On that warm day of early June there was an animation in the air which put everyone in a good humour. You had a sensation that no one there was affected by anxiety; everyone seemed to have plenty of money, everyone seemed ready to enjoy himself. It was impossible to believe that anywhere in the world there could be people who hadn't enough to eat. On such a day it was very good to be alive.
Up at the Villa (Doubleday, 1941)
Except that Karl Richter is no longer alive and Mary Panton has helped dispose of the body. Up at the Villa is not Maughm's best book, not at the level of Cakes and Ale or Of Human Bondage, but it is a beautifully written novella about class and gender roles among English expatriates in late 30's Italy, where things are not always what they seem. And it is also an effective evocation of how one can live a safe life and then throw it all away in an instant of impulsive passion. It reminds me of Fritz Lang's films, especially The Woman in the Window (1945, based on J. H. Wallis's novel Once Off Guard, 1942), where something similar happens. I find Maughm a pleasure to read and re-read for his intelligence and style, especially in this day and age when editors and writers seem afraid to use words of more than two syllables and "prevaricate" is considered too difficult a vocabulary word to put on the SAT's. In the same way that I appreciate a skilled film director such as Michael Curtiz more than I once did, in this age when it seems that D.W. Griffith never lived, I appreciate Maughm's complex psychology and erudition.
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