With such title, I had hoped for a story of Maugham’s stamp: humorous understanding of the human heart set in the most lyrical prose. And while there are hints of just that, for the most part I found it a sentimentally guarded travel book of his journey through Burma (Myanmar), Siam (Thailand), Cambodia, and Hong Kong... Continue Reading →

Originally published in 1905, “The Merry-Go-Round” is one of Maugham’s more earlier writings. Having read his later novels first, it was astonishingly easy to tell; burdened with Edwardian values, the story of characters’ facing moral dilemmas between integrity and happiness,  reads more like a Henry James novel. The humorous narrator, who is Maugham - both... Continue Reading →