Rating: 
Summary: A great story on a high language level:
Review: I liked the story. Not only Strickland himself, but also the other characters and their own little stories (for example Dirk Stroeve's) were really interesting. But the most interesting was of course Charles Strickland and his way from a stockbroker to an extremely creative but also obsessed artist. Maugham describes his character very accurately but not in a too detailed way. So the story is very fluent and never boring. Besides that, the language level of the story is, I think, quite high and so the book demands some reading skills as long as you are not a native speaker and is not just a nice, simple story about a famous artist. I also liked very much that I as a reader was like travelling with the author and could always find out new things about Strickland's life.
Rating: 
Summary: Maugham¿s projection
Review: Of course the book is brilliantly written. Of course Maugham is a splendid storyteller. Of course one could make a five star book out of "Moon and Sixpence". Yet I do not think it earns more than three and half. I'll try to elucidate why but it's more a feeling and not a list of facts or mistakes I could rattle down. Charles Strickland, the rough, brute, indifferent-to-anything-and-everything artist - to me he seems untrue. He is not an artist, he's no person but is Maugham's projection of an artist. If you look at the life of W. Somerset Maugham you will soon realize that he was never that beastly God or godlike beast called „Strickland" with the vision stuck to his heart like some divine dagger. He was a man of the world that wanted to be more, that wanted to be - Strickland - but either wasn't or couldn't. And while reading the book I always had that feeling that clung to Strickland, the smell of projection, the smell of a Maugham that wanted to be something he wasn't.Hesse once wrote something like "The thought you do not act, or do not live are of no value". And Maugham didn't act Strickland, therefore... I wouldn't go so far as to say "of no value", yet not of the value it claims to be.
Rating:
Summary: Follow your path!
Review: I had to read this book in school and I was really positivly surprised. Maugham tells the story of anbusiness and family man called Strickland who is obsessed by art and who decides to become a painter. Maugham tells this story in a very interesting way and you can read it almost in a day. Personallly I like the beginning and the end most. There you get a good view of the different persons and characters and he tries to explain what art can do. In the middle is a long stretch of narration where Strickland lives in Paris, which is really too long and I wonder why Maugham did it because you don't really get much insight into Strickland's character at all. The end of the novel is very well written. Maugham tells the story indirectly by introducing a narrator who interviews various people who met Strickland during his life in Tahiti. I can recommend this book to everyone that likes fluent language and an interesting plot.
Rating:
Summary: What is the making of a genius?
Review: Inspired by Paul Gauguin's life, this novel shows the reader the life of a man (Strickland) who's possessed by producing art. Late in his life he changes his normal life into an extraordinary, bohemian life and thus he leaves his wife and his two children to fulfil his life aim to become a painter. For that he moves to France and later on to Tahiti, where he suffers from poverty and eventual illness. Strickland is an extremely single-minded person even though he marries his second wife, who of course does everything for him and loves him dearly. In Tahiti he lives the last few years of his life, blind but still producing great works of art. Strickland just had the soul of a genius.
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece
Review: Maugham wrote a masterpiece about Gauguin's life. Strickland is the pseudonym of the great painter in this novel. The author describes the story from a special point of view: He writes as if he knew or rather had known Strickland himself, asks other people about their opinions on Strickland's character. With what they say about him, the author tries to piece together a coherent picture of the artist. The description of Strickland's life is narrated in such an extraordinary way, that you can hardly imagine the whole story. Strickland, the main character, seems to be pretty rude and indifferent to all events and people around him. This might be somewhat unreal. Even if he was a genius, he still remains a human being with some remaining emotions. Why should Maugham have characterized him in such a way?
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely worth reading
Review: Maugham wrote quite an interesting story with manifold aspects about art, finding your way in life, passion and devotion. Even though the book contains some interesting and difficult questions and opinions about life & art the book is easy to read because of the fluidity of Maugham's writing style. It doesn't take you long to get into it and to be fascinated by the main characters of the book, mainly by Charles Strickland, whose indifference to the world is really extreme and unique. You feel your own life being questioned by Strickland's attitude, which makes the book even more interesting because you want to find out if he succeeds with his way of living.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating novel you won¿t forget
Review: It's a fascinating novel about art and the art of living. The story of the painter Strickland proves that you should go your own path, even if you fail. Strickland is a victim of his inner urge, almost a beast that compels him to go his own way. He's indifferent to people and to any comfort and luxury, and he doesn't care other people's opinion. He doesn't want to sell his pictures, he despises fame and money. Mostly he paints in solitude. In this book art is more important than the person itself. Strickland dies in the middle of the book, and all the information is gathered by people who knew this special personality. It's peculiar too, that Strickland appears rarely personally, so the book consists mostly of the thoughts of the narrator.
Rating:
Summary: Maugham - a great storyteller
Review: I don't like Maugham's attitudes about life and art, but it's still a good read necause Maugham is a very good storyteller, the book is haunting, it was interesting to read it, but some values he transmits I really can't support at all. His descriptions about women are absolutely disgusting, and his pigeon-holing them into mother figures or bad women I think, is really too shallow, onesided and crude. Another thing is that this book for me is again a story about a suffering, inhuman person, who wants to live only for art's sake. I think there are too many stories about that same topic,which are recommended by so many so-called well educated readers. Or it's possible that I had to read too much about almost the same topic in the last few years so that I would have given more stars to that book if I had read it some time ago. A good thing is that the story has various settings like London, Paris, Tahiti, which make it interesting, above all the scenes on Tahiti.
Rating:
Summary: surprising and convincing!
Review: When we decided to read this novel in class, and we were told that it was inspired by the life of Gauguin I was a bit prejudiced against it, because I didn't like most of the pictures that Gaugin had painted. On the other hand I liked Somerset Maugham's style of writing So it was a bit a "to-and-fro" for me at the beginning. The 4 stars I gave the story make clear that Maugham has "won". In fact the story is inspired by Gauguin, there are parallels, but it's not the real story of Gauguin's life anyway Maugham's descriptions are absolutely convincing, and the end of the novel is... just great! I mean, a man who tells the others before what a great time he had at the front then quotes the Bible, which is so conrary to the main message of the book, which is NOT revenge: Do what you are called to do, live your life according to your inner voice, don't care about society and what people might say and think about your work of art whatever that may be. One piece of advice: I recommend to every reader to study the Maugham biography while reading the novel. You will discover a lot of parallels, similarities and projections (e.g. between Maugham and Strickland).
Rating: 
Summary: an overblown main character
Review: The plot of the story is quite interesting, there are many nice descriptions about houses and some of the people. But since I gave only two stars, there must be some criticism: the description of the various characters is extreamly different, Strickland seems to be of an unreal cruelty, much too strong expression of only one part of his character while the rest is left untold. Instead the characters of some other characters (e.g. the women ) aren't reported sufficently, only superficially. And then, another thing I was missing, is Maugham's lack of knowledge of real culture, or at least the lack of the influence from the Tahitian customs and live style (which is quite different from the English) on Strickland's life. The novel concentrates too much on Strickland's problems and thoughts till it's almost unbearable.
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