*The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham (Modern Library, 1919)

 

The Moon and Sixpence (the intriguing title is never explained or mentioned in the book itself) is a novel inspired by the life Paul Gauguin.  In Maugham's version, he's Charles Strickland and English, a well-to-do businessman in London who abruptly and mysteriously abandons his wife and two children and moves to Paris to paint, although he's never shown any interest in painting and has no training and apparently not much talent.

Today Strickland would be considered to be "on the spectrum" and closer to one end than to the other.  He is devoid of sympathy and empathy, thinks only of himself, and is impervious to any and all creature comforts.  The book is narrated by an acquaintance of Strickland's who met him briefly when he still lived in London, became quite involved in Strickland's life while they were both living in Paris, and just happens to be in Tahiti shortly after Strickland's death there so that he can learn all about Strickland's final chapter from witnesses and participants.

Maugham is a skilled and adroit writer, and this book is engaging, but all the characters, with the exception of Strickland's abandoned wife, who is interestingly alive and surprising, are one-dimensional and exaggerated.  And here is yet another book that is narrated by a man who is very apparently homosexual, yet never alludes to his romantic or sexual life, thus negating himself as a character.