I picked up Maugham' s "The Moon and Sixpence" at Chop Suey Books in Carytown. I was in the mood for a first person narrative unlike a few recent contemporary novels that have left me confused about the form. Why do so many narrators today remember what they cooked and ate and watched and said? Accountability seems to be the strongest asset of any good storyteller. Save paper; state what matters.
I recently read "The Dentist", a story by Roberto Bolano, where two men come upon a brilliant writer living in a run-down section of Irapuarto, a city where I was once stranded after fighting with a woman on a trip to Guanajuato. I was attracted to the story immediately because of its location, but then, even more, because of the idea that there were still writers unfound in the world that either would never be found and didn't care, or wrote solely for their own pleasure, or were unable to get their work in the right hands to the right people to the right, who knows? I have to believe that writers need to write and need to be read, its connecting one's mind with another's through an object that was once a dream or a thought or a voice real or imagined. I remember Arthur Flowers saying there was no greater joy than to hold in his hands the book that was once inside his head.
Maugham does this well. His narrator follows, much like the narrators of Bolano's best stories. They tell the story of another, through their own voice, and hold themselves accountable for the accuracy and omissions and editing necessary in the retelling of past events. This allows the narrator to depart from the actual telling of the story at times in order to set forth his or her own thoughts. He does not have to 'remember thinking'. He is thinking as he is telling, and so the narrative is true to the form. No one can remember thinking. But in some writing the narrator remembers thinking better than he remembers his own story.
The narrator in "Sixpence" follows the not-so-tragic character of Charles Strickland, while defining for himself and the reader what art is and can be:
"The artist, painter, poet, or musician, by his decoration, sublime or beautiful, satisfies the aesthetic sense; but that is akin to the sexual instinct, and shares its barbarity: he lays before you also the greater gift of himself."
Throughout the novel, Maugham reminds the reader that he is detached from Strickland's life and so gives himself the privilege to write about it without mercy. The weakest moments come when the two interact, as it only serves to move the story along. But, what is most fascinating is his clear and concise ability to be astounded by a work of art while at the same time understanding that all good art is a sublime and unknowable force.
He writes: "The writer is more concerned to know than to judge." And one understands that in the end it is impossible to really know anything.
