Just now I looked at The Summing Up by W. Somerset Maugham, which I bought in Lisbon when I was twelve or thirteen. I had spent today in despair. But once again I gained the necessary strength from Maugham's plain, sincere sentences, expressing those unsurprising, just emotions. Like many people who read, I had a passion for Maugham in my teenage years. The result is that, while I can never return to him fully, I can still always return.
The book, which is an American paperback, was issued in 1967-which would place my age as at least twelve. It would have been August, because my father, unusually for an Englishman-perhaps because he had married a Portuguese-always took the whole of this month as a holiday, and we went abroad in the family Dormobile, usually to Portugal, once each to Italy and to Austria.
The book bears the stamp of Livraria Bertrand, which is the oldest bookshop in Lisbon (it was founded in about 1732). But I almost know that I (or he) did not buy it there. The picture is strong in my mind that, when I first saw it, we were at a book rack outside a shop, one of those pyramid-like constructions which you swivel to look at the books, crammed into tiny compartments.
Today, as always, I turned first to chapters eleven, twelve and thirteen, where Maugham elaborates on the three essential qualities he ascribes to good writing: lucidity (which I would prefer to call clarity), simplicity and euphony. He places these "in the order of the importance I assigned to them." This is a typical Maugham phrase, embodying his three preferred qualities, but just a little pompous and heavy, so that he robs them subtly of their purpose.
I have always believed, although I may be wrong, that on the occasion I was out with my father in Lisbon, my eye fell on these three chapters in my browsing, and that it was the neatness of the classification that made me want the book so much. I asked him to buy it for me. But my school had told him recently that I didn't have any friends, and spent all my time reading. My father was therefore trying to ration me to two books a week.
"No, you can't have it," he said. "You've got a lot of books at home."
In vain I tried to make him understand that it was this book, and this book alone, that I had to have. He was in the grip of a theory, I of an obsession. For me the holiday was ruined, all for want of a book he could have bought with a fraction of his money. If he could have understood that, he would not have let our hatred grow.
On that same holiday-probably after, although perhaps before-my father and I went into a caf? to have lunch. I believe it was in a waterfront district. At the table near us, two young blond men were also eating. One of them was extremely handsome in a boyish, slightly soft sort of way. The other was curly-haired, sharp–faced. I think they were English.
I watched them. I knew they were in love. They looked into each other's eyes, shared jokes, touched hands. I see them still. I wonder if their love lasted. I suppose it is too much to hope it did.
As we left, I said to my father-I think the two men were already gone-"Were those men homosexuals?"
"Which men?" he said in horror.
"Those two men who were sitting at the table next to us. I thought they looked nice."
"That was a very bad word you used," he said. "Never say that word again."
In the days that followed, I thought a lot about the men, and even more about the book. The longing to have it tortured me. I knew little of the book market, and we lived in a small town. Perhaps I would never find the book in England. And that was certainly the only copy in Portugal. But I had no money. Without my father's permission I could never have it.
I think I mentioned it once again to him in a clumsy way. I probably made him angry. Possibly he foamed at the mouth. Perhaps he hit me. But I think not. We were on holiday, and he had to behave in front of my relations. Some of them thought him charming. I do not wish to make him seem worse than he was. He was very feeble. His blows were more often mental than physical. He only formally beat me once, which was a most pathetic performance.
Finally I sought my mother's help. I made her understand how important the book was to me. She told me to explain to my father that I needed the book for my next year's schoolwork. It was this, not any great interest in it, which had made me want it too much, but I had not explained myself well in the heat of the moment.
I followed her advice to the letter. I chose my time well. It was in the afternoon, in the pine-wood when we were relaxing, and he was trying to be a good father. He proved surprisingly amenable. The next day, he took me back to the bookstall. The book was still there. He gave it to me almost with a conspiratorial smile. I thought that perhaps I could make something of him after all.
The rest of that holiday was very happy. I lived with Somerset Maugham, and sometimes on the beach. I forgot my parents. In the next few years I read a great deal by, and about, Maugham. I still believe in lucidity, simplicity and euphony, and I am still grateful to Mr Maugham.
