Cakes and Ale
W. Somerset Maugham
1930
"You see, she wasn’t a woman who ever inspired love. Only affection. It was absurd to be jealous over her. She was like a clear deep pool in a forest glade into which it’s heavenly to plunge, but it is neither less cool nor less crystalline because a tramp and a gipsy and a gamekeeper have plunged into it before you.”
Cakes and Ale is a very curious book, at only two hundred pages long (in my edition) it's almost a novella that tells a meandering story and begins in a style and setting that gave me certain expectations then suddenly defied them with a flourish. W. Somerset Maugham is an author who I find massively intriguing, a man whose image, background and reputation combine to offer a certain reputable image that, I'm increasingly finding, exists as only the tip of the iceberg when compared to the depth of personality he brings to his writing. My paperback edition has a quote on the cover from George Orwell, describing Maugham as 'the modern writer who has influenced me the most', and prior to reading I'd pondered that statement, not sure if as an Orwell fan I had seen such influences yet in my small experiences with Maugham. I'd really enjoyed reading The Magician as a dark Gothic horror story, and I'd admired the prose quality of The Razor's Edge (though perhaps not fully appreciating it), but it was only two-thirds of the way through Cakes and Ale that it all began to click properly in my head, the key themes that Maugham had been exploring in each of these novels, attacking them from different angles with different outcomes like George Orwell (or Paul Auster).
To be absolutely honest, until that point I wasn't greatly enjoying Cakes and Ale. I liked it, sure, thanks to Maugham's essentially perfect prose writing and his colourful characters of London literary society, but beyond that it was falling flat in the sense that I couldn't bring myself to care enough about his satire on said literary society, I couldn't see anything further than that. Maugham writes from the first person through his surely somewhat autobiographical creation William Ashenden, who is asked suddenly by a literary biographer for information regarding the life of his deceased contemporary Edward Driffield. Most of the novel is framed through Ashenden's account of his memories of Driffield, from their young manhood as aspiring authors to his eventual demise. Drifting in and out through key moments over the years (similar to Maugham's own meta-narration of The Razor's Edge) Ashenden recalls a controversial story of love and of freedom mostly regarding Driffield's first wife Rosie, a stand-out character who the events of the plot revolve around.
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It wasn't really until the Ashendon becomes a more active part of the events, as one of Rosie's lovers that I really caught on to the novel's themes. Maugham writes Rosie as a completely free-loving character who seems like a force of nature, impossible to control or keep but a perfect muse for the literary men of the novel. I wouldn't call her a hippy, but Maugham was ahead of his time in the creation of a character with many of the same attributes. Through Ashendon, who for a time falls in love with Rosie, Maugham eventually philsophises on the nature of love and obsession, of fidelity and freedom in long passages that I loved (and which made the Orwell connection make more sense to me, compared to something like Coming Up for Air). The elder, narrating Ashden's ruminations of the winding events of the story lead him to defend the liberal notions of romantic freedom against the condemnation automatically placed upon them by his contemporary society. Maugham even gives the reader the happy conclusion that I know I wanted, when Ashendon is finally reunited with Rosie decades after last seeing her.
In a sense it seems odd to me that I'm now so upbeat about a novel that for two thirds of I had only enjoyed in patches, but this is a novel that requires some perseverance, as though Maugham's descriptions of the lives and sensibilities of decent society needed such emphasis for the sense of satire to push through. Personally I didn't find the book funny at all; the biting commentary on the establishment is incredibly dry, and the fullness of the characters and poignancy of Ashendon's observations seemed so strong to me that the satire felt more tragic than anything else. The ending really does a lot for the book, and while I'm hesitant to fully spoil it I will say that it came across as a decisive victory for the liberal spirit of Rosie Driffield, and almost a reward for the reader when learning of her eventual fate. The themes of the novel are so entwined within the characters, and Maugham is such a patiently-spoken narrator that the ending felt very satisfying for me. I think this might be the book where I really properly began to understand Maugham and his most important literary themes, with the reward for struggling through the groundwork making it all entirely worthwhile.
Cakes and Ale is a very curious book, at only two hundred pages long (in my edition) it's almost a novella that tells a meandering story and begins in a style and setting that gave me certain expectations then suddenly defied them with a flourish. W. Somerset Maugham is an author who I find massively intriguing, a man whose image, background and reputation combine to offer a certain reputable image that, I'm increasingly finding, exists as only the tip of the iceberg when compared to the depth of personality he brings to his writing. My paperback edition has a quote on the cover from George Orwell, describing Maugham as 'the modern writer who has influenced me the most', and prior to reading I'd pondered that statement, not sure if as an Orwell fan I had seen such influences yet in my small experiences with Maugham. I'd really enjoyed reading The Magician as a dark Gothic horror story, and I'd admired the prose quality of The Razor's Edge (though perhaps not fully appreciating it), but it was only two-thirds of the way through Cakes and Ale that it all began to click properly in my head, the key themes that Maugham had been exploring in each of these novels, attacking them from different angles with different outcomes like George Orwell (or Paul Auster).
To be absolutely honest, until that point I wasn't greatly enjoying Cakes and Ale. I liked it, sure, thanks to Maugham's essentially perfect prose writing and his colourful characters of London literary society, but beyond that it was falling flat in the sense that I couldn't bring myself to care enough about his satire on said literary society, I couldn't see anything further than that. Maugham writes from the first person through his surely somewhat autobiographical creation William Ashenden, who is asked suddenly by a literary biographer for information regarding the life of his deceased contemporary Edward Driffield. Most of the novel is framed through Ashenden's account of his memories of Driffield, from their young manhood as aspiring authors to his eventual demise. Drifting in and out through key moments over the years (similar to Maugham's own meta-narration of The Razor's Edge) Ashenden recalls a controversial story of love and of freedom mostly regarding Driffield's first wife Rosie, a stand-out character who the events of the plot revolve around.
It wasn't really until the Ashendon becomes a more active part of the events, as one of Rosie's lovers that I really caught on to the novel's themes. Maugham writes Rosie as a completely free-loving character who seems like a force of nature, impossible to control or keep but a perfect muse for the literary men of the novel. I wouldn't call her a hippy, but Maugham was ahead of his time in the creation of a character with many of the same attributes. Through Ashendon, who for a time falls in love with Rosie, Maugham eventually philsophises on the nature of love and obsession, of fidelity and freedom in long passages that I loved (and which made the Orwell connection make more sense to me, compared to something like Coming Up for Air). The elder, narrating Ashden's ruminations of the winding events of the story lead him to defend the liberal notions of romantic freedom against the condemnation automatically placed upon them by his contemporary society. Maugham even gives the reader the happy conclusion that I know I wanted, when Ashendon is finally reunited with Rosie decades after last seeing her.In a sense it seems odd to me that I'm now so upbeat about a novel that for two thirds of I had only enjoyed in patches, but this is a novel that requires some perseverance, as though Maugham's descriptions of the lives and sensibilities of decent society needed such emphasis for the sense of satire to push through. Personally I didn't find the book funny at all; the biting commentary on the establishment is incredibly dry, and the fullness of the characters and poignancy of Ashendon's observations seemed so strong to me that the satire felt more tragic than anything else. The ending really does a lot for the book, and while I'm hesitant to fully spoil it I will say that it came across as a decisive victory for the liberal spirit of Rosie Driffield, and almost a reward for the reader when learning of her eventual fate. The themes of the novel are so entwined within the characters, and Maugham is such a patiently-spoken narrator that the ending felt very satisfying for me. I think this might be the book where I really properly began to understand Maugham and his most important literary themes, with the reward for struggling through the groundwork making it all entirely worthwhile.
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