Dodie Masterman (1918–2009)

An entertaining tale of priggishness and hypocrisy in the world of letters, memorable for its waspish portrait of mountebank scribbler/social climber Alroy Flear. But the story has a warm heart in the character of Rosie Driffield, writers’ muse and genuine good time girl. Maugham has such a talent for balancing bitchiness and benevolence.

I'm reading and rereading a lot of popular British books from between the wars in order to try to understand popular support for appeasement. Maugham is an extraordinary stylist, and I'd read everything of his before, and he typifies a kind of acceptable anti-Semitism specifically and racism generally.

This time I noticed the snobbery. The last line. Dang.

So, I'd say this is a beautifully-written and incredibly snarky book that exemplifies how acceptable various kinds of racism were. The show more narrator of the book is an incredible snob, who seems to reconsider his snobbery, but the last line makes it clear: not really. Maugham was a snob. And worth reading for that reason. show less

tl;dr Cakes and Ale is proof in the pudding dead white dudes could write whatever the fuck they want and have it hailed as literary masterpiece, even when it is utterly beyond crap.

Review
I picked this book up a couple of months ago and it has been the bane of my existence as the more I read, the more I hated it. It is poorly written and badly edited, with random thoughts dropped into the middle of scenes that do not make any sense to the story or plot. For example, near the end of the book show more while discussing the character, Rosie Driffield, in question, the narrator suddenly decides this would be a good time to go on a two page bender on the withal of telling a story in first person narrative. Then as suddenly as he leapt into that thought, he leaps back into his discourse of Rosie's admirable/questionable qualities.

The book is littered with jumps like this. There was 30 pages leveled on the discourse of beauty, what it meant, how it was applicable to life, who got it, and who didn't. Another 10 pages on the virtues of a secondary minor character who doesn't show up until near the end of the book. Roughly 20 pages was spent discussing the attributes of a another character who never actually shows up later in the story.

Maugham name checks of the day famous literary talent, real and imaginary. He draws comparison between his protagonist, William Ashenden, and these literary giants and whom you realise is really a stand in for him. He fangirls over so many famous people, it gets kind of embarrassing.

The crux of the story is William Ashenden, the narrator, is asked by Alroy Kear, another London literary snob, to help him with his research on writing a biography of recently deceased late-Victorian author, Edward Driffield. Driffield's wife, the second Mrs. Driffield, wants any mention of the first Mrs. Driffield, our supposed heroine Rosie, to be erased from Edward's history for she was an amoral character to the ninth degree and whose influence over poor dear Edward nearly killed him.

With this set up, one would think the whole of the story would be the bringing to life, discussion, and telling of Rosie Driffield's relationship with Edward. Rosie is mentioned in the beginning of the book briefly and then it's not until another 200 pages later she's brought into focus again and then carried out. It was as if someone had said to Maugham, "Yo. You are far off plot here buddy, rein it in!" And he did.

The whole of the book is to examine the snobbery and the often absurd social mores of the late Victorians and later, the Edwardians, and how these attitudes were affected and perceived. I get that, I do. But in that vein, the book is so poorly executed I spent a lot of time wondering what the fuck I was reading. I checked the synopsis on the back of the book so often to verify that what it said was actually what I was reading and not something else entirely.

It is well documented Maugham had issues with women, as he often saw them as his sexual and affection competitors, so his women are often described and treated as if they scum on shoes because of their sex. It is also well established Maugham, despite impressive number of novels under his belt, is at his best as a short story writer. With that in mind, I would recommend you stay the hell away from Cakes and Ale. I cannot in good conscious even conceive how this book gets so much love because of how flawed it is from start to finish. It is not even coherent, and yet! Yet, the mere existence proves that a dead white dude could write anything and have it called a literary masterpiece. show less

Tanmese a viktoriánus emlékezetről, avagy miből lesz a cserebogár. Ashenden, az író nyugalmát két kollégája zavarja meg: az egyikük, Alroy Kear él, a másikuk, Driffield épp most halt meg. Eme sajnálatos tény (mármint az elhalálozás) indítja arra az élő írót, hogy felkeresse Ashendent, mégpedig abból a célból, hogy csepegtessen már neki némi életrajzi adatot az elhunytról, merthogy Ashenden hamvas kölyökfóka korában állítólag jól ismerte őt. Csakhogy show more amit Ashenden tud Driffieldről (és amit nosztalgikus visszaemlékezések füzérén keresztül meg is oszt az olvasóval), az aligha építhető bele organikusan egy szalonképes életrajzba – és itt kezdődnek a problémák. Maugham regénye egy kettős átváltozás története: egyfelől láthatjuk, ahogy szegény Driffieldből kiszipolyozza a vért környezete, mert túl elevennek találja ahhoz, hogy egy viktoriánus mítosz tárgya legyen – ha már szobrot formáznak belőle, legalább legyen élettelen. Másrészt pedig (és talán elsősorban) Ashenden átalakulásának története is, aki nem kis részben Driffield (pontosabban felesége, Rosa) hatására válik hétköznapi konformista brit fiatalemberből művésszé. Elegáns, hajlékony, okos (néha okoskodó) kötet a művészről, és arról, milyennek akarja látni a művészt a társadalom, és hogy e két elem között mekkora szakadék tud lenni. Végig belengi valami finom avíttság, ez elfeledett Anglia emléke, amit én különösen sokra értékeltem. Jó volt. show less