"Cakes and Ale" by W. Somerset Maugham

Like any of Maugham's novels Cakes and Ale is a combination of many different stories. It is the story of the youth of Willie Ashenden, the story of a writer (Edward Driffield) and his family and literary life, the story of another writer (Alroy Kear) who is trying to compose the biography of Mr. Driffield and finally this is a story of Rosie, one of the best female characters of this Somerset Maugham (to my opinion). All this stories are closely connected together, the lines of these lives meet, cross each other and are tangled an knotted together building a curious web called life.

What I like about Maugham's books is the characters. The plot may be not very exiting or intriguing and a little bit slow-flowing too, but the characters are always bright, well-drawn and very memorable, the author never draws them as absolutely positive or negative, they are all people, only people with their virtues and vices.

It is very debatable whom to call the protagonist of this book, I personally think that the narrator (William Ashenden) is the protagonist as well because the author describes his thoughts and emotions and moreover all the events have something to do with him. I liked this character, especially young Willie who for all his snobbishness is very kind and emotionally developed person. It is very interesting to read how older Ashenden describes himself in his youth. Some actions and thoughts of younger Willie seem to adult Mr. Ashenden funny or even silly, but all in all we can understand that he hasn't changed much during his life. I also liked the way he wrote about the village where he has spent all his childhood with his aunt and uncle. These descriptions made me feel warm and really at home (if you understand what I mean). But there's no wonder about it, because these parts are autobiographical, there's no doubt that Maugham used his own memories about his aunt and uncle (who by the way as well as Uncle Ashenden was a vicar) and Whitstable, Kent (sounds much like Blackstable, doesn't it?). I wouldn't say that the narrator is Maugham himself but certainly this character has some autobiographical features too.

The next character I'd like to point out is Edward Driffield. Many literary critics claim that under this name Maugham described Thomas Hardy. But I prefer to believe the words of the author of Cakes And Ale who stated that both Edward Driffield and Alroy Kear were collective images of many writers who created their works at that time including Maugham himself. We see Driffield only in elderly age and reading the novel I couldn't stop thinking of what kind of person he was in youth. Curious thing is that even though the plot is arranged around gathering the facts of his biography (which makes some people believe that he and not Ashenden is the protagonist) the reader doesn't get to know much about Edward. True, there is written a lot about his life but what kind of person is he? The author shows only several features of his character making the reader think at the same time that there is much more about this man than any of the other characters managed to see. He is kind and friendly, behaves a little bit old-fashioned and his habits are peasant so to say (which for my opinion doesn't spoil him at all). But at the same time he is discreet and one can never guess what he really thinks about at the moment.

Rosie is perhaps the most memorable character of Cakes and Ale and the most disputable too. Her light-mindedness and sexual freedom are combined with frankness and sincerity. The smile in her blue eyes make her look a little bit childish even when she's over seventy and you can't but love her, notwithstanding all her drawbacks. Rosie represents an image of a muse, not only for her husband but for all artists surrounding her.

The last of the main characters, Alroy Kear doesn't belong to my favourite ones, probably because the author applies so much satire describing him. For me he seems to be a kind of 'bon vivant' but maybe he's not a bad person after all.

Anyway this book is outstanding not only because of the characters. It also gives a good insight into the life of writers and includes authors reflections about some aspects of literature. For me the most interesting were parts where Maugham describes the phenomena of popularity and how different writers gain it.

And the last point, the title of the book (it's important to know by the way that any title of Maugham's books represents some metaphor). Here the author tries to say, that the life of every writer (or maybe even every person) is not only Cakes and Ale (not always easy and pleasant), he (or she) may have his Skeleton in the Cupboard (in the case of Edward Driffield it can be interpreted in two ways - this "skeleton" is either Rosie or the early life of Edward of which we don't know much, for me the first version seems more probable).

Instead of the conclusion I will say that without intention I have read the whole novel during one evening (or rather one night - I've finished at about 4 a.m.) - I just couldn't make myself put it down, though I wanted to sleep :) I believe this fact together with this review will be enough to persuade you that the book is worth reading.