The Trembling of a Leaf: Little Stories of the South Sea Islands: Little Stories of the South Sea Islands

By W. Somerset Maugham

THE Pacific is inconstant and uncertain like the soul of man. Sometimes it is grey like the English Channel off Beachy Head, with a heavy swell, and sometimes it is rough, capped with white crests, and boisterous. It is not so often that it is calm and blue. Then, indeed, the blue is arrogant. The sun shines fiercely from an unclouded sky. The trade wind gets into your blood and you are filled with an impatience for the unknown. The billows, magnificently rolling, stretch widely on all sides of you, and you forget your vanished youth, with its memories, cruel and sweet, in a restless, intolerable desire for life. On such a sea as this Ulysses sailed when he sought the Happy Isles. But there are days also when the Pacific is like a lake. The sea is flat and shining. The flying fish, a gleam of shadow on the brightness of a mirror, make little fountains of sparkling drops when they dip. There are fleecy clouds on the horizon, and at sunset they take strange shapes so that it is impossible not to believe that you see a range of lofty mountains. They are the mountains of the country of your dreams. You sail through an unimaginable silence upon a magic sea. Now and then a few gulls suggest that land is not far off, a forgotten island hidden in a wilderness of waters; but the gulls, the melancholy gulls, are the only sign you have of it. You see never a tramp, with its friendly smoke, no stately bark or trim schooner, not a fishing boat even: it is an empty desert; and presently the emptiness fills you with a vague foreboding.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Start Classics
• Release date: Jan 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781633554467

W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. Born in Paris, he was orphaned as a boy and sent to live with an emotionally distant uncle. He struggled to fit in as a student at The King’s School in Canterbury and demanded his uncle send him to Heidelberg University, where he studied philosophy and literature. In Germany, he had his first affair with an older man and embarked on a career as a professional writer. After completing his degree, Maugham moved to London to begin medical school. There, he published Liza of Lambeth (1897), his debut novel. Emboldened by its popular and critical success, he dropped his pursuit of medicine to devote himself entirely to literature. Over his 65-year career, he experimented in form and genre with such works as Lady Frederick (1907), a play, The Magician (1908), an occult novel, and Of Human Bondage (1915). The latter, an autobiographical novel, earned Maugham a reputation as one of the twentieth century’s leading authors, and continues to be recognized as his masterpiece. Although married to Syrie Wellcome, Maugham considered himself both bisexual and homosexual at different points in his life. During and after the First World War, he worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service as a spy in Switzerland and Russia, writing of his experiences in Ashenden: Or the British Agent (1927), a novel that would inspire Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. At one point the highest-paid author in the world, Maugham led a remarkably eventful life without sacrificing his literary talent.

Reviews for The Trembling of a Leaf

[bnielsen_30 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Indeholder "Stillehavet", "Mackintosh", "Edward Barnards fald", "Red", "Dammen", "Honolulu", "Regn", "Epilog"."Stillehavet" handler om ???"Mackintosh" handler om ???"Edward Barnards fald" handler om ???"Red" handler om ???"Dammen" handler om ???"Honolulu" handler om ???"Regn" handler om ???"Epilog" handler om ??????

[leslie398 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very good short stories, mostly set in Samoa. They vary in length from long (almost the length of a novella) to one less than a page.

[judybarton · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful stories written with W.S.M's wry humor and incredible sense of observation. It is kind of a "behind the scenes" on the life of white settlers in the South Pacific, with the good and the bad.

[cdeuker · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The first story, about an administrator who rules "his" island with an iron hand but who, nevertheless, "loves" his people, is by far the best. Rather than being a simple villain, as the story progresses he becomes increasingly complex. The other stories are not as interesting. Didactic and predictable, for the most part, but I finished them all--so that says something.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This collection of short stories, mainly set in Samoa, was my introduction to the works of W. Somerset Maugham. If this is representative of the quality of his writing, I have much to look forward to. Although the stories are almost a century old, the issues and emotions they explore are timeless. They explore clashes of culture, social conventions, religion, and race. Maugham's descriptive prose is refreshingly original, as a couple of my favorite passages illustrate:Self-sacrifice appealed so keenly to his imagination that the inability to exercise it gave him a sense of disillusion. He was like the philanthropist who with altruistic motives builds model dwellings for the poor and finds that he has made a lucrative investment. He cannot prevent the satisfaction he feels in the ten per cent which rewards the bread he had cast upon the waters, but he has an awkward feeling that it detracts somewhat from the savour of his virtue. (From “The Fall of Edward Barnard”)The place seemed to belong not to the modern, bustling world that I had left in the bright street outside, but to one that was dying. It had the savour of the day before yesterday. Dingy and dimly lit, it had a vaguely mysterious air and you could imagine that it would be a fit scene for shady transactions. It suggested a more lurid time, when ruthless men carried their lives in their hands, and violent deeds diapered the monotony of life. (From “Honolulu”)Highly recommended.