Far Eastern Tales

by W. Somerset Maugham

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0099282844
• ISBN13: 9780099282846
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Vintage Classics
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Punchy, pungent tales

Far Eastern Tales isn't just for short-story readers - I normally only read novels. Maugham's characterisation and sense of the plot twist are such that these, most of them at novella length anyway, contain all the reward of full-length works. Perhaps the best piece in this selection is Neil MacAdam, in which a young biologist gets dragged into a doomed jungle expedition by the lusting, manipulative wife of his employer. Also in Borneo, Before The Party has the young wife of an older district officer murder her alcoholic husband. But all of these stories have dense plots filled with tension and feeling. And they are so well portrayed and credibly set that, this being my introduction to Maugham, I thought he was a colonial writer. Indeed, the stories of Far Eastern Tales are principally about exile, about solitude and its consequences. They look at social and psychological questions under the lab conditions of communities or individuals culturally, and often physically, cut off from their surroundings. Finally, they are about what it is to be English, whether in the questionable, defunct imperial setting or generally, whether now or in the past. Though several of these Tales are contained in the fatter Collected Short Stories, this sample is well worth reading together for its coherence of theme and atmosphere.