《英文随笔》金昔吖

3、读书报告：月亮与六便士

　　Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
　　Maugham was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. Reputedly as the highest-paid writer, he was also regarded as the most popular writers of his era. Both his parents died when he was 10 years old, and Maugham was brought up by an emotionally cold paternal uncle. Although Maugham was a qualified medic, Maugham dropped medicine and embarked on his sixty-five years career as a man of letters. He said that: “I took it like a duck takes to water.”
　　At the age 23, Maugham wrote his first work Liza of Lambeth which was a great success at that time. However, he didn’t gain much reputation from his later works as soon as possible, because none of them could “set the Thames on fire”. But he didn’t give up. And God helps those who help themselves, he finally became a famous writer. After that, he traveled to a lot of places, from where he got lots of materials and applied them to his novel Moon and Sixpence, a real masterpiece.
　　The prototype of this novel is Paul Gauguin, a master of the impressionism in French. But except the same life profile, Strickland (the protagonist in the novel Moon and Sixpence) was totally different from Gauguin. Working in London, Strickland was once a Stockbroker, who had a happy family, with two children and a virtuous wife. With such a decent job, he should have had a mediocre and unambitious life and been satisfied with it. However, to everybody’s surprise, he gave up his respectable job and came to Paris to learn how to paint.
　　Having little painting skills and losing his job, he lived a really hard life almost all the time. What’s worse, he even escaped from death several times. And his painting was also a mess, only a naff painter named Stroeve could admire his “masterpiece”. However, Charles Strickland possessed Stroeve’s beloved wife when he lived in Stroeve’s house taking rest and nourishment to regain his health. After wondering for a very long time, he arrived Tahiti, where he married a woman who was an aboriginal. From then on, he lived a relatively quiet life. To the aboriginal people, although he was still a queer fish, people there were used to it. And since Ata was very diligent, Strickland didn’t have to work and thus had much time to paint. The picturesque land and zealous native people aroused his talent, he created many masterpieces at this time. Unfortunately, the idyllic life didn’t last long. Strickland got leprosy, a deadly disease at that time, which nobody could cure. At the last phase of his life, he became even more prolific and created many paintings on the walls. Those pictures gave people “a vague impression of a great primeval forest and of naked people walking beneath the trees”, though Strickland didn’t want the earthling to appreciate his masterpiece and ask Ata to burn it out after his death.
　　It is obvious that “moon” in the title represents beauty and ideality while the “sixpence” stands for money and secular life. Sometimes there are conflicts between ideality and reality, just as Mengzi said, you can’t have your cake and eat it. When Strickland chose ideality, he knew that he was far away from a comfortable life. Fortunately, although few people understood him, he realized what he really wanted and gained fame after his death, though he didn’t care about it at all. No matter how hard it is, just listen to our heart, we will know what we should do.
　　Apart from the character Maugham created, his writing styles are also awesome. The first-person narrator makes this novel much more authentic and the description of the scenery on Tahiti shows his talent in writing. The turn in the course of events also very reasonable and vivid. It is like a shark diving in the water, with only a dorsal fin above the sea level. At first, people think it appears trite and insignificant. But when getting close to it, they will know how spectacular it is.
　　However, though this novel is very famous, I still think it has some disadvantages. First, since Maugham uses the first-person narrator, his description is refrained by the narrator. For the sake of highlighting the authenticity of the story, the narrator in the story stressed that since some people he talked to lacked the ability of expression, some of their words were recombined by him. In the beginning, this expression does help to render the expression more authentic. However, after repeating these sentences several times, it looks so artificial to the reader, as if the experience the narrator told was fabricated, and that the narrator stressed it was true, out of the afraid of being found out that he was lying.
　　The second disadvantage is that the protagonist in the novel is not a virtuous person. This statement is not aiming at finding fault with the author. And I don’t think it is excessive demand for the protagonist to be a virtuous man, either. It is true that the more complex a character, the more charming he is. However, no matter how talented an artist is, he can’t lose love in the way of pursuing the beauty, and no matter how indulgent a soul is, he can’t get rid of the social rules. So when Strickland abandoned his wife and children and finally possessed his friend’s wife, the beloved woman of the charitable Stroeve, out of sexual desire, he became brutal and coldblooded and thus not qualified to become a positive character. He even said: “Women are strange little beasts, you can treat them like dogs, you can beat them till your arm aches, and still they love you.” At the time, he even lost the quality to become a human being, no needless to say an honorable artist. The talent one has is not the reason that he can discard all the social rules. That is a faulty stroke in this article. By the way, I don’t appreciate the protagonist in the article the Monster at all, who was a gifted musician but showed no honor to those who helped him.
　　The novel’s third imperfection is that all the women appeared in the story are just attachment to Charles Strickland, the protagonist, and they lacked their own soul. There is no love between Strickland and the three women as well. Strickland’s first wife was described as an arty woman, who was good as a housekeeper. She knew nothing about her husband, and what she wanted was to associate with famous writers and be honored. Stroeve’s wife, who even died for Strickland, fell in love with him unreasonably. And Strickland’s third wife Ata was just an aboriginal girl who couldn’t be Strickland’s soul mate, either. To Strickland’s, Ata was more like a maid and an object that could satisfy his sexual desire rather than a wife. Though all these descriptions about the three women are vivid and lively, the women he described are lacking their own charming characteristics. The only purpose of their existence is to serve as a foil to Charles Strickland.
　　In a word, Moon and Sixpence is an excellent book, which is full of philosophy and has a wonderful language. And few will be found to deny Charles Strickland’ greatness, in terms of painting and the persistence to stick to what he chose. From this perspective of view, this book is worth reading. But unlike Strickland, people don’t always need to choose moon and give up sixpence. As long as it is the choice from one’s heart, that is enough. After all, there should be different kinds of people in the world, and every sentient being has his only value of existence. As a saying goes, when the heroes pass by, there should be someone applauding for them.