Collected Short Stories: Volume 2
Somerset Maugham (W.)
This Page provides (where held) the Abstract of the above Book and those of all the Papers contained in it.
Text Colour-ConventionsDisclaimerPapers in this BookBooks / Papers Citing this BookNotes Citing this Book


Back Cover Blurb

  1. The stories in this collection move from Malaya to America and England, and include some of Maugham's most famous tales; 'Flotsam and Jetsam1', the story of an old woman trapped for years in a loveless marriage in the remote rubber plantations; 'The Man with the Scar2', and notably the opening story 'The Vessel of Wrath3', a tale of the unexpected love that grows between a devout missionary nurse and a drunken reprobate.
  2. In this second volume of his collected stories, Maugham illustrates his characteristic wry perception of human foibles and his genius for evoking compelling drama from an acute sense of time and place.

Preface
  1. There is one point I want to make about these stories. The reader will notice that many of my stories are written in the first person singular. That is a literary convention which is as old as the hills. It was used by Petronius Arbiter in the Satyricon and by many of the story-tellers in The Thousand and One Nights. Its object is of course to achieve credibility, for when someone tells you what he states happened to himself you are more likely to believe that he is telling the truth than when he tells you what happened to somebody else. It has besides the merit from the story-teller's point of view that he need only tell you what he knows for a fact and can leave to your imagination what he doesn't or couldn't know.
  2. Some of the older novelists who wrote in the first person were in this respect very careless. They would narrate long conversations that they couldn't possibly have heard and incidents which in the nature of things they couldn't possibly have witnessed. Thus they lost the great advantage of verisimilitude which writing in the first person singular offers.
  3. But the I who writes is just as much a character in the story as the other persons with whom it is concerned. He may be the hero or he may be an onlooker or a confidant. But he is a character. The writer who uses this device is writing fiction and if he makes the I of his story a little quicker on the uptake, a little more level-headed, a little shrewder, a little braver, a little more ingenious, a little wittier, a little wiser than he, the writer, really is, the reader must show indulgence. He must remember that the author is not drawing a faithful portrait of himself, but creating a character for the particular purposes of his story.
Book Comment

Vintage Classics; New Edition (3 Jan. 2002)


"Somerset Maugham (W.) - Collected Short Stories: Volume 2"

Source: Somerset Maugham (W.) - Collected Short Stories: Volume 2

  • See this Note1 for my thoughts.
  • The above Note uses Sub-Notes which - rather than the Paper or the Note - should be updated if the Write-up is to be updated.

Write-up2 (as at 08/04/2025 09:28:48): Somerset Maugham Short Stories - Volume 2

Introductory Note
  • I have now transferred these comments on "Somerset Maugham (W.) - Collected Short Stories: Volume 2" – such as they are as I’m only part-way through the book – to a Note by analogy with those on "Somerset Maugham (W.) - Collected Short Stories: Volume 1" and in particular on "Somerset Maugham (W.) - Short Stories". As the bulk of them didn’t find their way into this “Greatest Hits” selection, some may not be worth such close attention, though the book’s cover blurb highlights ‘Flotsam and Jetsam3’ and ‘The Man with the Scar4’ as being especially famous. However, while this book is basically “holiday reading”, I intend to annotate most of the stories in enough detail to provide the framework for any further thoughts.
  • I will summarise the stories only to the degree strictly necessary to provide the context for whatever I have to say, so anyone other than me reading these accounts probably won’t fully understand what I’m on about unless they’ve read – and can recall – the stories. But take this as a “spoiler alert”.
  • I will provide links to the various summaries of the stories on Wikipedia where these are available but will only read these after making my own summaries, so they may not always agree.
  • My intention will be merely to reflect on – and remind myself of – various “ethical5” or more generally philosophical issues that arise. I don’t claim to be a literary critic.

Contents
    Preface – 1
  1. The vessel of wrath6 – 3
  2. The force of circumstance7 – 46
  3. Flotsam and jetsam8 – 75
  4. The alien corn9 – 103
  5. The creative impulse10 – 148
  6. Virtue11 – 187
  7. The man with the scar12 – 228
  8. The closed shop13 – 232
  9. The bum14 – 242
  10. The dream15 – 250
  11. The treasure16 – 254
  12. The colonel's lady17 – 272
  13. Lord Mountdrago18 – 293
  14. The social sense19 – 320
  15. The verger20 – 328
  16. In a strange land21 – 336
  17. The taipan22 – 341
  18. The consul23 – 349
  19. A friend in need24 – 355
  20. The round dozen25 – 360
  21. The human element26 – 390
  22. Jane27 – 431
  23. Footprints in the jungle28 – 460
  24. The door of opportunity29 – 495

Commentary
    Preface – i
  1. The vessel of wrath – 3
  2. The force of circumstance31 – 46
    • This tale – while atmospheric and well-written – is a little too long for the rather simple plot.
    • The action takes place in Sembulu32 and features the Resident, Guy – a short, fat, pimply and rather ugly man now aged nearly 30 – but one with – it seems – many redeeming qualities, including his wit and good humour.
    • Guy has recently married an English woman, Doris, who has come out to live with him after they met when Guy was on vacation in England and Doris – the secretary of an MP – was on holiday for a month with her parents in the same hotel.
    • Guy was born in Sembulu. His father had been in the service of ‘the second Sultan’ for 30 years and Guy considers it his home. He’d come out again aged 19 straight from school, originally as an assistant, but when the Resident became ill and returned home he took his place. At the time there were few alternative appointees ‘given the war33’, so he was appointed despite his youth because he had the right background and ‘spoke the language34 like a native’.
    • It is obvious very early on in the tale that Guy has a guilty secret is – and what it is. A native woman causes a series of scenes and three ‘half-caste’ children make an appearance. Eventually Guy ‘comes clean’ and tells Doris the truth. Like the vast majority of the Europeans (he says) he’d been effectively married35 for 10 years to a native woman – by whom he had had these three children –and had recently ‘put her away’ in order to get married to a European. Unfortunately, he didn’t get a new posting – as he’d expected – when he returned from England, having been on leave with the purpose of finding an English wife – and so he couldn’t hide what he had done, at least when his former native wife tries to blackmail him.
    • Anyway, Doris just cannot come to terms with this – she’s revolted at the thought of Guy being intimate with a ‘black36’ woman. She thinks about things for 6 months – having effectively separated from Guy – and then returns to England. It’s not clear if she will divorce Guy, not that it makes much difference to him. He thinks the situation is irrecoverable, and – following prompting37 from his elder son – allows his native wife to return.
    • This tale raises a lot of ethical issues which – as usual – Somerset Maugham leaves for the reader to raise and address, to ignore, or not to notice. I don’t attempt to pontificate on their resolution. There are at least the following:-
      1. The first is what might be called ‘conventional immorality’. It’s commonly accepted that the young European men would take native wives for ‘comfort’, despite not being committed to them, with the intention of paying them off when the opportunity to marry a European comes along. The native wife’s parents are complicit in this arrangement.
      2. Then there is the casual assumption of a racial hierarchy, both by the participants in the story and by Somerset Maugham himself.
      3. There’s Guy’s attitude towards his children. Because they are ‘black’, he doesn’t feel as though they are his, and feels no more for them than for any other children. He is, however, willing to ‘provide for them’ to some degree.
      4. Again, there’s his attitude towards his native wife – he just turfs her, and his children by her, out of the house when Doris arrives, though with financial provision of some sort.
      5. Doris objects to the violent treatment of Guy’s native wife, before she knows who she is, but doesn’t in any way try to make the best of the situation once she finds out. She just finds the whole affair disgusting.
      6. Finally, there’s Doris’s racially-motivated repugnance at the intimate elements of Guy’s previous marriage. Would she have felt the same way had he been divorced from a white woman?
      7. I suppose it also raises the question of just what the Europeans were doing in these regions. Not from a political point of view (colonialism had many pluses and minuses) but from a personal point of view. Why did they choose this sort of life?
    • As is often the case in Somerset Maugham’s writing, human instincts lead to a situation that is much worse than could have been the case had reason prevailed. So, in the end, we have two people who love one another living apart and two who don’t love one another living together.
    • Finally, a reflection on Somerset Maugham’s choice of title ‘The force of circumstance’. Circumstances – his youth and isolation and the conventional wisdom of his class – ‘compel’ Guy to act as he did, and having done so, to seek to hide his actions. Then, the circumstance of his return posting then mean that he cannot hide what he has done. Finally, Doris’s psychological make-up and the prejudices of the time mean that she cannot find a way to resolve the situation to mutual satisfaction but has to choose the worst of all possible worlds.
  3. Flotsam and jetsam38 – 75
    • This is a very well-written tale, though I have some doubts about its coherence at one point, noted later.
    • The story is split into two parts: the long introduction, which has three main characters, and the denouement, which introduces a fourth. It doesn’t immediately say where it is located, but it seems it’s in north Borneo like The Yellow Streak39 & The Force Of Circumstance40. As an aside, it mentions ‘brunch41’, which I’d thought was a modern locution. It also reports that it’s best for native-born Europeans to marry native (Malay) girls – as discussed in The Force Of Circumstance42.
    • The first part concerns Skelton, an anthropologist who has been in the country for two years to study the tribes who have been without European contact, and who has caught malaria and is near death. The local Dyaks don’t want him to die while enjoying their hospitality and send him, his Chinese servant Kong43, and a Dyak guide downriver by canoe to seek hospitality with the local planters, Mr & Mrs Grange.
    • The Granges are desperately poor because Norman Grange bought the plantation before the bottom fell out of the rubber market and subsequently had to mortgage the estate to some Chinese businessmen. Now – while things have picked up somewhat – any profits go in interest payments.
    • Norman Grange is a robust but taciturn character and his wife is a well-meaning but ill-educated retired C-list actress. She is 46 but looks 60 and has a couple of terrible tics: she shakes her head involuntarily and appears to be trying to wipe something off her dress. Norman reads and re-reads some of the classics of English literature but appears to have learnt nothing humane from them. Mrs Grange reads pulp fiction. The Granges scarcely communicate and evidently hate one another.
    • While Norman is out at the plantation, Mrs Grange unburdens herself to Skelton. She describes her career with a group of travelling actors that had had some success in a tour of the Far East but ultimately went bankrupt and the owners left them all in the lurch. Norman was evidently in Singapore on holiday and proposed to Mrs Grange44 when they scarcely knew one another, but she liked him well enough and marrying him gave her a way out of her immediate predicament since she had no means of returning to England.
    • They were happy for a year while she got used to the estate and the life, but she eventually got bored. Norman had promised her a trip back to England, but nothing came of it, and he admitted that England was foreign to him and he never wanted to go there again. He’d been born in Sarawak, Borneo, where his father had been in government service, went to school in England, but returned to Sarawak aged 17 and had lived there ever since apart from a tour of duty in Mesopotamia in WWI.
    • Skelton recovers in a few days, and Norman encourages him to get going. Skelton lets him have one of his guns as rather excessive payment for his bed and board. Mrs Grange says she has something further to say to him that would set ears burning in the clubs for a few days. Skelton offers Mrs Grange the opportunity to unburden herself further, promising never to reveal what she says, but she’s unwilling to do so. So, Skelton departs none the wiser, but glad to leave.
    • We now move on to the second part of the story. It is effectively a soliloquy by Mrs Grange in front of the mirror on the dressing table that Norman had had made to her exact specifications soon after they were married. She recounts the incident that happened 15 years ago.
    • A company with cash to spare had set up a plantation on the other side of the river to that of the Grange’s, and Jack Carr – the planter installed there – was an educated man from a public school and university, who (unlike Norman) looked good in evening wear. Soon after they met, they seem to have fallen passionately in love. Jack had a motor launch, so it was easy for them to meet and conduct an affair. Mrs Grange falls pregnant and she’s sure it is Jack’s child. Jack has to go away for a few weeks to Singapore on business but is back before her confinement, scheduled to be in Kuching45.
    • She is desperate to see Jack and, when she hears he has returned, says she will go to see him first thing the following morning to collect some things he has got for her. She chatters rather too much and doubtless makes Norman suspicious.
    • After she’s been rowed over, and while she and Jack are in a passionate embrace, Norman shoots and kills Jack. His warm blood spurts over Mrs Grange, leading to the tic that stays with her thereafter. She has a miscarriage that night but – while it was touch and go for a few days – lives on.
    • Norman claims the shooting was an accident – which of course it was not – but Mrs Grange cannot tell the truth – or (she thinks) she would starve – and he cannot divorce her or he would incur suspicion and hang. Mrs Grange had earlier revealed to Skelton that she and her husband would like to kill one another (without revealing the reason) but they can’t; she can’t kill him because – even were she to get away with it by poison – ‘the Chinks’ would foreclose on her and ‘she doesn’t have a friend in the world’. He can’t kill her either because suspicion would fall on him and – though she’s often thought of suicide – she intends to live as long as her husband as it’s the only way she can get back at him.
    • The ‘accident’ is investigated by the District Officer, but the natives are afraid of Norman so the DO – while he thinks the episode ‘damned fishy’ – in the absence of evidence to the contrary has to accept Norman’s account, which is that there had been a problem with Norman’s gun and that it had gone off while Jack was looking at it.
    • Mrs Grange ends her soliloquy by covering her nose with lipstick like a clown and exclaiming, with hysterical laughter, ‘to hell with life’.
    • Having taken the trouble to write all this up, I’m not sure I’ve much to say. I didn’t find the infatuation between Jack and the younger Mrs Grange very convincing, but that’s a plot detail. Otherwise, the tale is just another that shows the isolation and pressures the planters and administrators – and especially their wives – were under. It would have been good to have had some philosophical reflection from Somerset Maugham on what it was all for – either for the British Empire or for its servants – but Maugham leaves any such reflection to his readers46.
    • I have no idea why the title of the story is ‘Flotsam and Jetsam47’.
  4. The alien corn – 103
  5. The creative impulse49 – 148
    • At 39 pages, this tale – while amusing and possibly instructive – is far too long and maybe not worth the time either reading or analysing. I intended but failed to be brief in the latter even though it’s a way of recouping the investment hitherto.
    • The story is basically a lampoon of a London literary set led by a large and robust lady styled ‘Mrs Albert Forrester’. She’s referred to by this title throughout (sometimes shortened to ‘Mrs Forrester’) even though Mr Albert Forrester is marginalised both by his wife and by the ‘set’. He is – however – important to its running and provides everything to support his wife’s literary endeavours and her set’s get-togethers at his flat, in which he occupies a poky bedroom in contrast to his wife’s lavish one.
    • Mrs Albert Forrester has a high aesthetic style in her writings which – though critically acclaimed – do not sell and her agent admits that they are published at a loss.
    • Her close friends are all literati but the attendees at her teas, soirees and dinners include members of high society.
    • Mrs Albert Forrester has (rather absurd) political aspirations – intending to stand for the Labour Party if a safe seat can be found – though this aspiration doesn’t lead anywhere. She is painted as a self-obsessed person who never has to do anything for herself – not even pour the tea at her soirees – so her connection to the struggling masses is obscure.
    • Maugham spends numerous pages describing the style of her literary output. I dare say it would be more amusing if you were in tune with the times in which Maugham was writing. Her ‘comic use of the semi-colon’ is mentioned on a few occasions, but it is hard to see how this would work, which is doubtless part of the point.
    • Mr Albert Forrester is increasingly mentioned as the narrative progresses, but always in a condescending way and Mrs Albert Forrester is commended by her set for putting up with him.
    • Well, everything continues happily for many a page when – all of a sudden - Albert – who now appears as a fully rounded person – elopes with the cook. The faceless lady who pours out the tea (and acts as Mrs Albert Forrester’s unpaid amanuensis) collapses with uncontrollable mirth on hearing the departure note read out. Mrs Albert Forrester’s set point out that this would be the public’s reaction.
    • Mrs Albert Forrester’s world is at risk of falling apart as Albert not only supplies the finances, but also organises the provisions for the dinners that the cook produces. One suspects that the public figures that attend do so as much for the excellent food, wine and cigars as for the erudite company.
    • Mrs Albert Forrester is persuaded to go to visit Albert and insist that he comes back, agreeing to whatever his conditions might be. For some reason she goes to Kennington by public transport and finds the small and somewhat decrepit rented flat in which Albert and the cook (Mrs Corinne Bulfinch) now live.
    • Albert has no intention of coming back. He and his wife had nothing in common, he’s getting older and wants someone to look after him. Corinne seems happy with this arrangement, being an expert who had spent 3 years nursing her now deceased husband. She has a property in Clacton to which they intend to retire. Albert has indeed just retired – having been bought out of his partnership in the currant marketing business50 in the City – and now has £900 a year, only £300 of which he can contribute to the maintenance of Mrs Albert Forrester. This will not be enough as previously his earnings had been £1,200, shared only with his wife
    • To cut a long story short, it is suggested that Mrs Albert Forrester writes a popular novel – a detective story – of which Albert has read ‘hundreds and hundreds’, passing them on to Corinne. Mrs Albert Forrester will have none of it, but on the tram home takes the idea to heart and announces the idea to her agent and ‘set’ on returning to her flat, making out that was all her own idea and that she’d never actually made it to see Albert. Thus was born the book (the Achilles Statue) that made her name – and fortune – in popular culture.
    • So much for the story. Has it any useful message? Probably not; it’s just a jolly tale.
    • Still, I could see some analogy – as far as a subliminal message is concerned – with Educating Rita51. Maybe, we (as distinct from Mrs Albert Forrester and her set) are supposed to see the failure of aestheticism in the absence of genuine human contact. In Educating Rita, Dr. Frank Bryant comes to see that his own over-aestheticized poetry is just rubbish, and Trish’s attempted suicide demonstrates that the aesthetic life is ‘not enough’.
    • In Somerset Maugham’s story, Mrs Albert Forrester and her set don’t learn this lesson from Albert and Corinne but carry on as before.
    • It was unclear to me just why – given the literary insignificance of Mr Albert Forrester – Mrs Albert Forrester so styled herself. It’s not like Shirley Williams retaining her married name after her divorce from Bernard Williams, nor sundry female academics retaining their maiden names for publication-continuity purposes. Nor – while he’s a moderately successful business manager – has he a famous name. Maybe it shows Mrs Albert Forrester’s tacit acknowledgement of just how much she owes to him.
  6. Virtue – 187
    • This is an interesting – if rather long – tale with some ethical commentary by the narrator himself.
    • Most of what I have to say ought to concern the introduction and the story’s conclusion, but I’ll briefly describe the main thrust of the story itself first.
    • The narrator is invited to stay with a young administrator – Gerry Morton – of a remote area of Borneo. He finds him fairly congenial and – as is usual – says if he is ever in London he should look him up.
    • Well, one day he’s about to enter Sotheby’s when he meets Morton in the street. He takes pity on him and invites him out with a devoted middle-aged couple (Charlie and Margery Bishop) he was due to dine with. Margery likes dancing and she and the Morton dance the night away, innocently enough.
    • The narrator spends many pages describing the Bishops’ relationship. They live in a small flat: Charlie is a microbiologist, rather assertive – maybe controlling – but ‘good company’. They do everything together, so don’t mind their cramped conditions. They have a reputation for being devoted to one another.
    • However, Morton and Margery become infatuated with one another, but do not have an affair (Margery won’t allow it). When Morton returns to Borneo, Margery remains obsessed with him.
    • Charlie, her husband, is initially amused but ultimately irritated and hits her, after which she leaves him, staying with a friend, Janet. Charlie takes this really badly and turns to drink, shortly dying of an overdose of a sleeping draught.
    • Margery cables Morton to let him know, with the intention of joining him in Borneo, However, Morton cables back to say she must await his letter which is already in the post. There’s an interlude until the letter arrives which – as most had expected – says that she should not join him (she wouldn’t fit in, it’s lonely, she’d be a laughing-stock, …).
    • The story ends with Margery still intending to go out to Borneo, but being strongly advised against it.
    • Outside ‘the story’ as such – there are two sections of ethical reflection.
      1. The first is an introductory couple of pages
        • Therein the narrator reflects on the good things of life (some of which – like fine cigars – are no longer considered so good) and the interrelatedness of society and the evolutionary and personal histories that enables their provision. Also, of the contribution of animals to our pleasure and our indebtedness to them.
        • It’s not immediately clear what the relevance of this is to the story as a whole, but suspect it’s a bit of groundwork for Maugham’s ethical Consequentialist thesis. The good things of life are not to be thrown away by the ‘selfish’ polishing of our virtues without regard to the consequences of such actions.
        • He then introduces the dramatic element of chance in human affairs, whereby the universe looks like a ‘A tale told by an idiot52’ and where an accidental meeting can have incalculable consequences. His Tale is an example of this.
      2. The second is the narrator’s conclusion:
        • This a discussion between the narrator and Janet, a mutual friend of his and Margery.
        • We must not forget that the title of the story is ‘Virtue’. I think Maugham’s argument – or suggestion, maybe – is that we should forget Virtue Ethics and accept some form of Consequentialism.
        • Margery has been ‘virtuous’ in refusing to go to bed with Morton, but just look at the disaster that has ensued as a direct consequence! If they had had an ‘affair’ – the narrator claims – they’d have got it out of their system – Morton was after was sex, after all – and Margery would have gone back to Charlie and all would have lived happily ever after (subject to the usual vagaries of life).
        • Janet will have none of this, but is happy that Margery can collect the insurance money. The narrator accuses her of hypocrisy – given that (one supposes) the presumed suicide was hushed up so that the money could be paid out. Or, rather cynicism to match his own, as she alleged.
        • The narrator ‘prefers a loose woman to a selfish one and a wanton to a fool’.
        • I tend to go along with Consequentialism (if only because it’s the expected consequences that underscore the virtues). It’s not just a brute fact that murder or lying are vicious but because life goes the worse if they are practised.
        • One could doubt – however – that the consequences of infidelity – given our jealous natures – are as benign as Maugham supposes. The alternative ending to the story might have been – had he found out – Charlie shooting the ‘lovers’ and then himself.
        • I dare say more could be said, but that will do.
  7. The man with the scar – 228
    • This is a succinct – it’s only 4 pages long – and highly entertaining tale, so it’s no surprise that it gets a mention in the Volume’s ‘Cover Blurb’.
    • What to say about it though? The plot is simple. The narrator is drinking dry Martinis with a friend in a hotel bar in Guatemala City when the eponymous ‘man’ comes in. He’s an exiled General from neighbouring Nicaragua having led a failed revolution. He’s now on his uppers, unsuccessfully hawking lottery tickets but enjoying the occasional free drink. The narrator’s friend describes him as a ‘ruffian and a bandit, of course’, but he helps him out from time to time. The history is related. After the failure of the revolution the General and four comrades are up before the firing squad. The general commanding the government troops allows the condemned men a last wish – and our hero asks to say good-bye to his wife, who is outside. This is granted: she – young, beautiful and passionate – rushes in. They embrace, but to the horror of all present our hero produces a knife and stabs her in the neck. She promptly dies and the commanding general asks our hero why he did it. ‘Because I loved her’ is the reply. The general is impressed, considering it ‘a noble gesture’. He reprieves him – ‘offering the homage due from one brave man to the other’ – and has him driven to the border. Back in Guatemala City we learn that the disfiguring scar wasn’t gained in battle but from an exploding ginger ale bottle (opened by the narrator’s friend).
    • What to make of this?
      • It’s all rather implausible, especially the revelation about the scar. If the tale is supposed to illustrate the madcap ways of the Hispanics, why has the General not murdered the narrator’s friend in revenge. Maybe it’s a reflection on accepting one’s fate: there’s an account in the story of the night before the execution being spent playing poker for matchsticks, when the general lost every hand.
      • Maybe it’s a further reflection on the randomness of life – as in the previous story – ‘a tale told by an idiot’. It’s all absurd – the General is described as a ‘brave man’, but his act of bravery is murdering his wife and his ‘battle scar’ is caused by a sordid random event – it wasn’t even an exploding champagne bottle.
      • But why was his passionate killing of his wife considered a ‘noble gesture’ and how was his loving her supposed to be a justification – both in his own eyes and those of his captors?
      • No doubt this does reflect the standards of ‘The Patriarchy’ through the magnifying Hispanic lens. Women as men’s property. Think ‘Carmen’; but there the murder is for jealousy rather than love. Maybe it’s the same here; the General doesn’t want her to fall into another’s arms?
      • As usual, Maugham leaves us to make up our own minds.
  8. The closed shop – 232
  9. The bum – 242
  10. The dream – 250
  11. The treasure – 254
  12. The colonel's lady – 272
  13. Lord Mountdrago – 293
  14. The social sense – 320
  15. The verger – 328
  16. In a strange land – 336
  17. The taipan – 341
  18. The consul – 349
  19. A friend in need – 355
  20. The round dozen – 360
  21. The human element – 390
  22. Jane – 431
  23. Footprints in the jungle – 460
  24. The door of opportunity – 495



In-Page Footnotes ("Somerset Maugham (W.) - Collected Short Stories: Volume 2")

Footnote 2:
  • This is the write-up as it was when this Abstract was last output, with text as at the timestamp indicated (08/04/2025 09:28:48).
  • Link to Latest Write-Up Note.
Footnote 5:
  • In the widest sense, including matters of life-choice and self-evaluation.
Footnote 31: Footnote 32:
  • The background is rather similar to that in The Yellow Streak in "Somerset Maugham (W.) - Collected Short Stories: Volume 1", which is located in the same (fictional) place.
  • Somerset Maugham doesn’t attempt to provide a detailed location for the story, which the other tale describes in some detail: it’s – I deduce – in the north of Borneo. See my Note there (via the link above) for further information on Sembulu, Dyaks, prahus, Kuala Solor and the like.
  • The frequent reference to ‘Malays’ is confusing as it tends to suggest a location in Malaya, but this is not the case. The Malay Archipelago (see Wikipedia: Malay Archipelago) seems to include everywhere – more or less – south of Thailand and north of Australia – except the Malay Peninsula (Wikipedia: Malay Peninsula).
Footnote 33:
  • I presume this is the First World War, given that the action of the story takes place 10 years after his appointment.
Footnote 34:
  • The linguistic situation is complex. Presumably the language is Malay since Doris is said to have been studying a Malay grammar in order to learn ‘the language’.
  • See Wikipedia: Malay Language: the official language of Brunei and elsewhere, but this is not the language of the Malay Peninsula (see Wikipedia: Malaysian Malay).
Footnote 35:
  • I’ve been uncertain how to represent this relationship. It’s official only insofar as Guy comes to a financial arrangement with the girl’s parents; it wouldn’t have been recognised by the Colonial authorities. But to save tedium and excessive scare quotes, I’ve decided to use the term ‘native wife’ (without scare quotes) hereafter.
Footnote 36:
  • The term ‘black’ is used rather loosely in this story and in others to do with the region. It’s not stated which race Guy’s native wife is. I had presumed she was a Dyak. There’s a reference to Dyaks being ‘headhunters in those days’ but being affable enough to talk to during the day. It’s only at night that Guy’s loneliness strikes.
  • Maybe the usage is influenced by a classical education, where – for example – Greek heroes are referred to as ‘black’ – that is, sun-tanned – as distinct from upper class women and stay-at-home ninnies who are ‘white’.
  • See "Whitmarsh (Tim) - Black Achilles".
  • Malays aren’t mentioned, but presumably there are Malays (and Chinese and sub-Continentals) in the towns and the girl would have been ‘sourced’ from a Malay family. I’m led to this supposition from the suggestion in the next story (Flotsam and jetsam) that the only thing for a native-born white man to do is to take up with a native girl.
  • Anyway, neither Dyaks nor Malays are ‘black’ in the Afro-Caribbean sense, but would hardly be considered white. But then upper-class Victorians had their doubts about Italians and Greeks (as do many of our lower-class contemporaries). See "Forster (E.M.) - Where Angels Fear to Tread".
  • Islanders from Melanesia and Polynesia would be considered ‘black’. See Wikipedia: Melanesia and Wikipedia: Polynesia.
Footnote 37:
  • This prompting may be significant, as Guy was originally ‘prompted’ into his native liaison by his ‘boy’ (servant) who had found an appropriate girl for him.
Footnote 38: Footnote 41:
  • In the story, the relevance is that a planter gets up early and goes out to check his estate. By the time he gets back it’s too late for breakfast but too early for lunch.
  • It seems the word was coined earlier, in England.
  • See Wikipedia: Brunch.
Footnote 43:
  • While Kong is evidently competent, loyal and useful, he’s not treated respectfully by the narrator (Maugham). He’s referred to as ‘the Chink’, and – while he has a good command of English – his speech is portrayed in a rather ‘amusing’ music-hall style.
Footnote 44:
  • We never get to know Mrs Grange’s first name. No doubt this is ironic; her life is now completely defined (and confined) by her marriage to Norman Grange.
  • Later on, we learn that her stage name had been Vesta Blaise.
Footnote 45:
  • Kuching is the capital of the State of Sarawak on the Island of Borneo. See Wikipedia: Kuching.
Footnote 46:
  • Or to other near-contemporary writers: George Orwell was an Imperial Police Officer in Burma from 1922-27 and hated both the job and the Empire and wrote about it (eg. in "Orwell (George) - Shooting an Elephant"). I should follow this up some time, for instance in his Burmese Days.
  • That said, I don’t get the impression that Somerset Maugham though there was much wrong with ‘Empire’. He seems to share the Empire’s paternalistic attitude towards ‘the natives’.
Footnote 47:
  • See:-
    → National Ocean Service: What are flotsam and jetsam?, and
    → Wikipedia: Flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict.
  • From the above one learns that Flotsam is marine debris – often the result of a wreck – that had not been voluntarily thrown overboard, and so remains the property of the original owner. Jetsam, however, had been thrown overboard and becomes the property of whoever finds it.
  • Maybe one could extract an allusion from these definitions relevant to our tale, but I cannot as yet think of one with any conviction.
  • My best guess would be that Norman is ‘Flotsam’ – while his life has been something of a shipwreck, he is still in control, just about. Mrs Grange is ‘Jetsam’ – she was thrown overboard by her failed troupe, and has become the property of her husband, who found her.
Footnote 49: Footnote 50:
  • I’m doubtful that there is any such thing.
Footnote 51: Footnote 52:

Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)
  1. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2025
  2. Mauve: Text by correspondent(s) or other author(s); © the author(s)


© Theo Todman, June 2007 - May 2025. Please address any comments on this page to theo@theotodman.com. File output:
Website Maintenance Dashboard
Return to Top of this Page Return to Theo Todman's Philosophy Page Return to Theo Todman's Home Page