Cakes and Ale

Always a pleasure reading Maugham, and while the language of this novel felt distinctly as if from a different era, the story was engrossing and no less relevant today. Cakes and Ale is partly a satire on the pretensions of the literary establishment, but it is predominantly an account of how there is always more than just a single side to a story. The framing device for the novel is one author asking another for information about a third (whom he knew in his youth), in order to enable the former to write a biography of the recently deceased second character. The gulf between the ‘public image’ perception and ‘acceptable narrative’ relative to the much more salacious truth is superbly revealed by Maugham. If there is a point, then it is often how little we really know of others, as well as the joy derived from simple (non-class-specific) pleasures, hence the title of the work. 8 out of 10.

By Somerset Maugham