Tag Archives: W.Somerset Maugham

Happy World Book and Copyright Day!

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Happy World Book and Copyright Day!

✨ The date of April 23 was chosen by UNESCO in 1995 because it coincides with the death anniversaries of several renowned authors, including William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. This symbolic date pays tribute to books and authors worldwide, encouraging everyone to access books.​

✨ The idea for the holiday originated in Catalonia, Spain, where it has been a tradition since the 1920s to give a rose for every book sold on “St. George’s Day” (La Diada de Sant Jordi).

“I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil

✨ I have no words when it comes to Somerset. My all time favourite writer whose stories are flows of words about the life and adventures of ordinary people in ordinary circumstances.
Somerset’s artful gift of gab made them extraordinary people living in extraordinary circumstances.

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Expression

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“Did Beethoven create his symphonies for his glorification? I don’t believe it. I believe he created them because the music in his soul demanded expression and then all he tried to do was to make them as perfect as he knew how.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge

This book is truly a gem of insight. Somerset is often seen as a writer who delves into the world of high society, but above all, he explores the depths of human nature and the fiery passions of the soul.

Image source – Pinterest

Sakura in Moonlight

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Every time I look at such paintings and imagine such nights, Somerset’s words come to mind:

“It was a night so beautiful that your soul seemed hardly able to bear the prison of the body.”
– W. Somerset Maugham– 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965.

Noriko Okawara, Sakura in Moonlight

The wisdom of life

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“The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We must see the beauty of quietness. We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. And let us seek the love of simple, ignorant people. Their ignorance is better than all our knowledge. Let us be silent, content in our little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is the wisdom of life.”
– W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, 1919

Art – Paul Gauguin, Coastal Landscape from Martinique

W. Somerset Maugham

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Coffee and Somerset for me …

W. Somerset Maugham- 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965.

Uncanny observer of human nature and my personal trainer and influencer:

“It was a night so beautiful that your soul seemed hardly able to bear the prison of the body.”

“Irony is a gift of the gods, the most subtle of all the modes of speech. It is an armour and a weapon; it is a philosophy and a perpetual entertainment; it is food for the hungry of wit and drink to those thirsting for laughter…”

“The faculty for myth is innate in the human race. It seizes with avidity upon any incidents, surprising or mysterious, in the career of those who have at all distinguished themselves from their fellows, and invents a legend to which it then attaches a fanatical belief. It is the protest of romance against the commonplace of life.”

“All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary—it’s just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences.”

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His stories are as simple and as beautiful as cherry blossoms in the moonlight

Art – Kaii Higashiyama, Cherry blossoms in the moonlight, 1982

Life…

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“Life isn’t long enough for love and art.”
–from THE MOON AND SIXPENCE by W. Somerset Maugham

Based on the life of Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence is W. Somerset Maugham’s ode to the powerful forces behind creative genius. Charles Strickland is a staid banker, a man of wealth and privilege. He is also a man possessed of an unquenchable desire to create art. As Strickland pursues his artistic vision, he leaves London for Paris and Tahiti, and in his quest makes sacrifices that leave the lives of those closest to him in tatters. Through Maugham’s sympathetic eye Strickland’s tortured and cruel soul becomes a symbol of the blessing and the curse of transcendent artistic genius, and the cost in human lives it sometimes demands. READ an excerpt here: http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/the-moon-and-sixpence-…/

Lure of the sea

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There are countless lures in our lives or it may be that our lives are made of lures. Mine is the sea. I hear its song all over the year and like Ulysses’ sailors I am not wise enough to deafen my ears. I am trapped into its blue.

The sea knows things and is a cure. For loneliness, grief, unhappiness and love, as Mr. Somerset Maugham wisely put:

“You know, when one’s in love,’ I said, ‘and things go all wrong, one’s terribly unhappy and one thinks one won’t ever get over it. But you’ll be astounded to learn what the sea will do.

Well, love isn’t a good sailor and it languishes on a sea voyage. You’ll be surprised when you have the Atlantic between you and Larry to find how slight the pang is that before you sailed seemed intolerable.”
―W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge

So when one’s in love, get on a boat… I cannot help but love Somerset’s magic realism.

I illustrate with pictures from my short May holiday in the Ionian.

Engleza de joi/ Nowhither

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Nowhither = to or toward no place.

“Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil

Rafal Olbinski 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Art by Rafal Olbinski.

Engleza de joi/ Have an axe to grind

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Have an axe to grind = to have a ​strong ​personal ​opinion about something that you ​want ​people to ​accept and that is the ​reason why you do something.

I have an axe to grind about fairness…

Or as dear Somerset (Maugham) used to say: “It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is. ”

 

What I have learned in business is to always dress up the truth in the most beautiful words I can muster.

Julius von Klever

 

When you paint like this, words are speechless…

By Julius von Klever.