the razor's edge and oscar gold

W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge is one of my favorite books, with many fine turns of phrase and dialogue and memorable main and side characters.  The 1944 novel was made into a 1946 film starring romantic leads Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney, along with Herbert Marshall as Maugham himself, gliding in and out of scenes as the worldly but not always present narrator.  Clifton Webb as shrewdly snobbish and haute Uncle Elliott Templeton steals the show, as does Anne Baxter in the more tragic role of Sophie.  Baxter earned an Academy Award for her performance; Webb was nominated but didn't win an Oscar (he did, however, score a Golden Globe).  The 1946 film is very good but doesn't totally capture the essence of the novel -- though that was unlikely to happen in Hollywood at the time.  The 1984 remake with Bill Murray seemed to have high hopes to come closer to the book, but didn't quite make it either for different reasons.

As noted, the original novel is full of great quotes and descriptives, but one of the best lines from the 1946 movie is Elliott's frank observation: "I do not like the propinquity of the hoi polloi." And regarding Maugham's character being invited to dinner, Elliott advises his guests:  "He's an English author. He's quite alright. In fact he's quite famous. So pretend you've heard of him even if you haven't."

Indeed.

(Pictured:  Clifton Webb as Elliott Templeton snobbing it up while Herbert Marshall/Somerset Maugham listens.)

moon and sixpence

This pictured Penguin edition of W. Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence seems to be from 1979, with a colorfully collaged but maybe vaguely racist cover.  Maugham's 1919 novel focuses on Charles Strickland, a British stockbroker who leaves his comfortable, business-oriented lifestyle to pursue a passion for painting.  The story parallels the true quest of Paul Gauguin, though Strickland doesn't really have the same charisma that Gauguin did -- or at least not for me.  Like many of Maugham's tales it involves the amiable and neutrally observing Maugham-narrator, who usually happens to stroll into an unfolding major drama and then becomes everyone's confidant.  Such as how Mrs. Strickland (Amy) asks our narrator to go find her husband in Paris after he suddenly abandons his family.  Our narrator protests, as he often does:

"But I've not spoken ten words to your husband.  He doesn't know me.  He'll probably just tell me to go to the Devil."

Still, Mrs. Strickland persists even though she doesn't know our narrator too well either, and of course he goes to Paris and beyond and that's how we get our story.