chapter 16 - cakes and ale

I wish now that I had not started to write the book in the first person singular. It is all very well when you can show yourself in an amiable or touching light... but it is not so nice when you have to exhibit yourself as a plain damned fool.

Folk music uses a bridge, usually a fiddle solo, to indicate sex happens here.

Black & White movies cut to a curtain blowing in the breeze to indicate sex happens here.

What does Maugham do??? Just as he's getting around to it... No, a little prematurely, he cuts to an essay on the use of the first person singular! Brilliant.

Yes, Katie, but what really surprised me was the detail to which he warmed to the subject. I don't think I've ever read anything by Maugham that even approached the sexual explicitness he delivers here. It was somewhat unexpected as I didn't recall it from my first reading of the book. You were really on the mark in suggesting C&A as it compares very revealingly with the MERRY-GO-ROUND. What a different Maugham is writing now! A Maugham who doesn't cut to breeze driven curtains when it comes to sex, but describes people actually naked. A Maugham who no longer supports upper class prejudices, but actually endeavors to smash them to bits. Think of it--I'm nearly finished and a lower class person has yet to jump in front of a train! How refreshing--especially for train engineers!

Yes, he dared show himself as a "plain damned fool." Very refreshing, and no proletariats were hurt in the writing of this book.

LOL! I love it, Katie. The SPCP (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Proletariats} will be very gratified to hear that :-)