I remember being in a café with a friend once when a guy walked in who obviously had some kind of mild disability to do with his legs – he hobbled over to a table and sat down heavily, and then looked around him at the greasy spoon with an air of deep depression. Amy stared at him and sighed and said, ‘I wish I was really really pretty so I could be a little moment of happiness in his day.’ I remember being surprised, because it sounded, somehow, like something a female character would say in a book written by a male author, rather than in real life.This sort of cool assessment of how the other sex might see you is quite hard for anyone to pull off; and also, men and women experience it very differently. Hence you often hear men (Kingsley Amis among others) complaining that they can't understand why women find it so offensive to be seen as a sex object when they'd love to be seen that way – apparently not grasping the possibility that it's a lot easier to enjoy some well-intentioned sexual objectification if you're not being subjected to it 24/7 by society at large.I am thinking about all this because Up at the Villa involves a character who has a similar impulse of – well, call it generosity or condescension, depending on your mood – concerning her own attractiveness, and which proves pivotal to the plot. She's a young window, who's just had two proposals of marriage, and doesn't feel particularly inspired by either of them. But it's made her very aware that she has something men want.‘I should be a fool if I didn't know I was prettier than most women. It's true that sometimes I felt that I had something to give that might mean a great deal to the person I gave it to. Does that sound frightfully conceited? […] My poor Rowley, you're the last man I would ever have had an affair with. But I've sometimes thought that if I ever ran across someone who was poor, alone and unhappy, who'd never had any pleasure in life, who'd never known any of the good things money can buy – and if I could give him a unique experience, an hour of absolute happiness, something that he'd never dreamt of and that would never be repeated, then I'd give him gladly everything I had to give.’If you're objecting that this sounds unworkable, or patronising, or that sex should be a mutual experience rather than something ‘given’ by a woman to a man, then this slim novella may well be for you, because it explores the possible consequences of this attitude in detail – not without a considerable touch of melodrama, but nonetheless in a way that raises some interesting issues.The setting is the hills around Florence, sparsely but nicely described, and the period is apparently just before the Second World War, or possibly sometime near the beginning of it. The war itself is never mentioned, but the setting must be after 1938 because one character has fled Austria after the Nazi invasion, two of his friends having been shot in the process. (‘It all sounds rather horrible,’ comments our heroine…um, well yes, Mary, I suppose that's one way to describe the Anschluß, yes, ‘rather horrible’.)Sexual politics among wealthy Brits abroad might sound like the height of inconsequential bullshit, but although this is a little heavy-handed in parts, I thought it was enjoyable. It's slight enough that you can bomb through the whole thing in a ninety-minute train journey – from King's Cross to Lincoln Central, say, including a change at Newark – and it makes me interested to read some of Maugham's better-known works.
"Tesoro, è per questo che è fatta la vita ...per correre rischi".Maugham è una conferma. La conferma di essere uno scrittore tra quelli che prediligo.Questo breve romanzo mi stava deludendo fino alle pagine finali, già pensavo che stavolta Maugham avesse “toppato” con me, quando invece, all’improvviso, arrivata alla fine, mi sono ricreduta.C’è un topos letterario tanto caro agli anglosassoni, l’ambientazione in una aristocratica villa con uno stupendo giardino che guarda sulla cupola del Duomo di Firenze, abitata da una giovane bellissima donna inglese, Mary, anch’essa aristocratica quanto basta per prendere parte a convivi con nobili e ricchissime signore inglesi, con sottofondo di violini, di cantanti e camerieri italiani (un mondo che lo scrittore conosceva molto bene); c’è una trama che non brilla per originalità, trattandosi, in poche parole, di una donna contesa da due uomini assolutamente diversi tra loro, che la chiedono in moglie quasi contemporaneamente, finchè alla fine si arriverà alla decisione di lei. Ma, nonostante ciò, le riflessioni che la lettura mi ha portato a fare sono così numerose che ho cambiato completamente idea sul romanzo. Sì, ho pensato che le persone non sono mai così come all’apparenza sembrano, ho pensato che grazie a un comportamento sciocco e senza senso, che non ho condiviso e che mi ha immediatamente creato un fastidio verso la protagonista protrattosi fino alla fine, dal quale sorgono responsabilità e conseguenze molto gravi che sembrano invece per lei tranquillamente evitabili ( e questa è stata la parte che ho apprezzato meno della lettura), alla fine può venire alla luce la vera personalità di chi pensiamo di conoscere da anni e invece conosciamo solo in superficie. Ho riflettuto infine sul fatto che essere innamorati di una persona vuol dire abbandonare il proprio orgoglio ed egoismo, vuol dire infonderle fiducia in sé stessa, e soprattutto vuol dire puntare sul rischio, perché l’amore richiede coraggio.
What do You think about Up At The Villa (2005)?
Toward the end of this very short novel, a novella really, just as the posturing and dithering are giving way to the puzzle being solved, I turned a page of the book and a card dropped out. A Lottery ticket, something I'd never buy for myself. As this was a library copy, I thought it was probably safe to assume it was some long-expired specimen used at some point for a bookmark. And if so, used by somebody who had gotten nearly all the way through the novel-- and stopped. Maugham's Up At The Villa is that rarity among the author's work-- a lightweight, resolutely upbeat summer's day kind of read. Even in his earlier, more adventure-y south-seas days, Mr Maugham was always one to belabor the 'why we must' aspects of his characters' situations, generally falling into chasms of 'we can do no other' after lots of, well, posturing and dithering. Here the characters don't seem freighted by the anxieties of his other creations, and why should they-- we're on a Brit expat holiday in the heathery, perfumed hills above Florence, where wine and romance flow naturally out of the art-directed rock formations. "Am I telling you something you don't know when I tell you that I've been head over heels in love with you since you were a kid with bobbed hair?" What did one say to that? One laughed brightly."Oh, Edgar, what nonsense you talk."Maugham has given in to a little bit of pop-genre plotting on this one, a little bit of mysterioso riding just beneath the placid surface, maybe only to keep the pace going. Surprisingly it's actually a kind of semi-noir James M. Cain (or Ossessione, Visconti's cinematic translation)--spin to the storyline. If that kind of spin can be said to exist at posh dinner parties amidst billowing cloud, cypress branches in shadowplay, and broad vistas of the Mediterranean.Well, one does with what is found at hand. And what's here is by no means insignificant; judging by how often it happens, the effervescent, in-tune summer romp is harder to pull off effectively than the gloom and doom of other genre outings.So hop in the Fiat, we'll have a glance round the Uffizi while we're debating where to have luncheon, dawdle over white wine and flirt with whoever shows up. Andiamo!As for that Lottery ticket, going by the dates printed on the back, it is still valid, unexpired, and if things work out I'll be posting my next Goodreads review from the shores of the blue Mediterranean.
—J.
I'm sure Somerset Maugham could have written a laundry list and I would give it five stars. But this novella is wonderful - subtle, sweet, sad and wise, all in less than a 150 pages. Maugham's prose is pristine, the dialogue and narrative balancing each other like gin and vermouth. The story about a widowed woman and her decision to choose love or security for her next marriage is really just a mantel to shelve an exploration of pity, forgiveness, charity and chasity. Highly recommend if you want a fast, fun, meaningful read.
—John McCaffrey
You understand the true value of this book, only when you realize you had lived the same feelings as the character Karl from the book. I had read the book some years ago and even managed to forget the title and the author. Much later, when i was feeling horrible, i remembered about the book and wanted so much to find it and re-read it. I wasn't able to find it without knowing the author, the title or at least the cover. I found it today while cleaning. By mistake. I think this book has chances of becoming my favorite...
—Marius Solcan
