In 1891, Paul Gauguin, one of the greatest French impressionist or post-impressionist painters,
left his wife and children in Copenhagen, Denmark and never returned. Born in 1848 in Paris,
at the time of the Parisian revolution, he was in his 40s when he made the jump. Not only did
he escape his wife and children, he also escaped European civilisation when he permanently settled
in Tahiti, French Polynesia, where he produced some of his greatest paintings.
In 1897, while in Tahiti he learnt that his favourite daughter was dead. His own health
had deteriorated immensely. The house he was living in was about to be lost to the bank.
At the height of despair, he painted one of the most iconic paintings of
all times. “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?”
This iconic painting fits in with our topic today. Today, I will discuss one of the most beautiful
English novels of all time. The Moon and Sixpence by Somerset Maugham, published in 1919, tells the
story of an anti-social artist who, just like Paul Gauguin, propelled by immense artistic creativity,
escapes it all, abandoning his job, wife, and children to become one of the greatest artists of
all time. Unlike Robinson Crusoe, who accidentally left civilization,
our hero in this novel is intentional about it. He feels stifled by the tedium of modern life,
so runs away in search of artistic freedom and mental clarity, something we all want but cannot
have. Before I tell you the story and discuss its themes, let me tell you who the author was.
Author:
William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 in Paris. Aged 10 he moved to England to
study at King’s School in Canterbury. Later, he went to Heidelberg University in Germany
and studied medicine to become a doctor. But it turned out, he had talent in writing. His
writing success meant he didn’t have to become a doctor. It’s a lot easier sitting behind a
desk daydreaming than being in a hospital full of sick people screaming and blood everywhere.
Ok that’s a bit dramatic. But no doubt writing is far easier than being a doctor. I think it was
the right choice. A doctor cures your physical illness, and a great novelist cures your soul.
He became a celebrity in his early 30s after the success of his play
Lady Frederick in 1907. He took the London play scene by storm as
all the major theatres were queuing up to stage his plays. His storytelling success meant he had
money so he traveled a lot, and then settled in the sunny side of France. Actually his traveling
had another purpose. It turns out he was a spy working for the British government. Not
sure how good a spy he was, but no doubt he was a genius when it came to writing.
Maugham was 44 when he wrote The Moon and Sixpence. Some call it a mid-life crisis.
Maugham turned that into a novel. A lot of great literary works were written when their
authors were in or close to their forties. Maugham died in 1965 in France, aged 91.
Summary The title of The Moon and Sixpence refers
to an artistic minded person or a superfluous man in Russian literature. Someone whose head
touches the moon while his body is beaten down in search of pennies on the ground. We dream and
dream on the inside but on the outside we scrape a living by collecting pennies from our jobs.
It’s a very short novel, narrated by a young writer from London, who tells the story of
a misanthropic artist, Charles Strickland who just like Paul Gauguin works as a stockbroker
in London and just like Guaguin lives a comfortable life with his wife and children.
His wife is a kind of socialite who loves to have people over at her house and talk about
literature and art. Charles, however, shows little interest in other people. He’s quiet
and always finds it difficult to articulate himself in words. He knows he’s an outsider,
so he has chosen not to say much because he doesn’t want to rock the boats.
Quote: “Man’s desire for the approval of his fellows is so strong,
his dread of their censure so violent, that himself has brought his enemy within his gates;
and it keeps watch over him, vigilant always in the interests of its master to crush
any half-formed desire to break away from the herd. It will force him to place the good of
society before his own. It is the very strong link that attaches the individual to the whole.” p. 49
Since, language is not his best suit, is he hiding something?
You bet. Most quiet and aloof people are quiet for a reason. This is the paradox of life,
bubbly people have not much to say but they talk anyway, while quiet people,
on the other hand, have plenty to say but they don’t have the words or the will to say.
Our hero, Charles Strickland endures this stifled existence for years, but then at some point he
decides he has had enough. One day he wakes up in the morning and packs his bag and leaves.
Not only is he deserting his luxurious life in London, he is abandoning his wife and children.
But why face poverty and homelessness himself, and make his family destitute
and penniless who might not even survive. What could possibly be the reason for this madness?
Our anti-social hero is an artist on the inside or “… some wild creature of the
woods.” p. 101. He is a man possessed. Quote: “He is no longer an individual, but a thing,
an instrument to some purpose foreign to his ego.” p.102. What’s his demon? It’s art. He is
an artist whose desire to create is so immense that nothing else in the world matters to him.
He just wants to make art. That's the sole purpose in his life. That’s it.
Charles Strickland’s wife panics and asks our narrator to go and find her husband.
Where has gone? Well, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to know his destination.
Paris is of course an obvious place where all 19th and early 20th century
aspiring artists ended up. Picasso, Van Gogh, James Joyce, and more all
ended up there. Artists are good at escaping but not so good at hiding.
The narrator tracks him down in Paris. He lives in a very poor hotel and works as a painter.
But you know what? Despite his terrible living condition, the man is at home. He’s incredibly
happy. Luxury or no luxury the man is free. He’s free from his family, friends and job. That is why
mad people head towards a mountain. To escape the heaviness of society. He was like in a prison in
London. He was drowning. Quote: “When a man falls into the water it doesn’t matter how he swims,
well or badly: he’s got to get out or else he’ll drown.” p. 43.
While in Paris, his personality changes completely. Almost unrecognizable. He was
a submissive, docile family man in London but in Paris, he has turned into a savage
animal. He is careless and often nasty towards others. He doesn’t care about other people.
Why? Because he is driven by an unexplainable desire to create art,
so nothing on the outside matters to him. His life in Paris is miserable, yet he is happy and
determined to paint. It doesn’t matter where he lives, in the gutter or in some 5 star hotel,
as long as he can fulfill his artistic goal, he is content.
His paintings are, however, ridiculed by people and nobody takes him seriously, except
one successful Dutch artist, Dirk Stroeve. Vincent Van Gogh was a close friend of Paul Gauguin. They
had a love-hate relationship. Here too, it is the same story. Dirk is Charles’s savior when
he becomes seriously ill. He takes him to house and looks after him. At first, his wife, Blanche,
protests that she does not like Strickland since he is rude and anti-social. But Dirk sees a genius
inside Charles, so he does everything to help the artist shine. But here is the biggest irony
in all. It soon becomes clear that the wife is in fact infatuated with the homeless artist.
We know what happens next, the wife sleeps with him. But the worst is yet to come for the host.
Dirk, the kind gentleman who rescued our hero artist,
gets kicked out of his own house. The homeless artist has taken his wife now.
Oops! As Nietzsche said, genius artists do not follow social conventions. Society shuns
on people stealing other people’s partners, but this never even occurs to our hero here.
Not only that, after breaking up the couple apart, he starts ignoring Blanche. She was too naive,
thinking she could turn a beast into a man. She thought she could tame him. Quote: "When a woman
loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she's weak, she has a rage for
domination, and nothing less will satisfy her. She has a small mind, and she resents the abstract
which she is unable to grasp. She is occupied with material things, and she is jealous of the ideal.
The soul of man wanders through the uttermost regions of the universe, and she seeks to imprison
it in the circle of her account-book. Do you remember my wife? I saw Blanche little by little
trying all her tricks. With infinite patience she prepared to snare me and bind me. She wanted to
bring me down to her level; she cared nothing for me, she only wanted me to be hers. She was willing
to do everything in the world for me except the one thing I wanted: to leave me alone.” P.132 But
unfortunately, this is not a Disney fairytale. It’s real life. Charles is untameable. He’s a free
artistic beast. Blanche is heart-broken when he completely ignores her. Soon after she dies.
So our artist hero, first abandons his own wife and children in London,
then when gets helped by a stranger in Paris, he sleeps with his wife to break the couple apart,
then leaves the wife in the cold which leads her to end her own life. He cares not for a soul.
No family, friends or society is as important as his art. In fact, he is so possessed, that
his deeds or misbehaviour doesn’t even register in his mind. He has no excuse, and doesn’t even
try to justify his behaviour. Since he’s so preoccupied with his artist creativity that
he cannot understand the pain his actions cause. Quote: “I don’t think of the past. The only thing
that matters is the everlasting present.” p.72. Just like a zen buddhist, he is in the moment.
Charles Strickland exhausts every means of making a living in Paris. Here is the
crazy thing about. He refuses to sell any of his paintings, determined to keep them
unknown because he doesn’t want to be famous. After a while Charles finds Paris
also stifling. It’s too close to London. It’s the centre of European civilisation.
He wants more freedom. He wants to be in the wild, because true artists are like wild beasts.
He leaves Paris and goes to Marseille; there the narrative is second hand so things aren’t as clear
as it was in Paris and London. Anyhow after some time there, he finds himself in hot water
after a fight with another man who threatens revenge once returned from hospital.
Charles has to escape. Escape he does, he leaves France for the remote Island of Tahiti,
where the story continues second hand, told by three people, a hotel owner who
finds Strickland a wife, a friend who played chess with him, and finally a doctor who cared for him
much to Strickland’s opposition and he was witness to his death and burial. They all confess to their
failures in spotting the genius. The honesty of simple people is almost artistic and beautiful
and represented on a similar if not the same level as that of Strickland’s genius.
Tahiti seems almost a magical place, distant from the hardship and realities of life in Paris.
In Tahiti, he finds the local women a lot easier to deal with than European women.
Quote: “As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long,
but men only at times.” P. 142 The Tahitian women don’t ask questions. They don’t try
to tame him. They don’t try to play games with him. They let him be. They
let him paint. He paints like crazy. His artistic juice is flowing like fireworks.
But living in Tahiti has its own problems. It’s true that civilization or modernity has provided
us with security but has taken our freedom. In Tahiti he has his freedom but it comes at
a cost. Soon he develops leprosy which leaves him blind. Now surely he can't paint anymore?
You’re wrong. He continues to paint like crazy. He paints some of his masterpieces while blind.
So first it was London and his family who stifled him. He moved to Paris for some freedom.
But Paris was just another prison. He moved to Tahiti, outside the European civilisation.
But even in Tahiti, he was inside a prison. His own two eyes. You’re only
free when you cannot see anything. Now, he is free from everything and everyone.
When he dies, he leaves behind some amazing paintings. But the man is even destructive
after his death. His dying wish to his wife was to burn his paintings.
She fulfils his wishes. Despite that he leaves some great paintings behind.
There, our artist hero’s story ends. Our artist genius is no more.
But he made a wave. A big one. Paul Gauguin was one of the most
brilliant artists of the 19th century. He died in 1903 in French Polynesia.
Analysis The question is do you have to
escape modernity to be a genuine artist? Nietzsche says yes. We have become too human and too tame.
The social forces are far more potent in taming us today as we have become more glutenous, lazy,
and docile. According to Nietzsche, modernity is based on rationality. What does it mean?
It means everything we do in life is rationally calculated, merits and demerits are weighed
against one another. While it makes our lives very safe, less risky and we live longer.
But on the negative it kills our creativity, risk-taking and courage to be spontaneously free.
Rationality makes you safe while passion makes you an artist.We are all born artists
but society through the education system, social norms and conventions tame us. Here is a quote
from Somerset Maugham’s own memoir titled, The Summing Up: “The artist can within certain limits
make whatever he likes of his life. In other callings, in medicine for instance or the law,
you are free to choose whether you will adopt them or not, but having chosen, you are free no longer.
You are bound by the rules of your profession; a standard of conduct is imposed on you. The
pattern is predetermined. It is only the artist, and maybe the criminal, who can make his own.”
There are risks on both sides, being an artist or not being an artist. Everything in life comes
with costs and benefits. The stereotype of a hungry artist is rooted in some truth.
Also the stereotype of soulless 9-5 is also rooted in some truth.
It’s a trade-off. It comes down to freedom versus stability. Quote: “Only the poet or
the saint can water an asphalt pavement in the confident anticipation that lilies will
reward his labour.” P.44 A rational man would see nothing but stupidity in such endeavour.
Maugham also plays with the theme of blindness as a liberating force. At the end of his life,
the artist lost his sight but it made his art even more strikingly beautiful. This reminded me of
a short story by the American writer, Raymond Carver, called Cathedral in which a blind man
opens a prejudiced man’s eyes through painting a cathedral. I have discussed the short story in my
top 20 American novels. But here, blindness means you’re not distracted by things on the outside,
you look on the inside, the collective subconscious, which is the ultimate source
of artistic genius. When one door closes, another one opens. It’s a cliche but it is certainly true.
You can say that the more you have things in your possession, the less you are yourself. The more
tools an artist has, the less creative he becomes. Today, technology has made life easier, yet
also has made us totally reliant on it. Without modern comfort, a lot of us cannot do anything.
Our smartphones entertain us. But most of the time bored people or unhappy people create art.
Writing
Somerset Maugham was a great writer. His language is beautiful, yet very precise and to the point.
The paintings and scenes are exquisitely described. Now I will read a couple of
passages from the novel, in which Maugham describes two paintings by Paul Gauguin.
You can see the beauty of how two art forms, literature and visual art, come together.
This first one describes Guaguin’s painting, titled “Woman with a Mango''
completed in 1891. Quote: “Tall and extremely stout, she would have been of
imposing presence if the great good-nature of her face had not made it impossible for her to express
anything but kindliness. Her arms were like legs of mutton, her breasts like giant cabbages;
her face, broad and fleshy, gave you an impression of almost indecent nakedness,
and vast chin succeeded to vast chin. I do not know how many of them there were. They fell away
voluminously into the capaciousness of her bosom. She was dressed usually in a pink Mother Hubbard,
and she wore all day long a large straw hat. But when she let down her hair, which she did now and
then, for she was vain of it, you saw that it was long and dark and curly; and her eyes had remained
young and vivacious. Her laughter was the most catching I ever heard; it would begin, a low peal
in her throat, and would grow louder and louder till her whole vast body shook. She loved three
things—a joke, a glass of wine, and a handsome man. To have known her is a privilege.” p.162
The second painting is “Still life with Mangos” completed in 1898, just a few years
before Guaguin’s death in 1903. Quote: “The colours were so strange that words can hardly
tell what a troubling emotion they gave. They were sombre blues, opaque like a delicately carved bowl
in lapis lazuli, and yet with a quivering lustre that suggested the palpitation of mysterious life;
there were purples, horrible like raw and putrid flesh, and yet with a glowing, sensual passion
that called up vague memories of the Roman Empire of Heliogabalus; there were reds, shrill like the
berries of holly—one thought of Christmas in England, and the snow, the good cheer,
and the pleasure of children—and yet by some magic softened till they had the swooning
tenderness of a dove's breast; there were deep yellows that died with an unnatural passion into
a green as fragrant as the spring and as pure as the sparkling water of a mountain brook. Who can
tell what anguished fancy made these fruits? They belonged to a Polynesian garden of the Hesperides.
There was something strangely alive in them, as though they were created in a stage of the earth's
dark history when things were not irrevocably fixed to their forms. They were extravagantly
luxurious. They were heavy with tropical odours. They seemed to possess a sombre passion of their
own. It was enchanted fruit, to taste which might open the gateway to God knows what secrets of the
soul and to mysterious palaces of the imagination. They were sullen with unawaited dangers,
and to eat them might turn a man to beast or god. All that was healthy and natural,
all that clung to happy relationships and the simple joys of simple men, shrunk from them in
dismay; and yet a fearful attraction was in them, and, like the fruit on the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil they were terrible with the possibilities of the Unknown.” P.194
The Moon and Sixpence is an incredible story of hardship and immense human desire to create art.
The story is also immensely inspiring and uplifting that perhaps one day you could be brave
enough to follow your own lofty dreams in pursuit of your artistic ambition. For Strickland, art was
an escape because he didn’t want to be famous or rich. He used art as a tool of escape. At the end,
he gave instructions to burn down the walls on which he had painted. For him, his mission
was complete as soon as he dipped his brush in paint and applied it on a surface. That’s art.
This is an incredible novel. What do you think?
Where do you want to escape to? Let me know in the comments.