The Moon and Sixpence

The second meeting of the Mackay Friends Book Group had been delayed several times before we eventually met on Friday 10th July at Lorel’s newly-refurbished house to discuss W. Somerset Maugham’s novel ‘The Moon and Sixpence’. Lorel’s house got severely damaged in last year’s floods and the renovation work had only just been completed a few days before, and she had only just moved back in. The whole of the downstairs had been re-done, with a wonderful new kitchen and a sleek, pale finish in all the rooms. We were honoured to be her first proper dinner party guests. We also welcomed a new member to Book Group, Michele One L, who has got short hair and glasses like the rest of us as we were most amused to notice! Lorel cooked pumpkin soup, made from one of her home-grown pumpkins, followed by a delicious Tofu curry. ‘The Moon and Sixpence’ is a curious novel, based on the life of the artist Paul Gaugin, but sufficiently fictionalised so that it cannot be considered a biography. It did give the impression of being written a bit like a biography or a documentary, with a certain detachment from the story that prevented the reader from fully engaging with it. I think we all agreed that we quite liked it on the whole, and that certain sections were very entertaining but it is also a bit of a patchwork novel, with large sections of the story deliberately missing, so it has a stilted quality to it. Having said that, there were some nice passages of writing, and little vignettes of scenes that were pleasing, and the character of Strickland (the cipher for Gaugin) was well-drawn and truly disagreeable, and detestable, but also quite comic and amusing. Although this novel was flawed I did enjoy Maugham’s style of writing, so I have since gone on to read another of his novel’s ‘The Painted Veil’, which was excellent and would heartily recommend. Lorel’s Book Group was a great success and everyone had a thoroughly good evening, even if the book itself wasn’t universally acclaimed. Our next Book Group will be hosted by Susan Poosan and she has chosen ‘Hamlet’ by Australian author John Marsden as our next selection. Watch this space for more book talk.