W Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) - Reluctant Gay Icon
"I was a quarter normal and three-quarters queer, but I tried to persuade myself it was the other way round. That was my greatest mistake."
I came across an interview with W Somerset Maugham - probably around 1960 - in which the writer talks about the relationship between life and and the inventions of his literature.
I wanted to post on him as a gay icon and browsed an article by freelance writer, Liz Highleyman - apart from the books I'd read as a kid ('Of Human Bondage' and 'The Painted Veil'), all I really knew about Maugham was a latter day extravagant European life style, something along the lines of the excesses of F Scott Fitzgerald and worthy of the best well-healed hedonistic gay men.
Maugham 1939
'But there's more', as the 'ad' promises.
'Magnetically attractive to both sexes as a young man' (Liz Highleyman), Maugham proposed marriage to Sue Jones and was refused.
He simultaneously began affaires with Gerald Haxton ...
... and Syrie Barnardo Wellcome ...
... who was married at the time to the pharacutical magnate ...
Henry Solomon Wellcome and Syrie, 1902
His daughter, Mary Elizabeth Wellcome, was born in 1915.
Mary Elizabeth Maugham, left (1957)
From this point on till an acrimonious divorce in the late 1920s, Maugham mostly travelled the world with Haxton, who had been deported from the UK in 1919 as 'an undesirable alien and a security risk' - code for he had too many indescrete gay relationships.
Maugham and Haxton settled at Villa Mauresque, on the French Riviera till the younger man's death from alcoholism in 1944 when the writer took up with Alan Searle.
Perhaps not ideal material for your typical garden variety gay icon. Or perhaps it is.
And Maugham for me comes back into seriously gay icon mode in such Oscar Wilde-ish Noel Coward-ish quotations as ...
[1] At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
[2] Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
[3] It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.
[4] It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
[5] She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
[6] There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
[7] Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
[8] When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.
[9] Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
[10] Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.
[11] Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.
[12] Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
I like 2, 7, 8 and 11 best - how bout you?
So to the interview ...
Somerset Maugham was obviously complicated guy, sexually and otherwise, and I'm now so drawn to him again, I think I might just dip into one of his screen plays.
Anyone got any suggestions?
How marvelous to see your post on Maugham this morning as I sip my second cup of coffee! I was thinking of him just two days ago when I watched Bette Davis' film THE LETTER...all those ex-patriot novels and short stories of his that seem to define an era so wonderfully. (Davis became a star when she appeared in the film version of Maugham's OF HUMNAN BONDAGE, six years before THE LETTER). And RAIN with young Joan Crawford is another of those...
ReplyDeleteI recommend his short stories which I've always preferred to his novels. They're often like a superbly made dry martini--enticingl but bracing, slightly wicked (in the best possible way) and at the end have a wallop that seems to come out of no where.
Party of my fascination with them is that I discovered them while a guest in a marvelous, almost empty villa in Portofino. They were the only books in English (which wasn't spoken by the servants, or by the handsome, grinning, flirtatious crew of the boat that went with the villa). I had my 22nd birthday there--and the more I read of Maugham, the more I felt like I'd wandered into his world without even knowing it existed until I was there.
By the way he LOATHED soprano Grace Moore (whom I adore). She probably made a pass at him and embarrassed him or something. Anyway, he put her in two of his short stories, "The Voice of the Turtle" and I forget the other one--about a man who is so obsessed with a woman (who keeps refusing his advances) that he tracks her down to (as it was known then) "deepest, darkest Africa" where she's on safari--only to find her having an affair with her chauffeur.
But the short story that seemed to encapsulate those heady days is "The Facts of Life." Boy did that resonate with my 22 year old self.
Happy Reading--and thanks so much for stirring up the memories.
hi paul
ReplyDeletei'm particularly responsive to ex-pat literature - having lived in france and china and the UK for extended periods, i think i have a feel for the particularities of ex-pat communities.
in the PRC there was the danger that the 外国人 or wàirén community isolated and insulated itself from the wider (and for them scary) local community - usually with large doses of alcohol and long evening winges about the difficulties of living in such a different culture from what they knew
and thanks for the nudge in the direction of the short stories - i think one and my own second coffee of the day is the next thing to do! i'm off to my local bookshop later to see if i can have 'The Facts of Life' - actually i might see if i can eBook it now.
i guess if you are even a bit drawn to stories of 'deepest, darkest Africa' (with or without affaires with chauffeurs) you'll probably like some of conrad's stories in this vein?
and portofino and flirtatious boat persons - what a lovely way to discover maugham! - i hope it was summer?
i guess we'll have to accept that grace moore was maugham's fatal-ish flaw! isn't there a saying about girls who make passes at authors down in their glasses?! or something like that
good to hear as always
very best
nick aka ....
The lady on the right in the Mary Elizabeth Maugham photo, from 1957, looks like Leslie Caron. Is it? Do you know where that photo was taken or what the occasion was?
ReplyDeletehey keith
ReplyDeletegood to hear from you
the woman in the center is American opera singer Blanche Thebom, and yes you are right the woman on the right is Leslie Caron
the context is the London premiere of an opera based on the Somerset Maugham novel 'The Moon And Sixpence'
cheers, nick