The Old Man by the Sea

By R. Z. Sheppard

MAUGHAM by Ted Morgan; Simon & Schuster; 711 pages; $17.95

Early in The Moon and Sixpence, William Somerset Maugham wrote, "Sometimes a man survives a considerable time from an era in which he had his place into one which is strange to him, and then the curious are offered one of the most singular spectacles in the human comedy." Maugham was 45 when that novel was published in 1919; he had another 46 years ahead of him. But even a novelist of his energy could not have imagined a life that began with Victoria on the throne and ended with the crowning of the Beatles.

Prophecy was not one of Maugham's interests. He was an unblinking realist, a doctor who narrowed his vision to examine the frailer aspects of human nature. He fortified himself against fickleness and changing fashions with wealth, influential acquaintances and property; he veiled his own nature, lied to biographers and journalists, manipulated friends and paid for affection. His long career now seems part of geology, with its upthrusts, weatherings and glaciations.

Ten years after medical school and his Sutherland novel, Liza of Lambeth, Maugham emerged as a successful playwright, an Edwardian Neil Simon who had two and three pro ductions running simultaneously on the London stage. World War I found him driving an ambulance through the mud of France and correcting proof for Of Human Bondage. It was this book that began his ambiguous reputation as the most serious popular writer in English. His exotic settings and ruthless eye prompted reviewers to call him the Kipling of the Pacific and the English Maupassant. But by World War II, a younger generation of critics offered a different opinion. Edmund Wilson, whose word was law west of the New Republic, charged that Maugham was a "half-trashy novelist, who writes badly, but is patronized by half-serious readers, who do not care much about writing."

Maugham, who made millions with bestsellers like The Razor's Edge-- and wise investments-- saw his own literary value in a more positive light. He called himself a storyteller, "in the very first row of the second-raters." The appraisal was disarmingly accurate and deceptively aggressive: the highbrows in low tax brack ets could eat their hearts out.

How and why did W. Somerset Maugham become a master of self-defense? Previous biographies contain partial answers and frequent obfuscations. The aged author not only burned much of his correspondence before he died but also misled many writers about his life. One academic produced an entire book without ever suspecting that his subject was homosexual.

In 1966, the year after W.S.M.'s death, this fact became popularly known when Robin Maugham, a favored nephew, hastily published Somerset and All the Maughams. Those familiar magazine photos of the leathery legend haughtily observing the world from Villa Mauresque, his home on the French Riviera, could now be openly read as the image of an old iguana sniffing the Mediterranean air for young sailors.

Maugham, by Ted Morgan, locates the truth midway between these views. His biography is by far the most detailed, balanced and tolerant portrait available, partly because Morgan persuaded Maugham's literary executor to give him facts and assistance previously guarded by the author's will.

Morgan, a journalist and author (On Becoming American), builds a sound psychological case for Maugham's character and behavior. Young Willie spent his first ten years in France, until he was orphaned and sent to Kent to live with an aunt and clergyman uncle. Suffering from the cultural bends and deeply scarred by the death of his mother, Maugham acquired a lifelong stammer and a taste for masochistic relationships. "I have never experienced the bliss of requited Slove," he once wrote. "I have most Sieved people who cared little or nothing for me and when people have loved me I have been embarrassed." His marriage in 1917 to Syrie Wellcome, one of the first society women to become an interior decorator, was largely a union of convenience. It gave Maugham the appearance of heterosexuality that he publicly fostered. He also fathered a daughter, Liza.

When he and Syrie divorced in 1929, Maugham had already established residence on the Riviera with his secretary-lover. Gerald Haxton was a sociable charmer, but he was also unscrupulous, a gambler and a drunk. "Their relationship," writes Morgan, "had a dark, unpleasant side in which the roles of master and servant were interchanged and each tried to make the other suffer." When Haxton died in 1944, his place was taken by Alan Searle, a lower-keyed companion who enjoyed reading muscle magazines.

Society columnists portrayed life at Villa Mauresque as a prize stop for the rich, titled and famous. For Maugham it was a closet as big as the Ritz, where he could work and pursue his pleasures. Near the end of his life the house became the scene of jealousies, conflict and intrigue. In 1962 the 88-year-old novelist adopted Searle, 58, as his son. Daughter Liza challenged the relationship in court and won. Father and daughter had other legal problems. The previous year, Maugham had auctioned his art collection for nearly $1.5 million. Many of the paintings had been bought in Liza's name and she sued for her share.

Throughout his life and work, Maugham had defined the fine line between love and suffering. Senility blurred it. He ranted, failed to recognize friends and reverted to infantile toilet habits. There were occasional good days. On one, a week after a visit with the aging Churchill, he observed, "If you think I'm gaga, you should see Winston."

Morgan treats this decline with a detachment that Maugham would have appreciated if not welcomed. Elsewhere the book covers the minutiae of 91 years so thoroughly that a subsequent biography is unlikely. One fact remains: although it was lived in tumultuous times, surrounded by power and prestige, Maugham's life lacked transcending drama. The strain of maintaining his facade against a threatening world exacted its price. He survived; he did not prevail. --R.Z. Sheppard

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