Frederic Raphael - How Somerset Maugham has influenced my writing (125/144)

[@veritas6335]

I’ve listened to a couple of dozen of Maugham’s short stories as audiobooks on KZbin and like exactly none of them. Most are unpleasant and distasteful, tales, more like observances than stories, which he frequently ends cheaply with Deus ex machina events. It surprises me that Raphael speaks so well of him. Maugham could describe people well but that’s about all. But then Maugham was a distasteful and rather debauched fellow, from all reports. He was prolific, which may account for his reputation

[@akosbertalot]

he knows nothing