To sum up the life of writer William Somerset Maugham in three key words, the answer may be: writing, love, and espionage.
Born in 1874, Maugham suffered from stuttering, which, combined with the loss of his parents at an early age, turned him into a lifelong man with low self-esteem and shyness and little words.
Shyly giving up his discourse dominance, Maugham was watching the world with hunger. This long-term tempering has produced a clear insight into Maugham's work, and has given him the necessary skills to engage in espionage in middle age.
Maugham continued to write from the age of 15 and had the ambition to become a writer. In 1914, Maugham met 22-year-old American boy Gerald Huxton, and the two lived together for the rest of their lives, and this encounter also pushed Maugham's novel writing to a peak.
Maugham loves travel, he said: "The author cannot passively wait for the experience to fall, he must take the initiative to go out". Gerald's outgoing and cheerful personality, handsome appearance, and the aura of being able to mingle with the three religions and nine streams have given Maugham countless first-hand story materials, including the influence on the famous "The Moon and Sixpence". Maugham's monopolistic work "domination" of the tropics, especially the South Pacific, basically comes from the stage when the two were traveling together, such as "The Veil" and "Casuarina Tree".
Maugham acknowledged Gerald's important role in his memoir Review, saying that without him the material used in Shivering Leaves would not have been collectable, and that the collection contains Rain, perhaps the pinnacle of Maugham's short stories.
After Gerald's death in 1944, Maugham's heart was taken away — more likely, the ace partner who collected the material was gone, and Maugham's work never returned to its former heights.
Maugham (left) and Gerald Huxton (right)
In 1915, on the eve of World War I, at a summer cocktail party, Maugham was introduced to Major Wallinger, who was serving in the British military intelligence service, who had wanted to develop him for a long time, because Maugham was extremely reliable, shy and shy because of his stuttering, talked to people more and listened less, and had the writer's own great curiosity and unparalleled insight into intelligence information. At that time, Maugham was already a world-renowned writer, and it was a perfect disguise for him to live in a neutral country in order to write with peace of mind.
Of course, Major Worringer did not expect Maugham, who had not been trained as a formal agent, to take on important duties, and he wanted Maugham to be a liaison officer, mainly to help German agents pass on information. It's a thankless job, in Wallinger's original words, "if you do a good job, no one will thank you, and if something goes wrong, no one will save you."
But Maugham agreed without saying a word, and he did not miss this special opportunity for experience. In the late autumn of 1915, Maugham began his espionage career in Geneva. His job was dull and dull, not dangerous, and the worst consequence was simply deportation.
But Maugham still gave full play to his talents, and he would collect information and write a report based on his own observations and analysis and submit it to British intelligence. The intelligence services placed a lot of value on Maugham's ability to observe and analyze, and these reports did help to capture many collaborators and spies of the enemy state. By the time Maugham was reassigned to Russia, he had even become britain's leading agent in his field.
Two or three years of intense espionage life caused Maugham's body to have a lot of problems, and he went to a Scottish sanatorium for conditioning, during which he created a series of spy novels based on real events, "British Agent Ashingdon".
The series of novels has had the effect of breaking new ground in a niche, with British detective novelist Julian Simmons arguing that "the originator of the modern spy novel is Somerset Maugham's British Agent Ascension." Many well-known spy novelists also agree with this statement, which has slowly become the public opinion in the industry. Prior to this book, there were few spy novels and the content was clearly out of touch with reality. After this book, the realist style of spy novels became the mainstream, and a large number of outstanding authors emerged, such as Forsyth (author of "The Day of the Jackal", "The Dog of War", "The Devil's Choice"), Robert Ludlen (author of the original Bourne series of the film "Spy On the Shadow"), John Le Carré (author of "Pot Maker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", "Spy In Berlin"), etc., which can be described as a hundred flowers, among which Maugham's pioneering contribution to the creation of the Blue Wisp of the Road cannot be ignored. Even Raymond Chandler, the grandmaster of tough guy mystery fiction, wrote to Maugham praising the "uniqueness" of British Agent Ashingden: "There is no great spy novel in the world except it — not one!" ”
It is worth mentioning that when Maugham traveled with Gerald, his wife, Celie, who was left at home by Maugham, made a very exciting move. She decided to become an interior designer, starting as an apprentice, and after being fully prepared, with a borrowed £400, she started her business and was almost immediately successful. In the following two decades, Cyril became synonymous with noble modern style, and has long been introduced LinkedIn to the interior design and decoration industry in the United States and the United States, and its all-white room design is still a kind of high-end design. At the beginning of the last century, Cyril's sense of female independence was a harbinger of the times.
Maugham's strength is his keen insight into human nature, his accurate grasp of psychological states, his expressiveness, which is profound and amazing; he is also an excellent storyteller (storyteller), in terms of narrative rhythm, portraying character images, personality characteristics, especially personality subtleties, he is a first-class writer. However, Maugham's work is relatively not far-reaching and ambitious, and for those who rarely or do not appear in the scope of observation, his ability to portray people will immediately fall to the level of mortals. This lack of ability influenced maugham's work, making him a second-rate novelist for a long time.
Maugham Comic Portrait David Lowe
In the early morning of December 16, 1965, Maugham was gone. When we read his work today, we may try not to judge anything. Maugham hates critics, and director Woody Allen has vividly imitated Maugham's tone —
"Don't take criticism too seriously," Maugham said, "and my first short story was critically criticized by a book reviewer." I got angry and said something nasty about the man. Then one day, I read the short story again and realized he was right. It's really superficial and the structure is terrible. I've never forgotten that. A few years later, when the Luftwaffe bombed London, I threw a light on the house of the book reviewer's house. ”