Reviews for American Notes For General Circulation

The average rating for American Notes For General Circulation based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-07-18 00:00:00 Michael Lucchesi Maughamiana : Here's a superb storyteller whose life is endlessly fascinating. And for serious sleuths : Why did he marry Syrie? The critical years, 1914-1917 : W1, MOM "dates" Syrie, meets Gerald Haxton (early 20s), becomes a spy, then marries Syrie, but finds true ID w Haxton...publishes "Bondage." Well! A grand smashup of personal and professional events. Worthy of contemplation. Hence Maughamiana. Most bios aren't clear (re above) as to what happened & when. I wanted to know. Author delivers. Maugham, who'd already had same-sex "alliances" and gay pals on Capri awaiting his next visit, was meantime "dating" various women, only natural - then and now - and incorrectly thinking he might be het. MOM (1874-1965) grew up amid the horror of Wilde scandal, which scarred English chaps into the late 20thC and created many bogus marriages, then and now. He was, by 1909, a hit playwright - w high visibilty. In 33 years he wrote 30 plays, can you imagine? 10 were whopper intl hits. Many were filmed. MOM wanted "acceptance." His conventional side led him to feel a "home" would be settling (many fools still believe this) and a glammy wife would add to his image. (Ah, yes) ~~ Syrie, an experienced thing, was married to a hugely rich man (Wellcome) and kept by department store twit (Selfridge). She set her hat on MOM, he was flattered..o, their arrivals at Lady This, Duchess That salons ! (Gee, who's the cute young butler?, he surely considered). W1. In France, he meets Haxton, an American w an ambulance unit. Kaboom ! Hax was more experienced, in more ways, than Syrie - and without a sixpence in his wallet. Raffish, charming, butch. In search of a Daddy, Gerald makes himself..The Most Wanted. Syrie (1915-16) gets preggers...MOM starts to do Secret Service stuff. His spy "cover" is playwright. But he, suddenly famous w pub of "Bondage," needs a sexual cover, too. 1917, he marries Syrie after she births their daughter and thus begins 10 years of marital bosherie. It's hard to pinpoint certain dates...but can you appreciate the combustion of the years & timing? Some bio writers say MOM married Syrie as a Good Deed. She was preg. I've always had trouble with this. Hax had a run-in w Brit law, 1915 (a sexual indiscretion..) A trial and deportation ensued. Author Meyers suggests that (maybe) Syrie used Hax's deportation as blackmail, ie, getting MOM to marry her. If she told what she knew abt Willie... It makes sense. Some GRs dislike this book. I disagree. It opens many new reflections, here and there, then and now, for the curious who admire MOM. Besides, there's a wonderful story of Patrick Leigh Fermor having a disastrous visit to the Villa Mauresque and, say it isnt so, the odious Famous Wives Escort Jerome Zipkin (armpiece for the odious Nancy Reagan, Betsy Bloomingdale) snooping and sniffing around MOM in his last years. "Ashenden," a fine work, includes a portrait of a diplomat who married to further his career. MOM, within his fiction, confesses: "It was a comedy he was playing ... and it seemed intolerable to live forever behind a mask...."

Review # 2 was written on 2013-10-06 00:00:00 Marc-Andre Frechette The second casualty of my new policy of not finishing books that don't grab me. Maugham is one of my favorite authors, although I recognize that he is not necessarily the greatest of his generation. I was very interested in the life that gave rise to his writing. I wasn't so interested in an unending chronicle of his sex life. While his uncertain sexuality undoubtedly contributed a great deal to his character and life experiences, I really don't think it needs quite the emphasis this author gave it. Maybe because of this, or maybe just because biographies are by nature not as gripping as fiction, I kept putting this book down and then forgetting to pick it back up again. Eventually I gave up. I did gain some insight into Maugham from reading as much as I did, but I'm not sure how much more than I would have gained reading the wikipedia entry.