LOUISE, a short story by Somerset Maugham

Рет қаралды 23,120

neuralsurfer

Күн бұрын

Part of Somerset Maugham's classic short stories.

Пікірлер: 58

@luzvaldes1030 3 ай бұрын

Charming story… it appears that quite a few of us have a Louise in our lives.

@Shineon83 3 ай бұрын

Oh, dear Somerset-I DO so love your wicked, wicked wit ❤

@twhitney4093 3 ай бұрын

Louise sounds just like my BPD neighbour! She always needs to be taken care of and always has some mysterious new, life-threatening illness when it's convenient 😂😂

@sunnylife7934 3 ай бұрын

It’s funny how cash makes a significant contribution to mental illness. The poor can’t afford to tolerate people like her. When I tried to manipulate my mother or grandmother with a claim of being ill, they’d say ‘do some housework you’ll feel better.’

@СергейЛевченков-в1й 4 ай бұрын

Thaks for another new-to-me story.

@samsum3738 3 ай бұрын

Louise took it to the extreme , but even in death she won the game .

@robinblanc8208 2 ай бұрын

I love the way you read the stories. You make them so enjoyable to listen to. Thank you

@MikeA15206 24 күн бұрын

It’s AI

@oceanaoushn8803 4 ай бұрын

And the world became a better place.

@Riklott1111 4 ай бұрын

And two more husbands are allowed to live

@lisaharvey9940 3 ай бұрын

Hilarious! Thank you!

@Riklott1111 4 ай бұрын

Excellent!

@joanndavis1450 4 ай бұрын

Wonderful jazz to begin and end wonderful stories. Thank you so much. Goodbye Louise.

@skytten64 4 ай бұрын

I Love to find a New channel ❤..Thanks a Lot.. from Sweden ❤☀️

@Peaceharmony-x3r 2 ай бұрын

My name is also Louise. But the character in this story more closely resembles my own mother than me. She was pretty neurotic. She dominated my life to such an extent that she was suffocating me. She treated me like a child always, right up to my forties. She disapproved of the man I was dating. Every time I tried to break free of her clutches by leaving home, she would deteriorate in health. After a year, I would return home. Then I got so sick of her domineering behaviour that I left and stayed away for several years and had very little contact with her. After some time, I learned from my brother that she had a series of strokes and had to be hospitalised every time. Other people commented to me that she was going downhill steadily. I returned home. Shortly I came back. She had another big stroke, she went into hospital and afterwards I nursed her. She became stronger again and became more cantankerous and controlling than ever. When it was so unbearable, I left home for good and went back to full-time education at 30 years old. She still pursued me with phone calls, treating me like a child. When I finally graduated from university with a BA Honours degree, she never congratulated me because I achieved something she did not control. A few years later, she went into a nursing home. I visited her very occasionally, and I was seen by family relatives and nursing staff as a very cold-hearted and uncaring daughter. At 40 years old I visited her out of guilt, and she pushed me so far that I became angry at her and accused her of ruining my life. She got so upset that my family and nursing staff banned me from further visits. I carried the guilt for some considerable time. After a year, I was allowed to visit, but she deteriorated considerably. She died in hospital when I was 42, but I blamed myself for years afterwards for her illnesses and her death. Only in recent years (I am now 64) I freed myself of the guilt.

@anitamcginnis8028 2 ай бұрын

Sorry you went through all that... It sounds like Louise was a vulnerable narcissist. Dr. Ramani a psychologist (on You Tube,) has a lot of useful information on different types of narcissism and the ways to help cope with or get over them.

@sandraeastern9720 3 ай бұрын

Hahaha! There are definitely benefits to adopting a sick persona. This is the worst case: more than having one’s responsibilities reduced, she managed to completely exploit others. Maugham was a trained medical doctor. This was a story that needed to be told.

@alidabaxter5849 3 ай бұрын

I love this story, because I knew a woman exactly like her - my ex mother in law. She never ceased taking, under any circumstances, and considered she'd married beneath her. Whatever she had, she was dying of it, and if anyone suggested a cure she'd say a cure might kill her and then they'd never forgive themselves. I'd have forgiven myself easily, because nothing wrong with anyone else affected or worried her in any way and in her opinion going to bed if you had a high fever only made you weak. Her husband constantly deferred to her in every way and accompanied her to doctors but if they said something she didn't like she ignored them. She didn't have a heart condition but was absolutely sure she had cancer of some kind or another. I'm sure she lived to a great old age and probably continued to dominate her son, my ex husband, from beyond the grave.

@Liz-rw9qw 3 ай бұрын

He was brave to tell her he was on to her. I have so often been on the verge of telling my sweet, conniving manipulating neighbour that I see through her game, but she's 90 and I don't want to be the one to send her to her grave in a tantrum.

@kauffrau6764 3 ай бұрын

Excellent tale.

@elisekuby2009 4 ай бұрын

He had her number, right from the beginning! And nothing of value was lost when this monster departed this earthly plane.

@adrianobastardi 4 ай бұрын

A mistress of cold praise.

@Grace.allovertheplace 3 ай бұрын

*She knew how to out with a bang!* 😂

@Grace.allovertheplace 3 ай бұрын

Thank you 🙏

@brendabiffibaldovino8306 3 ай бұрын

Thanks so much for sharing ❤❤❤

@stevec2993 2 ай бұрын

WSM. Brilliantly sharp story teller.

@JoanKentBible 3 ай бұрын

Louise never new inner peace and her victims never had the inner strength to handle her. "Human" nature was not a mystery to Somerset Maugham. He understood human obsession. Another gripping story, beautiful image and music that Louise would have lost herself in, for a while, whilst dancing. Thank you, neuralsurfer.

@Dudley-x2c 4 ай бұрын

Sounds like my ex, in a lot of ways ! 😂 I enjoy the stories, thanks.

@oceanaoushn8803 4 ай бұрын

So good to hear that it is your EX, not around you any longer

@ropeburnsrussell 4 ай бұрын

What a horrible woman.

@42kellys 2 ай бұрын

WoW! Amazing story! I agree with the author. I am sure such a woman actually lived and did these things although it is just a story.

@c.a.savage5689 3 ай бұрын

Just 3 minutes in and l am mesmerized. THIS is what Truman Capote aspired to, l think. The brilliant, hard, cold writing of Maugham that cuts like a diamond through his character's foibles (and the narrator's equally). And yet he never stoops to the level of tawdry gossip or bit#chness. Maybe Maugham didn't suffer the same societal slings and arrows as Capote...

@TomHyland-mk4ki 3 ай бұрын

Gosh!

@janblackman6204 Ай бұрын

That was a good one. My mother used her health for attention. She too died at the ripe old age of 86 after burying two husbands

@marietgagliardi 2 ай бұрын

Don't we all know someone like this 😮

@shellyspiano 2 ай бұрын

Superb.... thank you for sharing

@monaboutet6863 2 ай бұрын

Wow 😮

@patryvjamarek1444 3 ай бұрын

Thanks❤

@emmahardesty4330 2 ай бұрын

Whew. Nothing like Maugham's ability to identify, twist and turn, all human frailties. Just great.

@kathleenellenford4816 3 ай бұрын

👏🏻👏🏻❤

@Victoria-cy2bh 3 ай бұрын

She sounds like my mother in law 🤣

@rodolfocadena9918 4 ай бұрын

SALUDOS POR PRIMERA VEZ EN SESENTA AÑOS EXISTE CLARIDAD EN LOS PROGRAMAS DE LOS CONTENDIENTES EN LAS ELECCIONES DEL PROXIMO 2 DE JUNIO OJALA EXISTA CLARIDAD TAMIEN EN LOS VOTANTES, A PESAR DE LA PROPAGANDA SUCIA Y LAS MENTIRAS.

@Poptart_Finn 3 ай бұрын

@alicecarroll2007 3 ай бұрын

Louise-the master manipulator.

@australiainfelix7307 4 ай бұрын

Female solipsism write large.

@JoanKentBible 3 ай бұрын

From Oxford languages "the quality of being very self-centred or selfish. "she herself elicits scant sympathy, such is her solipsism and lack of self-awareness" PHILOSOPHY the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist. "solipsism is an idealist thesis because ‘Only my mind exists’ entails ‘Only minds exist’"