate the sentences into Russian (find all sentences with the words
and expressions from ex. 1-4 and translate them literally).
2.Translate from Russian into English (pay attention to highlighted words):
- Что касается тебя, то я не собираюсь жить в таких условиях. Я ни за
что не смирюсь. Посмотри, как можно наслаждаться двухнедельным
вояжем в такой темной каюте с жесткими полками. Я в смятении! А
,ты, мой друг?
-Да?! Неудача!
-Видно, мы родились не под счастливой звездой! Думал, что хоть
здесь буду спокоен и забуду о раздражении. Все происходит так,
будто мне выпал шанс заработать шальные деньги.
- Слушай! Может, нам поважничать?! И тогда удача повернется к нам
лицом!
- Чепуха! Ничего не выйдет! Все лучшие места уже заняты.
3. Creative task:
1. Make a literal and adequate translation of the passage ( king George
….to say the word).
2. Compose a story, a dialogue or a situation with the lexics from the ex.12
3. Which of the following English proverbs could be suitable for the title
of the story (give your explanation):
 Twist someone round one’s little finger.
 Try to pull the wool over someone’s eyes.
 As a blind
 Too much curiosity lost Paradise.
 Still waters run deep.
 What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve out.

4. Task-discussion:
1. Answer the questions:
1) Why does he disdain Mr. Kelada? What makes him to kick Kelada
downstairs or even to slam the does in his face? (indicate the reasons)
2) What did Mr. What did Mr. Kelada run?
3) Why was Mr.Kelada called “everywhere and always”?
4) Does the title coincide with the main idea of the story and why?
5) Why did the author use the superlative adjectives with the adverbs “too”
and “enough” for description Mr.Kelada?
6) What was the point of conversation between Kelada and Ramsay?
What’s the climax and the denouement of it?
7) Why did Ramsay say to Kelada: “Perhaps that’ll teach you not to be so
cocksure another time, my young friend”?
2. Retelling of the story.
“The luncheon”
1. Lexical stratum:
1. Translate the following words into Russian and find them in the story,
then reproduce the laconic content with each used word (pay attention to
your grammar):
To beckon
To flatter
To cut out
Devasting
To incline to do smth
Salmon
Digestion
Effusive
Flash
Marvel
To mortify
Succulent
Virtuous
Voluptuous
Mean
Revenge
Vindictive
Complacency
2. Give the definition to the expressions and find them in the text:
To catch sight of smbd
How time does fly!
To have a chat with smbd
In fact
3. Name the species for the following categories (from the text):
Fish=
Delicacy of the seafood=
Meat=
Beverage=
Vegetables=
Dessert=
Fruits=
2. Task for translation:
1. Translate the sentences into Russian (find all sentences with the words
and expressions from ex. 1-4 and translate them literally).
2. Translate from Russian into English (pay attention to highlighted
words):
1) Самодовольство не всегда радует душу.
2) Меня нисколько не обольщают твои пышные фразы.
3) Одиночество опустошает и притупляет чувственное восприятие.
4) Доктор посоветовал ему исключить жирную рыбу (лосось) из
своего рациона.
5) Он не сдержан в своих эмоциях. Заставь его контролировать ими
на людях.
6) При виде сочного кусочка мяса у меня пробуждается волчий
аппетит.
7) Обычно считается, что полусырое мясо усваивается хуже, чем
вареное или жареное.
8) Она сделала мне знак идти следом. Кругом ловушки. Один
неверный шаг может обернуться трагедией.
9) Вспышка молнии символизирует молниеносное решение в
критической ситуации.
10) Она думала, что сможет заставить сына измениться, унижая на
глазах чужих.
3. Creative task:
1. Make a literal and adequate translation of the passage (It was 20 years
ago ….well enough).
2. Compose a story, a dialogue or a situation with the lexics from the ex.13.
3. Develop a voluptuous and eloquent mini reasoning concerning the
following expression from the Bible:
“The nostrils of Jehovah were tickled by the burned offerings of the
virtuous Semites”.
4. Task-discussion:
1. Answer the questions:
1. How did they get acquainted?
2. In what way was there a luncheon at Foyot’s?
3. What did she and he order for the meal?
4. Did she advise anything about food, meal and diet?
5. Do you follow the principle like the main heroin of the story: “One
should always get up from a meal feeling one could eat a little more”?
6. What is the perilous moment during the luncheon?
7. How much does she weigh? (if 1 stone=6.34 kg, and she weighs 21
stones=….)
2. Retelling of the story.
“The poet”
1. Lexical stratum:
1. Translate the following words into Russian and find them in the story,
then reproduce the laconic content with each used word (pay attention to
your grammar):
Attainment(s)
Decrepitude
Descendant
Enrapture
Haunting
Incisive
Outlaw
Anguish
Wrath
Entreaty
Disdain
To endear to
Posterity
Pang
Consternation
Tortuous
Tile
Squalor
To detain
To throng
Appraisal
Crabbed
2. Give the definition to the expressions and find them in the text:
To be on the lips of
To live in seclusion
To spend money profusely
To touch one’s heart
To make the acquaintance
To be abashed
2. Task for translation:
1. Translate the sentences into Russian (find all sentences with the words
and expressions from ex. 1-2 and translate them literally).
2. Translate from Russian into English (pay attention to highlighted
words):
Она затронула мое сердце. Теперь я испытываю боль и страдание.
Мне тяжело открыться ей. Наверное, испуг мною овладел. Боже,
какой извилистый путь придется пройти, чтобы расточить любовную
слабость. Через пару лет я превращусь в изгоя судьбы, но сердце
будет испытывать презрение и ярость. Рассудок будет твердить, что я
только внушал страстную любовь к убогому созданию, не умеющему
любить и ценить возвышенное чувство. Но когда я произношу ее имя,
мне хочется забыть о своем жалком существовании, поскольку
приходится жить в одиноком царстве скорби и печали.
3. Creative task:
1. Make a literal and adequate translation of the passage (Calisto de Santa
Ana was the least …flattering to our poet).
2. Compose a story, a dialogue or a situation with the lexics from the ex.12.
4. Task-discussion:
1. Answer the questions:
1) Who was Calisto de Santa Ana?
2) To what literal trend did he dedicate his life?
3) Who surrounded him? Describe them.
2. Retelling of the story.
“A man from Glasgow”
1. Lexical stratum:
1. Translate the following words into Russian and find them in the story,
then reproduce the laconic content with each used word (pay attention to
your grammar):
To overtake
Indignation
To quiz
Shabby
Slatternly
Profusion
Scanty
Remote
Irksome
To groan
Gasp
Countenance
Charcoal
Foul
2. Give the definition to the expressions and find them in the text:
Matter-of-fact
To look smbd up and down
To huddle over
To give an idle glance
To chill one’s blood
To look after the business
To tower over smbd
To get a wink of sleep
To get a breath of air
To give a bob
To strain one’s ears
To tell the truth
2. Task for translation:
1. Translate the sentences into Russian (find all sentences with the words
and expressions from ex. 1-2 and translate them literally).
2. Translate from Russian into English (pay attention to highlighted
words):
1) Опасно обгонять другую машину на повороте.
2) его охватил страх и бурное негодование.
3) Полиция опросила соседей по поводу происшествия.
4) Тень бедности сгущается с каждым днем над ветшающими стенами
его несчастного дома.
5) Сон это иллюзия или плот воображения, но не реальность.
6)Меня раздражает неряшливый вид ее одежды.
7) Он смерил меня холодным взглядом, не сказал ни слова о
случившемся и вышел из комнаты.
8) Я сел за стол и дождался постного заказа.
9) Место глухое, и жизнь поэтому здесь недорогая.
10) Утомительно выслушивать его постоянные жалобы.
3. Creative task:
1. Make a literal and adequate translation of the passage (I’ve never
seen…on with his game).
2. Compose a story, a dialogue or a situation with the lexics from the ex.12.
4. Task-discussion:
1. Answer the questions:
1) How did the author determine the weak point of Robert Morrison (a man
from Glasgow) as “chronic alcoholism”?
2) What’s Robert ex-profession”
3) What did it happen on the crest of a hill?
2. Retelling of the story.
William Somerset Maugham
"I have never pretended to be anything but a story teller. It has amused me
to tell stories and I have told a great many. It is a misfortune for me that
the telling of a story just for the sake of the story is not an activity that is in
favor with the intelligentsia. In endeavor to bear my misfortunes with
fortitude." (from Creatures of Circumstance, 1947)
born Jan. 25, 1874, Paris, Fr.
died Dec. 16, 1965, Nice
in full William Somerset Maugham English novelist, playwright, and shortstory writer whose work is characterized by a clear unadorned style,
cosmopolitan settings, and a shrewd understanding of human nature. He
was one of the most popular authors of his era, and reputedly the highest
paid of his profession during the 1930s.
Childhood and education
Maugham's father was an English lawyer handling the legal affairs of the
British embassy in Paris. Since French law declared that all children born
on French soil could be conscripted for military service, Robert Ormond
Maugham arranged for William to be born at the embassy, technically on
British soil, saving him from conscription into any future French wars. His
grandfather, another Robert, had also been a prominent lawyer and
cofounder of the English Law Society, and it was taken for granted that
William would follow in their footsteps. Events were to ensure this was not
to be, but his older brother Viscount Maugham did enjoy a distinguished
legal career, becoming Lord Chancellor between 1938–9.
Maugham's mother Edith Mary (née Snell) was consumptive, a condition
for which the doctors of the time prescribed childbirth. As a result
Maugham had three older brothers, already enrolled in boarding school by
the time he was three and Maugham was effectively raised as an only child.
Sadly, childbirth proved no cure for tuberculosis, and Edith Mary
Maugham died at the age of 41, six days after the stillbirth of her final son.
The death of his mother left Maugham traumatized for life, and he kept his
mother's photograph by his bedside until his own death at the age of 91 in
Nice, France.
Maugham was orphaned at the age of 10; he was brought up by an uncle
and educated at King's School, Canterbury.Two years after his mother's
death, Maugham's father died of cancer. Willie was sent back to England to
be cared for by his uncle, Henry MacDonald Maugham, the Vicar of
Whitstable, in Kent. The move was catastrophic. Henry Maugham proved
cold and emotionally cruel. The King's School, Canterbury, where Willie
was a boarder during school terms, proved merely another version of
purgatory, where he was teased for his bad English (French had been his
first language) and his short stature, which he inherited from his father.
It is at this time that Maugham developed the stammer that would stay with
him all his life, although it was sporadic and subject to mood and
circumstance.
Life at the vicarage was tame, and emotions were tightly circumscribed.
Maugham was forbidden to lose his temper, or to make emotional displays
of any kind — and he was denied the chance to see others express their
own emotions. He was a quiet, private but very curious child, and this
denial of the emotion of others was at least as hard on him as the denial of
his own emotions.
The upshot was that Maugham was miserable, both at the vicarage and at
school, where he was bullied because of his small size and his stammer. As
a result, he developed a talent for applying a wounding remark to those
who displeased him. This ability is sometimes reflected in the characters
that populate his writings.
At sixteen, Maugham refused to continue at The King's School and his
uncle allowed him to travel to Germany, where he studied literature,
philosophy and German at Heidelberg University. It was during his year in
Heidelberg that he met John Ellingham Brooks, an Englishman ten years
his senior, and with whom he had his first sexual experience.
On his return to England his uncle found Maugham a position in an
accountant's office, but after a month Maugham gave it up and returned to
Whitstable. His uncle was not pleased, and set about finding Maugham a
new profession. Maugham's father and three older brothers were all
distinguished lawyers and Maugham asked to be excused from the duty of
following in their footsteps.
A career in the church was rejected because a stammering minister might
make the family seem ridiculous. Likewise, the civil service was rejected
— not out of consideration for Maugham's own feelings or interests, but
because the recent law requiring civil servants to qualify by passing an
examination made Maugham's uncle conclude that the civil service was no
longer a career for gentlemen.
The local doctor suggested the profession of medicine and Maugham's
uncle reluctantly approved this. Maugham had been writing steadily since
the age of 20 and fervently intended to become an author, but because
Maugham was not of age, he could not confess this to his guardian. So he
spent the next five years as a medical student at King's College London.
After a year at Heidelberg, he entered St. Thomas' medical school, London,
and qualified as a doctor in 1897. He traveled in Spain and Italy and in
1908 achieved a theatrical triumph—four plays running in London at
once—that brought him financial security. During World War I he worked
as a secret agent. After the war he resumed his interrupted travels and, in
1928, bought a villa on Cape Ferrat in the south of France, which became
his permanent home.
His reputation as a novelist rests primarily on four books: Of Human
Bondage (1915), a semi-autobiographical account of a young medical
student's painful progress toward maturity; The Moon and Sixpence (1919),
an account of an unconventional artist, suggested by the life of Paul
Gauguin; Cakes and Ale (1930), the story of a famous novelist, which is
thought to contain caricatures of Thomas Hardy and Hugh Walpole; and
The Razor's Edge (1944), the story of a young American war veteran's
quest for a satisfying way of life. Maugham's plays, mainly Edwardian
social comedies, soon became dated, but his short stories have increased in
popularity. Many portray the conflict of Europeans in alien surroundings
that provoke strong emotions, and Maugham's skill in handling plot, in the
manner of Guy de Maupassant, is distinguished by economy and suspense.
In The Summing Up (1938) and A Writer's Notebook (1949) Maugham
explains his philosophy of life as a resigned atheism and a certain
skepticism about the extent of man's innate goodness and intelligence; it is
this that gives his work its astringent cynicism.
Early works
Many readers and some critics have assumed that the years Maugham spent
studying medicine were a creative dead end, but Maugham himself felt
quite the contrary. He was able to live in the lively city of London, to meet
people of a "low" sort that he would never have met in one of the other
professions, and to see them in a time of heightened anxiety and meaning in
their lives. In maturity, he recalled the literary value of what he saw as a
medical student: "I saw how men died. I saw how they bore pain. I saw
what hope looked like, fear and relief..." Maugham saw how corrosive to
human values suffering was, how bitter and hostile sickness made people,
and never forgot it. Here, finally, was "life in the raw" and the chance to
observe a range of human emotions.
Maugham kept his own lodgings, took pleasure in furnishing them, filled
many notebooks with literary ideas, and continued writing nightly while at
the same time studying for his degree in medicine. In 1897, he presented
his second book for consideration. (The first was a biography of opera
composer Giacomo Meyerbeer written by the 16-year-old Maugham in
Heidelberg.)
Liza of Lambeth, a tale of working-class adultery and its consequences,
drew its details from Maugham's experiences as a medical student doing
midwifery work in the London slum of Lambeth. The novel is of the school
of social-realist "slum writers" such as George Gissing and Arthur
Morrison. Frank as it is, Maugham still felt obliged to write near the
opening of the novel: "...it is impossible always to give the exact
unexpurgated words of Liza and the other personages of the story; the
reader is therefore entreated with his thoughts to piece out the necessary
imperfections of the dialogue."
Liza of Lambeth proved popular with both reviewers and the public, and
the first print run sold out in a matter of weeks. This was enough to
convince Maugham, who had qualified as a doctor, to drop medicine and
embark on his sixty-five year career as a man of letters. Of his entry into
the profession of writing he later said, "I took to it as a duck takes to
water."
The writer's life allowed Maugham to travel and live in places such as
Spain and Capri for the next decade, but his next ten works never came
close to rivalling the success of Liza. This changed dramatically in 1907
with the phenomenal success of his play Lady Frederick; by the next year
he had four plays running simultaneously in London, and Punch published
a cartoon of Shakespeare biting his fingernails nervously as he looked at
the billboards
Popular success, 1914–1939
By 1914 Maugham was famous, with 10 plays produced and 10 novels
published. Too old to enlist when World War I broke out, Maugham served
in France as a member of the British Red Cross's so-called "Literary
Ambulance Drivers", a group of some 23 well-known writers including
Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, and E. E. Cummings. During this
time he met Frederick Gerald Haxton, a young San Franciscan who became
his companion and lover until Haxton's death in 1944 (Haxton appears as
Tony Paxton in Maugham's 1917 play, Our Betters). Throughout this
period Maugham continued to write; indeed, he proof-read Of Human
Bondage at a location near Dunkirk during a lull in his ambulance duties.
However, Maugham is also known to have worked for British Intelligence
in mainland Europe during the war, having been recruited by John
Wallinger, and was one of the network of British agents who operated in
Switzerland against the Berlin Committee, notably Virendranath
Chattopadhyay. Maugham was later recruited by William Wiseman to work
in Russia.
Of Human Bondage (1915) initially received adverse criticism both in
England and America, with the New York World describing the romantic
obsession of the main protagonist Philip Carey as the sentimental servitude
of a poor fool. However the influential critic, and novelist, Theodore
Dreiser rescued the novel referring to it as a work of genius, and comparing
it to a Beethoven symphony. This review gave the book the lift it needed
and it has since never been out of print.
The book appeared to be closely autobiographical (Maugham's stammer is
transformed into Philip Carey's club foot, the vicar of Whitstable becomes
the vicar of Blackstable, and Philip Carey is a doctor) although Maugham
himself insisted it was more invention than fact. Nevertheless, the close
relationship between fictional and non-fictional became Maugham's
trademark, despite the legal requirement to state that "the characters in [this
or that publication] are entirely imaginary". In 1938 he wrote: "Fact and
fiction are so intermingled in my work that now, looking back on it, I can
hardly distinguish one from the other."
Although Maugham's first and many other sexual relationships were with
men, he also had sexual relationships with a number of women.
Specifically his affair with Syrie Wellcome, daughter of orphanage founder
Thomas John Barnardo and wife of American-born English pharmaceutical
magnate Henry Wellcome, produced a daughter named Liza (born Mary
Elizabeth Wellcome, 1915–1998). Henry Wellcome then sued his wife for
divorce, naming Maugham as co-respondent. In May 1917, following the
decree nisi, Syrie and Maugham were married. Syrie became a noted
interior decorator who popularized the all-white room in the 1920s.
Maugham returned to England from his ambulance unit duties to promote
Of Human Bondage but once that was finalised, he became eager to assist
the war effort once more. As he was unable to return to his ambulance unit,
Syrie arranged for him to be introduced to a high ranking intelligence
officer known only as "R", and in September 1915 he began work in
Switzerland, secretly gathering and passing on intelligence while posing as
himself — that is, as a writer.
In 1916, Maugham travelled to the Pacific to research his novel The Moon
And Sixpence, based on the life of Paul Gauguin. This was the first of those
journeys through the late-Imperial world of the 1920s and 1930s which
were to establish Maugham forever in the popular imagination as the
chronicler of the last days of colonialism in India, Southeast Asia, China
and the Pacific, although the books on which this reputation rests represent
only a fraction of his output. On this and all subsequent journeys he was
accompanied by Haxton, whom he regarded as indispensable to his success
as a writer. Maugham himself was painfully shy, and Haxton the extrovert
gathered human material that Maugham steadily turned into fiction.
In June, 1917 he was asked by Sir William Wiseman, chief of the British
Secret Intelligence Service (later named MI6), to undertake a special
mission in Russia to keep the Provisional Government in power and Russia
in the war by countering German pacifist propaganda. Two and a half
months later the Bolsheviks took control. The job was probably always
impossible, but Maugham subsequently claimed that if he had been able to
get there six months earlier, he might have succeeded.
Quiet and observant, Maugham had a good temperament for intelligence
work; he believed he had inherited from his lawyer father a gift for cool
judgement and the ability to be undeceived by facile appearances.
Never losing the chance to turn real life into a story, Maugham made his
spying experiences into a collection of short stories about a gentlemanly,
sophisticated, aloof spy, Ashenden, a volume that influenced the Ian
Fleming James Bond series.
In 1922 Maugham dedicated On A Chinese Screen, a book of 58 ultra-short
story sketches collected during his 1920 travels through China and Hong
Kong, to Syrie, with the intention of later turning the sketches into a book.
Dramatised from a story which first appeared in his collection The
Casuarina Tree published in 1924, Maugham's play The Letter, starring
Gladys Cooper, had its premiere in London in 1927. The play was later
turned into a film in 1929 and again in 1940.
Syrie and Maugham divorced in 1927–8 after a tempestuous marriage
complicated by Maugham's frequent travels abroad and strained by his
relationship with Haxton.
In 1928, Maugham bought Villa Mauresque on twelve acres at Cap Ferrat
on the French Riviera, which would be his home for most of the rest of his
life, and one of the great literary and social salons of the 1920s and 30s. His
output continued to be prodigious, including plays, short stories, novels,
essays and travel books. By 1940, when the collapse of France forced
Maugham to leave the French Riviera and become a well-heeled refugee,
he was already one of the most famous writers in the English-speaking
world, and one of the wealthiest.
Grand Old Man of letters
Maugham, by now in his sixties, spent most of World War II in the United
States, first in Hollywood (he worked on many scripts, and was one of the
first authors to make significant money from film adaptations) and later in
the South. While in the US he was asked by the British government to
make patriotic speeches to induce the US to aid Britain, if not necessarily
become an allied combatant. Gerald Haxton died in 1944, and Maugham
moved back to England, then in 1946 to his villa in France, where he lived,
interrupted by frequent and long travels, until his death.
The gap left by Haxton's death in 1944 was filled by Alan Searle.
Maugham had first met Searle in 1928. Searle was a young man from the
London slum area of Bermondsey and he had already been kept by older
men. He proved a devoted if not a stimulating companion. Indeed one of
Maugham's friends, describing the difference between Searle and Haxton,
said simply: "Gerald was vintage, Alan was vin ordinaire."
Maugham's love life was almost never smooth. He once confessed: "I have
most loved people who cared little or nothing for me and when people have
loved me I have been embarrassed... In order not to hurt their feelings, I
have often acted a passion I did not feel."
A bitter attack on the deceased Syrie in his 1962 volume of memoirs,
Looking Back lost him several friends. In his last years Maugham adopted
Searle as his son in order to ensure that he would inherit his estate, a move
hotly contested by his daughter Liza and her husband, Lord Glendevon, and
which exposed Maugham to much public ridicule.
There is no grave for Maugham. His ashes were scattered near the
Maugham Library, The King's School, Canterbury.
Commercial success with high book sales, successful play productions and
a string of film adaptations, backed by astute stock market investments,
allowed Maugham to live a very comfortable life. Small and weak as a boy,
Maugham had been proud even then of his stamina, and as an adult he kept
churning out the books, proud that he could.
Yet, despite his triumphs, he never attracted the highest respect from the
critics or his peers. Maugham himself attributed this to his lack of "lyrical
quality", his small vocabulary and failure to make expert use of metaphor
in his work.
Maugham wrote in a time when experimental modernist literature such as
that of William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf
was gaining increasing popularity and winning critical acclaim. In this
context, his plain prose style was criticized as "such a tissue of clichés that
one's wonder is finally aroused at the writer's ability to assemble so many
and at his unfailing inability to put anything in an individual way".
Maugham's homosexual leanings also shaped his fiction, in two ways.
Since, in life, he tended to see attractive women as sexual rivals, he often
gave the women of his fiction sexual needs and appetites, in a way quite
unusual for authors of his time. "Liza of Lambeth," Cakes and Ale and
"The Razor's Edge" all featured women determined to service their strong
sexual appetites, heedless of the result.
Also, the fact that Maugham's own sexual appetites were highly
disapproved of, or even criminal, in nearly all of the countries in which he
travelled, made Maugham unusually tolerant of the vices of others. Readers
and critics often complained that Maugham did not clearly enough
condemn what was bad in the villains of his fiction and plays. Maugham
replied in 1938: "It must be a fault in me that I am not gravely shocked at
the sins of others unless they personally affect me."
Maugham's public view of his abilities remained modest; towards the end
of his career he described himself as "in the very first row of the secondraters". In 1954, he was made a Companion of Honour.
Maugham had begun collecting theatrical paintings before the First World
War and continued to the point where his collection was second only to that
of the Garrick Club.[19] In 1948 he announced that he would bequeath this
collection to the Trustees of the National Theatre, and from 1951, some 14
years before his death, his paintings began their exhibition life. In 1994
they were placed on loan to the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden.
Significant works
Maugham's masterpiece is generally agreed to be Of Human Bondage, a
semi-autobiographical novel that deals with the life of the main character
Philip Carey, who like Maugham, was orphaned, and brought up by his
pious uncle. Philip's clubfoot causes him endless self-consciousness and
embarrassment, echoing Maugham's struggles with his stutter. Later
successful novels were also based on real-life characters: The Moon and
Sixpence fictionalizes the life of Paul Gauguin; and Cakes and Ale contains
thinly veiled characterizations of authors Thomas Hardy and Hugh
Walpole.
Maugham's last major novel, The Razor's Edge, published in 1944, was a
departure for him in many ways. While much of the novel takes place in
Europe, its main characters are American, not British. The protagonist is a
disillusioned veteran of World War I who abandons his wealthy friends and
lifestyle, travelling to India seeking enlightenment. The story's themes of
Eastern mysticism and war-weariness struck a chord with readers as World
War II waned, and a movie adaptation quickly followed.
Among his short stories, some of the most memorable are those dealing
with the lives of Western, mostly British, colonists in the Far East, and are
typically concerned with the emotional toll exacted on the colonists by their
isolation. Some of his more outstanding works in this genre include Rain,
Footprints In The Jungle, and The Outstation. Rain, in particular, which
charts the moral disintegration of a missionary attempting to convert the
Pacific island prostitute Sadie Thompson, has kept its fame and been made
into a movie several times. Maugham said that many of his short stories
presented themselves to him in the stories he heard during his travels in the
outposts of the Empire. He left behind a long string of angry former hosts,
and a contemporary anti-Maugham writer retraced his footsteps and wrote a
record of his journeys called "Gin And Bitters". Maugham's restrained
prose allows him to explore the resulting tensions and passions without
appearing melodramatic. His The Magician (1908) is based on British
occultist Aleister Crowley.
Maugham was one of the most significant travel writers of the inter-war
years, and can be compared with contemporaries such as Evelyn Waugh
and Freya Stark. His best efforts in this line include The Gentleman In The
Parlour, dealing with a journey through Burma, Siam, Cambodia and
Vietnam, and On A Chinese Screen, a series of very brief vignettes which
might almost be notes for short stories that were never written.
Influenced by the published journals of the French writer Jules Renard,
which Maugham had often enjoyed for their conscientiousness, wisdom
and wit, Maugham published in 1949 selections from his own journals
under the title "A Writer's Notebook". Although these journal selections
are, by nature, episodic and of varying quality, they range over more than
50 years of the writer's life and contain much that Maugham scholars and
admirers find of interest.
Influence
In 1947 Maugham instituted the Somerset Maugham Award, awarded to
the best British writer or writers under the age of thirty-five of a work of
fiction published in the past year. Notable winners include V.S. Naipaul,
Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis and Thom Gunn. On his death, Maugham
donated his copyrights to the Royal Literary Fund.
One of very few later writers to praise his influence was Anthony Burgess,
who included a complex fictional portrait of Maugham in the novel Earthly
Powers. George Orwell also stated that Maugham was "the modern writer
who has influenced me the most". The American writer Paul Theroux, in
his short story collection The Consul's File, updated Maugham's colonial
world in an outstation of expatriates in modern Malaysia. Holden Caulfield,
in J.D. Salinger's 1951 The Catcher in the Rye, mentions that although he
read Of Human Bondage the previous summer and liked it, he wouldn't
want to call Somerset Maugham up on the phone.
The 1995 film Se7en has a character played by Morgan Freeman, named
Lt. William Somerset. The film makes explicit reference to Of Human
Bondage. In an interview with Tim Russert Dec. 30, 2007, writer, actor,
comedian Steve Martin said that reading Maugham's 'The Razor's Edge'
launched him on a four year quest for truth that began with his majoring in
Philosophy in college before turning to theater. What he learned from
Socrates -- that 'everything could be examined' -- changed his life,
informing his performances and his writing.
As an agent and writer Maugham was a link in a long tradition from
Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson and Daniel Defoe to the modern day
writers Graham Greene, John Le Carré, John Dickson Carr, Alec Waugh
and Ted Allbeury. It is said that the modern spy story began with
Maugham's ASHENDEN: OR THE BRITISH AGENT (1928), a collection
of six short stories set in Switzerland, France, Russia, and Italy. It was
partly based on the author's own experiences in the secret service. The
protagonist, Ashenden, appeared also in CAKES AND ALE (1930) and
The Moon and the Sixpence. Alfred Hitchcock used in his film Secret
Agent (1936) specifically the stories 'The Traitor' and 'The Hairless
Mexican'. In the film, set in Switzerland, agents kill a wrong man and then
they go to after the right one. A chocolate factory is used by the crooks' as a
headquarters.
Maugham believed that there is a true harmony in the contradictions of
mankind and that the normal is in reality the abnormal. "The ordinary is the
writer's richest field", he stated in THE SUMMING UP (1938). In his
satirical short story 'The Ant and the Grasshopper' he juxtaposed two
brothers, the unscrupulous and carefree Tom and the hardworking,
respectable George, who expects that Tom would end in the gutter.
However, Tom marries a rich old woman, she dies and leaves him a
fortune. "I burst into a shout of laughter as I looked at George's wrathful
face. I rolled in my chair, I very nearly fell in the floor. George never
forgave me. But Tom often asks me to excellent dinners in his charming
house in Mayfair, and he occasionally borrows a trifle from me, that is
merely from force of habit.
A number of Maugham's short stories have been filmed. Quartet (1948)
consisted of four stories introduced by the author - 'The Facts of Life', 'The
Alien Corn', 'The Kite', and 'The Colonel's Lady.' In 'The Kite' the
protagonist, Herbert, starts to fly kites with his parents in childhood. After
marriage Herbert continues his hobby, although Betty, his wife, considers it
childish. When Herbert wants to buy a new kite, Betty packs his bag and
Herbert returns to his parents' house. Betty smashes the kite. The magistrate
orders him to pay Betty alimony, twenty-five shillings a week, but Herbert
don't obey the order and chooses the prison. "It may be that in some queer
way he identifies himself with the kite flying so free and so high above
him, and it's as it were an escape from the monotony of life. It may be that
in some dim, confused way it represents an ideal of freedom and adventure,
And you know, when a man once gets bitten with the virus of the ideal not
all the King's doctors and not all the King's surgeons can rid him of it."
After the 1930s Maugham's reputation abroad was greater than in England.
Maugham once said, "Most people cannot see anything, but I can se what is
in front of my nose with extreme clearness; the greatest writers can see
through a brick wall. My vision is not so penetrating.
Mini vocabulary of literal terms:
Short-story brief fictional prose narrative that is shorter than a novel and
that usually deals with only a few characters. The short story is usually
concerned with a single effect conveyed in only one or a few
significantepisodes or scenes. The form encourages economy of setting and
concise narrative; character is disclosed in action and dramatic encounter
but is seldom fully developed.
Narrator-character can know only those events in which he participates.
There can, of course, be a number of secondary narratives enclosed in the
main narrative, and this device—though it sometimes looks artificial—has
been used triumphantly by W. Somerset Maugham. The main narrator, tells
what he knows directly of the story and introduces what B and C and D
have told him about the parts that he does not know.
Sentimental novel that exploits the reader's capacity for tenderness,
compassion, or sympathy to a disproportionate degree by presenting a
beclouded or unrealistic view of its subject. The sentimental novel exalted
feeling above reason and raised the analysis of emotion to a fine art.
Psychological novel work of fiction in which the thoughts, feelings, and
motivations of the characters are of equal or greater interest than is the
external action of the narrative. In a psychological novel the emotional
reactions and internal states of the characters are influenced by and in turn
trigger external events in a meaningful symbiosis. This emphasis on the
inner life of characters is a fundamental element of a vast body of fiction.
Quotations by Author
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At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk
well but not too wisely.
Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have
nothing whatever to do with it.
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from
acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.
It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the
best, you very often get it.
People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute
for wit.
There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one
knows what they are.
Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.
When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.
Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing
one's mind.
Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when
they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness
of life.
Do you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs,
we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been
worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my
children.
Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round
the corner.
He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered
if they had ever tried to do without it.
I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own
bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.
I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all
things. I am the centre of the world.
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have
lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of
the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each
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time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and
wounded.
It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late.
It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's
dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and
independent.
It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as
well as your sense of the aesthetic.
Life wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as
the present.
Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure.
Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a
complete use of the other five.
The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.
The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for
nothing was there a why and a wherefore.
There was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the
dead: they did not seem to belong to the same species; and it was
strange to think that but a little while before they had spoken and
moved and eaten and laughed.
There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now
and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has
a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
“The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned.”
“We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we
love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a
changed person.”
“It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both
sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to
face it.”
“Love is what happens to a man and woman who don't know each
other”
“We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.”
“If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever.
Is that good news?”
“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one
knows what they are.”
“A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn't pretty it
won't do her much good”
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“Writing is the supreme solace.”
“We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we
love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a
changed person.”
“If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in
writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has
no use for it.”
“Whether or not you write well, write bravely”
“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those,
who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the
madness, the melancholia, the panic fear, which is inherent in a
human condition”
“Every writer I know has trouble writing.”
“If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad.”
“Every production of an artist should be the expression of an
adventure of his soul.”
“There are two good things in life freedom of thought and freedom
of action”
“We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart,
but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely,
side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and
unknown by them”
“A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her, but she can
never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account”
“It's no good crying over spilt milk, because all the forces of the
universe were bent on spilling it”
“To write simply is as difficult as to be good”
“It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but
the best, you very often get it.”
“There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast,
would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.”
“Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a
habit out of it.”
“Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions
out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul”
“Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by
considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look
at and good to listen to”
“Common sense and good nature will do a lot to make the
pilgrimage of life not too difficult”
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“Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to
have nothing whatever to do with it.”
“Love is only the dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of
the species.”
“Tolerance is another word for indifference.”
“What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's
faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories”
“Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really
nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can
smell it and that is all.”
“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge
from almost all of the miseries of life.”
“I don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common
sense to God”
“It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have
lost it.”
“Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is
more powerful in the mature than in the young.”
“The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.”
“Women's hearts are like old china, none the worse for a break or
two”
“The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.”
“When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now
and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has
a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.”
“No man in his heart is quite so cynical as a well-bred woman”
“The crown of literature is poetry.”
Разработано:
преподаватель Надвикова И.А.
Методическое пособие по домашнему чтению William Somerset
Maugham “Selected stories”