Cakes and Ale

Name: Cakes and Ale
ISBN: 9787222198081

W. Somerset Maugham / 韦清琦Yunnan People's Publishing House · ChinaDec 2021

4.3

Word count: 111K words
Chapters: 27
ISBN: 9787222198081

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Summary

After the death of the renowned writer Edward Driffield, his second wife commissions a biography. The novel's narrator, "I"—the young writer Ashenden—is invited by the biographer Roy to Driffield's country house, where he recalls his acquaintance with the writer years before. Yet what shines brighter in his memory than the writer himself is Driffield's first wife, Rosie: a woman unbound by propriety, candid and warm, with a childlike innocence that makes her irresistible. To the town, Driffield is an unacceptable rake, but Ashenden cannot resist Rosie's charm and becomes a close friend of the couple. Returning from school, he is startled to learn that the Driffields have vanished after a swindle. Years later he runs into them again in London: Driffield is beginning to win literary fame, and Ashenden and Rosie share an unforgettable love affair. He learns of the emotional wounds they once suffered, and with them the untold story behind Driffield's breakthrough novel.

Editor's review

The Merry-Go-Round uses the biography project of a deceased writer to draw out the narrator Ashenden's private memories piece by piece. Maugham does not set Driffield up as a lofty literary idol; instead he takes the reader back to the country house, the small-town gossip and the London reunion, showing the dissipation, embarrassment and emotional wounds that came before fame. The brightest figure in the book is Rosie: unbound by propriety yet candid and warm, with an almost childlike innocence that stands in sharp contrast to the calculation of the respectable people around her. Wei Qingqi's translation reads smoothly, preserving both the narrator's restraint and his irony. This is a book suited to reading in segments on the commute or before sleep, following Ashenden's memories without hurrying to assemble the full shape of the writer's life; in those seemingly casual details of acquaintance, one instead catches Maugham's subtle attitude toward literary circles, biography-writing and moral judgment.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who like Maugham's work and are used to first-person narration
Readers interested in literary biography and literary-circle anecdotes
Readers who want a British novel with irony and vivid characters
Readers who can accept a narrator's memories and the present unfolding in alternation

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a complete, chronology-style biography of the writer
Readers who prefer linear plotting and a strong suspense structure
Readers impatient with Maugham's detached tone and moral ambiguity

Reading tips

First accept the rhythm of the narrator's memories; there is no need to sort out Driffield's entire life at the start—just follow the scenes.
Slow down when Rosie appears and note the difference between her words and behavior and those of the respectable people around her; this is the key to understanding the book's attitude.
Read the biographer Roy's questions against Ashenden's answers to catch Maugham's teasing of biography-writing itself.
After finishing, go back to the London reunion; many of the emotional threads set up earlier are gathered more clearly there.

About the publisher

Yunnan People's Publishing House China · Founded in 1951

Yunnan People's Publishing House is a comprehensive publisher with foreign literature and philosophical works as important publishing directions. Its representative books include Les Misérables (3 volumes), The Republic, Timaeus, Gitanjali, A Ship at Sea, a Horse in the Mountains: Poems of Lorca, On the Motion of the Heart and Blood, The Harmony of the World, and Xinmin Shuo, covering categories such as foreign literature, Western philosophy, literature, popular science, and history. Its author resources include Victor Hugo, Li Yumin, Plato, He Xiangdi, Song Jijie, Tagore, Xiao Xingzheng, and Federico García Lorca, among Chinese and foreign writers and translators. The press is adept at combining classic works with quality translations, balancing academic value and readability; public information on its fuller publishing features and plans is limited.

版权信息
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FAQ

How is this novel different from an ordinary writer's biography?

It is not a biography laid out year by year, but the narrator Ashenden's personal recollection of his acquaintance with Driffield after being invited by the biographer Roy. The book contains both literary anecdotes and the narrator's own emotional experience; its focus is not on documenting a life but on showing the part of a person that cannot be fully recovered when others tell his story.

Why is Rosie worth noticing?

Rosie is Driffield's first wife. To the town she offends propriety, but in the narrator's time with her he feels candor, warmth and an almost childlike innocence. She contrasts with the calculation of the respectable people around her and is bound up with an unforgettable love affair of Ashenden's; she is the key figure for understanding the book's morally ambiguous attitude.

What is Maugham's attitude toward the literary world in this book?

Facing the biographer Roy's questions and arrangements, the narrator Ashenden often shows a restrained irony. Maugham does not write the literary circle as a solemn temple; instead he lets fame, gossip, the biography project and private memory fall out of alignment, and the reader senses a detached satire—though the book offers no simple moral conclusion.

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About the author

W. Somerset Maugham Author · British · 1874–1965

W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) was a British novelist, playwright and short-story writer, born in Paris. He trained in medicine and turned to writing after publishing his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, in 1897. His representative works include Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, Cakes and Ale and The Razor's Edge, as well as a substantial body of short stories. His plain, direct style and his insight into human nature and society place his works among foreign literature and classics. Maugham excelled in both the novel and the short story; his restrained narration and penetrating observation have earned him a wide readership in Chinese, and this site holds 176 of his works.

韦清琦 Author

Public information about Wei Qingqi is limited; what is known is that the author's work centers on the translation and introduction of foreign literature. Five related works are included in the database: Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, Maugham's The Razor's Edge and Cakes and Ale, Graham Greene's The Human Factor, and Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy boxed set. These are mostly classics of world literature and foreign fiction by Russian-American, British, and Canadian writers, covering family memory, the search for meaning in life, emotional and moral questions, and dystopian imagination. Wei Qingqi's translations thus span classic narrative works in different languages and styles, offering Chinese readers readable versions of twentieth-century foreign novels.