nouveau

starting off like a James Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. the span of a lifetime is OHM's scope, and Maugham brings to it the same invert's ear for prose and narration that so strongly marks the high quality work of Evelyn Waugh, Philip Norman, Mishima Yukio, and E.M. Forster.

HUMAN BONDAGE is not an absolute 5/5. to some degree I'm erring on the side of the full score because it is an almost 100 year old work and age does count for something (the mere fact that the work is eminently readable a hundred years later itself is telling). we have become more like W. Somerset Maugham, than W. Somerset Maugham was forced to conform by reality. so kudos to him.

random bloggish note-- I went to a W. Somerset Maugham reading at the Peace Hotel in Shanghai once and the two British presenters became exceedingly nervous. just a random aside.