The Summing Up (Vintage Classics) [Paperback] Maugham, W. Somerset

Writer's guide

Some books have the knack of changing the way you look at things and then moulding the manner in which you perceive your life thereafter. The Summing Up is just that sort of a book. A must read for any person, irrespective of their profession and literary inclination.

It's an old copy and unclean as well. Not impressed with the quality of the product. Very disappointed. I want to give a zero star rating, but I don't have the option to do it.

I’ve had my fill of Somerset Maugham for the time being. ‘Cakes and Ale’ was great, so I added his South Sea stories and this autobiographical work to my reading pile. He wrote it in his mid 60s, and the blurb describes it as ‘a classic avowal of a professional author’s ideas about style, literature, art, drama and philosophy’ and ‘an illuminating insight into this great writer’s craft’. Sadly it is neither classic nor illuminating, instead rambling, discursive, vague, turgid, bending over backwards to say what it is not, while not saying much at all. Some bits are interesting, much of it is true, especially his thoughts about fiction writing, but it’s not a patch on Maugham at his fictional best. It lacks what he says all fiction needs, but the best non-fiction needs too, a strong narrative thread.

Somerset Maugham's autobiographical work looks back on his life. He concentrates on the professional side of his life and does not reveal much of his personal life.He does, however, reveal how he lost belief in God and became an agnostic. As a boy he had an unhappy childhood,much of this as a result of a stammer. He put much of his own experiences in to his fiction e.g. On Human Bondage is largely autobiography.He writes beautifully as always, and the prose is a joy to read.

Amazing writer. Frank account of an interesting life.

The Summing Up by W.Somerset Maugham: The author shares his experience of a lifetime and his ideas with clarity and conviction. His utmost sincerity opens the way to our own understanding, for example the understanding of religious concepts all to hastily accepted by our fearful minds. His conclusion that practising loving kindness is far more important than our dreams of everlasting romantic love makes the book a very modern one. Anybody wishing to understand himself and others, significant ones or not, will benefit greatly from reading "The Summing Up".Before, I had read Maugham's novel "Of Human Bondage". The two books, the latter being fiction, the first one not, complete each other perfectly. Personally, I appreciated most the author's subtle analysis of human emotions, his fine rendering, without ever being larmoyant, of the pain of unrequited love.

I've been reading and rereading this book for over 30 years and would recommend highly it to Somerset Maugham fans but not to anyone else.I imagine many readers nowadays would be turned off by Maugham's old-fashioned ideas and snobbishness and baffled by his references to writers, painters and actors who went out of fashion almost a century ago.Maugham is also less than open about his own personal life (to put it mildly) and is obviously quite dishonest at times.Since many of Maugham's books are autobiographical - he even features as a character himself in several works, including The Razor's Edge - we know a lot about his life.This is fortunate since there is little (if anything) new in this book which was first published in 1938.I would not recommend anyone to try and read it from start to finish but to pick up from time to time, read a dozen pages, nod in agreement or shake your head ruefully at Maugham's rather acerbic view of the world, and lay it aside.The aphorisms and bitter wit are amusing but become tiresome after a while - like a collection of quotes - which is why the reader should take it in small doses and come back for more a few weeks or months or even years later.A warning - the latter part in which he makes comments on religion and claims to have read the main philosophers is dull and uninteresting and barely worth the effort.