H04077 HARDY AND SOMERSET MAUGHAM- 12/06/04 - HARDY FORUM ARCHIVES
From: rnemesva@stfx.ca
Subject: Hardy and Somerset Maugham
Date: December 6, 2004 1:26:13 PM PST
In the most recent New York Review of Books Pico Iyer, reviewing Somerset Maugham: A Life, opines as follows: "A century after Maugham's literary career began, the other best-selling writers of his day, even those who won the Nobel Prize, such as Pearl Buck and John Galsworthy, have been largely forgotten; many of the 'serious writers' by whom he was often eclipsed, Hardy and Joyce among them, are mostly read in college courses. Yet even some of the most discerning readers I know continue to push Maugham's sales beyond the 40 million mark..." (vol. 51, issue 20, Dec. 16/04, p.72).
So my question is, do we want to let him get away with this? First of all, the scare quotes around "serious writers" are, I suppose, meant to suggest that Maugham has been unjustly excluded from this rank, but they also appear to me to be a shot at Joyce and Hardy's status. Second, to suggest that Hardy is "mostly read in college courses" seems extremely questionable. I don't know what Iyer means by "the 40 million mark" (total sales of all Maugham's books since he began publishing? sales per year?), but I'm willing to bet that the sales of the scores of Hardy editions that continue to pour out of publishing houses have topped that number, and that they are being read by more people than just those enrolled in "college courses." Certainly in places like Britain and Japan Hardy is not just read by reluctant undergrads working their way (more or less) through the assigned texts, and I'm pretty sure this holds true for other countries as well. If I felt like being supercilious I might note that Maugham most certainly is NOT being assigned in college courses, and imply that there are good reasons for this, but I'll pull my claws in on that one.
I know this is only a single sentence in a lengthy review but, I'm rather irked at the idea that Hardy has been "relegated" (as Iyer's rhetoric clearly implies) to a captive readership, while Maugham sails along with a voluntary (and "most discerning") audience who read him solely because of his literary skill. Does anybody feel up to a short letter to the NYRB addressing this? I know that writing to this particular journal is something of a mug's game, since the reviewer is always given a chance to reply, and thus always gets in the last word, but there it is. Rosemarie? Bob? Bill? Anybody feel like jousting at this particular windmill?
Richard Nemesvari
Department of English
St. Francis Xavier University
rnemesva@stfx.ca
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From: mhemming@lineone.net
Subject: RE: Hardy and Somerset Maugham
Date: December 6, 2004 2:03:29 PM PST
Although introduced to Hardy at school ("Far from the Madding Crowd") I am, I suspect, one of thousands of British Hardy admirers who has discovered and enjoyed the rest of his work - novels and poetry - without coercion. Many of them may be on this list. Perhaps they will respond.
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From: schweikr@localnet.com
Subject: Re: Hardy and Somerset Maugham
Date: December 6, 2004 5:06:51 PM PST
Richard Nemesvari's points are very well made. In a revised form, suitable for
publication in the *NYRofB* they would, I think, go. And they anticipate (as such
responses must) the kinds of objections and replies that might be made to them.
Go for it, Richard! The reviewer is the mug, and a short, sharp shot may leave
him little to reply to and do much to expose his facile journalese.
Bob
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From: David.Herrick@bristol.ac.uk
Subject: RE: Hardy and Somerset Maugham
Date: December 7, 2004 2:55:12 AM PST
I was also introduced to Hardy at school ("The Mayor of Casterbridge"). It was the first book we'd done in English that I actually enjoyed (possibly the first I actually finished). I was gripped at the end and couldn't believe that was possible of a "serious writer"! I then started working my way through the other novels.
Dave
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From: peter.brown46@btopenworld.com
Subject: Re: Hardy and Somerset Maugham
Date: December 7, 2004 3:50:20 AM PST
Any aspersions re. Authors reputations always disturbs the nest...so like ants we must repair/repell pdq!
In a recent review in the TLS of Maugham's Collected Stories, Neil Powell wrote:
'...to turn from Maugham's stories to Dubliners, say, or Goodbye to Berlin - both of them contemporary with different parts of his career - is to see why Joyce and Isherwood are in their distinct way great writers of prose while Maugham is not. But he remains, on his own rather special terms, a great storyteller, and that is exactly what he aimed to be.' http://www.the-tls.co.uk/archive/story.aspx?story_id=2109074
Cyril Connolly includes Hardy: Satires of Circumstance, Joyce: Portrait, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, and Maugham: The Casuarina Tree, in his The Modern Movement: One Hundred Key Books from England, France and America 1880-1950, [1965]. Exclusion of Hardy's other post 1880 is explained in his Hardy entry:
The Satires in this book link Hardy more directly to the (Modern) Movement than his novels, which had all been steeped in the Victorian tradition. They are Maupassant-like vignettes passed through his great contemplative soul and they strike a new note like the poems about his dead wife in the same volume which concludes with the first war-poem, Men who march away, and contains his much more remarkable poem about the sinking of the Titanic - The Convergence of the Twain.
As a Public Librarian based in London (England) for the last 34 years I note that interest in borrowing/buying so called more 'literary' texts is largely driven by media adaptations and syllabus inclusion. Maugham's popularity has fallen off. The TV adaptations of his stories and plays once common up to the Seventies are now unknown, and I'm not aware of Maugham being a regular feature on English Lit. courses. Joyce still gets bought and borrowed despite poor film adaptations [John Huston's The Dead (1987), being a possible exception] but Joyce is the mountain that some feel the need to attempt at least once, and his books are always on reading lists. Hardy has maintained his popularity with readers - great accessible writing, syllabuses galore, a certain nostalgia for England's rural past and terrific film and TV adaptations...even if it is always raining!
One last point. Japan's interest in English Literature is very wide and well developed - Yukio Mishima, to give just one example, was largely influenced by his study of Western writers ['identity is acquired only in relation to the Other', Paul Verhaeghe]. When I sold my James Joyce collection [about 800 items] 13 years ago it was purchased by a Japanese college. Anyone in any doubt as to the range and depth of Japanese interest need only click on Mitsu Matsuoka's [Nagoya University] website [see link below]: Dickens, Gaskell, Bronte and you can find the Hardy links in his 'Victorian Literary Studies Archive'.
http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/
No doubt contributors to this forum will be aware of much of the above. Pico Iyer has got it wrong, particularly re. Thomas Hardy.
Peter Brown
Library Ant, Edmonton, London, UK
peter.brown46@btopenworld.com
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From: r.n.kok@chello.nl
Subject: RE: Hardy and Somerset Maugham
Date: December 8, 2004 6:51:38 AM PST
<<first post on this list :) >>
I was first introduced to Hardy when I bought 'Jude the Obscure'. Since I
had not heard of Hardy before, it was sort of a guess, and in the beginning
Hardy's wordy language and his cornucopia of biblical references put me off.
But as the story drew on (I started re-reading from the start for about 3
times) I got sucked in by Hardy's magnificent descriptions of 'Wessex'
nature, and inevitable I got sucked in by all the misery and failure that
poor Jude Fawley's encountered. After that, "Tess of the D'Urbervilles"
followed, then "The Mayor of Casterbridge", "Far from the Madding Crowd" and
now "The return of the Native". I'm hooked! :)
Greetings from the Netherlands,
Robin
P.S. - Has anyone noticed how often the phrase "he dies wretchedly" pops up
whenever reading Hardy abstracts in The Oxford Companion to English
Literature.
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From: pierre.breban@ntlworld.com
Subject: Re: Hardy and Somerset Maugham
Date: December 7, 2004 6:48:01 AM PST
Hi Robin,
I'm Pierre. Despite the name, I'm English (with a Dutch mother!!). You seem a bit like me. I read one Hardy book then got hooked. I've not read them all yet, but so far, I like The Mayor of Casterbridge most. I think it's sad that Hardy turned away from novel writing to poetry (I think it was because of criticism of his themes etc but I'm not an expert on Hardy, at least not yet). Reading Hardy makes me want to go on holiday in the Dorchester area and join the Thomas Hardy Society. The thing I've found with Hardy, is that there is so much sadness in each novel. The fact that Jude was so intelligent academically, yet was denied the opportunity to become a scholar at University. And the sad way that so many of the key characters die in such unfulfilled circumstances. I don't know if I've got something wrong with me, but I actually liked the character of Michael Henchard and found Donald Farfrae irritating and smug (Mayor of Casterbridge).
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From: r.n.kok@chello.nl
Subject: RE: Hardy and Somerset Maugham
Date: December 7, 2004 7:14:05 AM PST
Hi Pierre,
Indeed sadness (or perhaps Fate or Karma) is a predominant theme in his
novels. Several sources suggest that Hardy always found novel-writing
inferior to writing poetry, but certainly the amount of flak Hardy received
voor his 'explicit' novel Jude the Obscure will have helped in the process
of terminating his novel-writing. Let's be thankful that he left us such a
great amount of novels of genius :)
A lot of novels feature the simple countryman vs. the sophisticated stranger
or outsider who gets the girl. (Henchard vs. Farfrae, Gabriel Oak vs. sgt.
Troy, Jude Fawley vs. Phillotson, etc.)
Robin
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Hardy and Somerset Maugham
Date: December 7, 2004 7:53:16 AM PST
I like the way two contemporary critics (the Folletts) put it (I found this on Gene's Bibliography). They speak of
the "half-inaudible discord" of Hardy's endings, that "Under the Greenwood Tree and Far From the Madding Crowd leave a taste that is "bitter-sweet, like that of life."
This is one very good reason for wondering if it is just "a sign of the times" that film directors impose a romantic finish on Hardy's novels. For example, the full tragedy of *Jude* is short-circuited in the movie version and at the conclusion of *Return of the Native* Eustacia is seen smiling benignly down on Clym on Rainbarrow as he gazes joyously at the vision of her and expounds, to the Egdon eremites, on the undying nature of love !!
Cheers,
Rosemarie
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