The guy was never a favorite writer of mine although I knew he may have been better than anybody at writing about a character or characters over time and always was super-aware of how somebody changes or doesn't change often in many decades. As I re-read him a bit now however (and thanks!) I realize that without being moralistic-- at all-- his writing is extremely close to the life decisions faced by any one of his good readers.
The world or milieu of his fiction might be off-putting to someone who only plays video games, but what does that matter? There's wisdom there-- wisdom about people over time-- and I'm glad that Bill Murray was one of the people to get this.
As a man and not as a writer Mr. W. Somerset Maugham must have been pretty interesting too. A fellow juror on a mountain in Virginia who was so appalled by my divorce that she died (well, that sounds almost self-serving but news of the divorce sure didn't help keep her alive) had given me a book to keep, a publisher's knock-off called ENCOUNTERS.
It was about real life encounters between innocent people and famous men. I'll try and re-find it. (It got lost along with my skiis and my truck in the divorce.)
The famous man who was absolutely the worst and meanest and most awful was W. Somerset Maugham. But that was just in one encounter. In another, by another person, Maugham was the most pleasant-- i.e., with sunniest disposition-- in the world. So maybe Robert Louis Stevenson wrote W. Somerset Maugham.
The world or milieu of his fiction might be off-putting to someone who only plays video games, but what does that matter? There's wisdom there-- wisdom about people over time-- and I'm glad that Bill Murray was one of the people to get this.
As a man and not as a writer Mr. W. Somerset Maugham must have been pretty interesting too. A fellow juror on a mountain in Virginia who was so appalled by my divorce that she died (well, that sounds almost self-serving but news of the divorce sure didn't help keep her alive) had given me a book to keep, a publisher's knock-off called ENCOUNTERS.
It was about real life encounters between innocent people and famous men. I'll try and re-find it. (It got lost along with my skiis and my truck in the divorce.)
The famous man who was absolutely the worst and meanest and most awful was W. Somerset Maugham. But that was just in one encounter. In another, by another person, Maugham was the most pleasant-- i.e., with sunniest disposition-- in the world. So maybe Robert Louis Stevenson wrote W. Somerset Maugham.
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