Collected Short Stories - Vol 3

Publisher: Pan Books
ISBN: 0330245767
Condition: Good
Sold by: Crappy Old Books

Love, Lust, Lies, Colonial Misadventures and the Extraordinary Difficulty of Being a Decent Human Being

Human beings are peculiar creatures. We like to think of ourselves as rational, civilised and essentially decent individuals, guided by sound principles and a firm understanding of right and wrong. Unfortunately, place us in the company of an attractive stranger, offer us a little money, threaten our social standing or provide an opportunity to behave disgracefully without being discovered, and the entire moral structure can collapse with astonishing speed.

W. Somerset Maugham understood this rather well.

Indeed, he made a remarkably successful literary career out of observing the uncomfortable gap between how people imagine themselves and how they actually behave.

In Collected Short Stories – Volume 3, Maugham offers another helping of his wonderfully perceptive fiction, exploring human vanity, desire, hypocrisy, loneliness and the extraordinary lengths to which respectable people will go to preserve appearances while behaving in ways that are anything but respectable.

Published here in a 1978 Pan Books edition, this collection presents Maugham’s distinctive mixture of elegant storytelling, psychological observation and dry, occasionally devastating irony.

It is the sort of book in which a perfectly innocent social encounter can develop into a moral catastrophe, a seemingly respectable gentleman can reveal himself to be a complete scoundrel, and somebody’s carefully maintained reputation can collapse because another person happens to know rather too much.

In other words, human civilisation functioning exactly as usual.

Somerset Maugham: A Man Who Noticed Things People Preferred to Keep Quiet

Born in 1874, William Somerset Maugham lived through an extraordinary period of social and political change. He trained as a doctor, worked as a playwright and novelist, travelled extensively and became one of the most commercially successful writers of the twentieth century.

His medical training exposed him to human suffering and the less glamorous realities of existence, while his travels introduced him to an enormous variety of personalities, cultures and uncomfortable social situations.

All of which provided excellent material for fiction.

Maugham possessed an exceptional ability to observe human behaviour without becoming excessively sentimental about it.

His characters are frequently selfish, deluded, calculating or hopelessly romantic. They make foolish decisions, deceive themselves, misunderstand others and pursue happiness through methods almost guaranteed to produce disappointment.

Yet they are rarely simple caricatures.

Maugham understood that decent people sometimes behave badly, unpleasant people occasionally display unexpected kindness, and individuals who believe themselves exceptionally sophisticated can be astonishingly easy to manipulate.

His prose is clear, controlled and deceptively simple, allowing the absurdities and contradictions of human nature to emerge without unnecessary literary decoration.

He does not need to spend twenty pages explaining that somebody is a fool.

He simply allows the person to speak.

A World of Respectability, With Something Unpleasant Underneath

Much of Maugham’s short fiction takes place in a world governed by social expectations, class distinctions and elaborate codes of respectable behaviour.

People dress properly, observe the conventions, exchange polite remarks and demonstrate impeccable manners.

Meanwhile, beneath the surface, they are conducting affairs, nursing resentments, calculating financial advantages and silently wishing that certain acquaintances would suffer unfortunate accidents.

It is a wonderfully entertaining contrast.

Maugham was particularly skilled at exposing the hypocrisy of supposedly respectable society, demonstrating how appearances could matter more than honesty and how reputation might become more valuable than morality.

His fictional world contains people who will tolerate almost any degree of wrongdoing provided it remains discreet.

The real offence is not necessarily behaving badly.

It is allowing everyone else to find out.

This gives his stories a sharp satirical edge, particularly when characters discover that their carefully constructed identities are not quite as convincing as they imagined.

And while the social conventions of Maugham’s era may appear old-fashioned, the underlying psychology remains remarkably familiar.

Modern society has largely abandoned the elaborate etiquette of Edwardian drawing rooms, but the determination to appear virtuous while behaving selfishly has survived in magnificent condition.

Foreign Places, Familiar Human Stupidity

Maugham’s extensive travels helped establish his reputation as a master of stories set beyond Britain, particularly in colonial territories and expatriate communities.

His fiction frequently examines people removed from their familiar surroundings, where distance from home can weaken social restraints and expose character traits normally concealed beneath conventional behaviour.

A respectable individual who behaves impeccably in London may discover rather different possibilities when living thousands of miles away from anyone likely to recognise him.

Unfortunately, geographical distance does not guarantee wisdom.

Indeed, it sometimes seems to encourage the opposite.

Maugham’s travellers, officials, expatriates and adventurers frequently encounter circumstances that reveal the instability of their assumptions about themselves and other people.

The unfamiliar environment becomes a setting for jealousy, obsession, moral compromise and occasionally catastrophic misjudgement.

These stories also reflect the colonial attitudes and social hierarchies of their period, making them interesting as historical portraits of an era whose political assumptions have since been extensively challenged.

Yet the fundamental human weaknesses remain entirely recognisable.

You can transport somebody to the other side of the world, provide magnificent scenery and surround them with unfamiliar customs.

They will still manage to make a complete mess of their personal relationships.

The Art of the Unexpectedly Unpleasant Ending

Maugham was a master of the short story’s carefully constructed conclusion.

He understood that a narrative need not end with an explosion, a murder or a dramatic revelation concerning somebody’s previously unknown aristocratic ancestry.

Sometimes the most devastating ending consists of a quiet observation that exposes everything the reader has misunderstood.

His stories often develop with apparent simplicity, introducing plausible characters and ordinary circumstances before gradually revealing deeper motives.

The result can be comic, tragic, cynical or unexpectedly moving.

Frequently, the irony emerges from the characters’ failure to understand themselves.

They believe they are acting out of love when they are motivated by vanity. They imagine themselves generous when they are pursuing admiration. They insist upon their honesty while constructing elaborate justifications for deception.

Maugham rarely needs to intervene with a moral lecture.

The consequences generally speak for themselves.

This restraint is one of his greatest strengths.

He trusts readers to recognise human absurdity without having it explained to them by an author waving an enormous philosophical sign.

A refreshing approach, particularly in an age when every minor observation appears to require an accompanying motivational message.

Ashenden: Espionage Without the Glamour

The particular attraction of this third volume is its celebrated Ashenden stories, drawn from Maugham’s experience in British intelligence during the First World War. Here, espionage involves not so much glamorous secret agents and exploding motorcars as betrayal, manipulation, moral uncertainty and the uncomfortable business of persuading other people to do dangerous things.

Ashenden encounters informers, traitors and deeply compromised individuals, discovering that intelligence work can be as absurd as it is ruthless. Long before James Bond developed his expensive tastes, Maugham was examining the decidedly unromantic realities of the profession.

About This Copy

1978 Pan Books edition, ISBN 0330245767.

Condition: Good. A previously owned paperback showing ordinary signs of age and handling consistent with its grading.

Available from Crappy Old Books, where we appreciate literary elegance, psychological insight and stories about people behaving appallingly while maintaining excellent manners.

A rewarding collection for Maugham enthusiasts, lovers of classic short fiction and readers who enjoy sophisticated espionage without the unnecessary expense of an exploding Aston Martin.

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