Word: maugham
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Furthermore he points out that he has chosen, for him, a strange central character to write about, a man whose only significance is spiritual. Says Maugham: "I am of the earth, earthy; I can only admire the radiance of such a rare creature, I cannot step into his shoes." Finally he confesses, "If I call this a novel it is only because I don't know what else to call...
...Maugham is such a subtle old sinner that it is a pleasure to hear him in the confessional, even if he goes there more to disarm his confessor than for the good of his own soul. The Absolute. His hero, who rambles through the lives of all the other characters, is Larry Darrel, a Chicago boy whose ready-made certainties were buried in World War I. He comes back from war unwilling to go to college, unwilling to settle down and marry wealthy Isabel Bradley-even indifferent to the Parisian fleshpots offered him by Isabel's expatriate Uncle Elliott...
...Finite. Even to those readers whose concern with the Absolute is strictly limited, Larry's quest will be neither implausible nor ridiculous. Despite his interest in extraterrestrial matters, Maugham remains throughout on very good terms with the world...
...deathbed: "Mr. Elliott Templeton regrets that he cannot accept Princess Novemali's kind invitation owing to a previous engagement with his Blessed Lord." Another is Suzanne Rouvier, a middle-class courtesan befriended by Larry, whose amiable moral outlook and shrewd achievement of respectability are vintage France and vintage Maugham...
Still another is Maugham himself, who appears in the book without self-consciousness, emitting characteristic worldly wisecracks, and this time without even a faint disguise. Samples from his conversations with the debutante Isabel...