Up at the Villa

Rating:
Summary: Straightforward romantic thriller
Review: I thought this novel offered an interesting look at how passion and spontaneity can develop into confusion and regret. The characters are well developed and have wonderful interactions with each other, especially Mary (the protagonist) and Rowley (the "unsavory" character). It is an enjoyable quick read, and the romance is set well against the suspenseful atmosphere.

Rating:
Summary: A glimpse of how good Maugham is....
Review: Its cute, its quick, its fairly entertaining....

But it's Maugham boiled down. He's the king of suffering... of moral qualms.... of quirky, rich, upper class characters.... but he's good in length..... this is almost too short.... too bam, bam, bam.... the characters moral failings never have time to develop....

I recommend going to a library and reading this book... it's too short to buy.... but buying others "Cakes and Ale" "The Razor's Edge" and "Of Human Bondage". He's a brillaint author but I can't get myself to trumpet the praise of this work....

Rating:
Summary: riesgos
Review: La vida es correr riesgos, con esta frase termina la pequeña historia de Somerset Maugham, y a la luz de las cosas que me cuenta esta historia, creo que tiene razón. No se puede vivir una vida segura. Aun encerrándose dentro de una casa o en la prisión más segura. En la torre mas alta, estamos a merced de la muerte y de las enfermedades, de los problemas del día a día. Eso no significa que debamos vivir en el temor, saliendo a la calle con miedo sino que debemos prescindir de temores absurdos, pues si la muerte y la enfermedad nos pueden golpear en cualquier momento, si los problemas vienen solos, porque no afrontarlos de buen talante? De eso se trata esta historia, pues cuando nos negamos a correr riesgos y negamos nuestras pasiones en busca de seguridad, nos estamos negando a vivir.

Esta pequeña historia escrita de una forma magistral por William Somerset Maugham, trata de una aventura poco común que le sucede a una persona convencional. La clase de cosas que le ocurren a una persona para que quizás despierte de su aletargamiento o vea que la vida no es solamente de un color.
Mary Paton es una joven viuda que se va a Florencia a pasar una estancia en una villa que unos amigos le prestan. Ahí es donde esta cuando recibe a su viejo amigo de la infancia Edgar quien le propone matrimonio. Ella le pide tiempo y él le da tres días durante los cuales ella podrá pensarlo. Él piensa que ella dirá que si pues si fuese no, no tendría que pensarlo tanto. Pero en el transcurso de esos tres días suceden acontecimientos que cambian la manera de pensar de Mary y revelan el verdadero carácter de su novio. Hasta aquí esta bien con mi relato, no quiero quitarles el deseo de leer la obra contándoles todo lo que pasa.

Luis Méndez

Rating:
Summary: riesgos
Review: La vida es correr riesgos, con esta frase termina la pequeña historia de Somerset Maugham, y a la luz de las cosas que me cuenta esta historia, creo que tiene razón. No se puede vivir una vida segura. Aun encerrándose dentro de una casa o en la prisión más segura. En la torre mas alta, estamos a merced de la muerte y de las enfermedades, de los problemas del día a día. Eso no significa que debamos vivir en el temor, saliendo a la calle con miedo sino que debemos prescindir de temores absurdos, pues si la muerte y la enfermedad nos pueden golpear en cualquier momento, si los problemas vienen solos, porque no afrontarlos de buen talante? De eso se trata esta historia, pues cuando nos negamos a correr riesgos y negamos nuestras pasiones en busca de seguridad, nos estamos negando a vivir.

Esta pequeña historia escrita de una forma magistral por William Somerset Maugham, trata de una aventura poco común que le sucede a una persona convencional. La clase de cosas que le ocurren a una persona para que quizás despierte de su aletargamiento o vea que la vida no es solamente de un color.
Mary Paton es una joven viuda que se va a Florencia a pasar una estancia en una villa que unos amigos le prestan. Ahí es donde esta cuando recibe a su viejo amigo de la infancia Edgar quien le propone matrimonio. Ella le pide tiempo y él le da tres días durante los cuales ella podrá pensarlo. Él piensa que ella dirá que si pues si fuese no, no tendría que pensarlo tanto. Pero en el transcurso de esos tres días suceden acontecimientos que cambian la manera de pensar de Mary y revelan el verdadero carácter de su novio. Hasta aquí esta bien con mi relato, no quiero quitarles el deseo de leer la obra contándoles todo lo que pasa.

Luis Méndez

Rating:
Summary: The Book is Good, the Movie is Better
Review: Quick and enjoyable, transparent and straight forward, this romantic thriller is worth a read on a quiet night when you haven't much to do and don't feel like thinking too much. The film, for the most part true to the story, was more interesting and more complex. Incidentally, some of the reviewers above got things wrong. The main character who takes a fling is Mary Panton not Mary Leonard. The Leonards lent Mary Panton their villa. The stranger is not a stranger but someone she met before at a nice restaurant on the banks of the Arno. His name incidentally is not Kurt but Karl. He is not a refugee of war but a member of the Austrian underground who escaped to Italy. Karl was the son of Schuschnigg who had become Austrian Chancellor and favored the restoration of the Archduke Otto. The father shot himself through the heart when the Nazi troops marched into Austria. That act is what gave the kid the idea to do the same and played a key role in establishing plot point one.

Rating:
Summary: A Perfect Little Story
Review: This is a short introduction to the perfectly crafted writing of W. Somerset Maugham. Maugham uses language with such skill that, like so many experts in so many fields, he makes it look easy (although I wish he had made more frequent use of the comma, and there is the occasional now-outdated phrase).

Maugham tells a rather simple story with his usual sort of characters -- mostly upper-class, well-traveled, and British. But within this simple framework, Maugham creates beautiful prose. The dialogue is natural and interesting. The character development is surprisingly deep for such a short work. The description of the inner turmoil of some of the characters is particularly good -- probably Maugham's greatest strength is a keen understanding of human nature.

This work is too short to demonstrate Maugham's skills thoroughly and the simple story seems almost like a made-for-TV movie. (USA Films did turn it into a movie in 2000.) Early on, it seems like a romance novel but it's not your typical romance and is so short that it's definitely worth the read.

Rating:
Summary: Short and Sublime
Review: Under the rubric of "Praise for William Somerset Maugham" on the first page of "Up at the Villa," none other than the New York Times calls this book "full of psychological and dramatic potentialities." To a large extent, this comment has merit. Maugham was nothing if not a writer full of dramatic flair, economy of language, and a penetrating psychical gift that enabled him to peer deep into the inner machinations of the human soul in all of its various splendors. His "The Razor's Edge" was, in my opinion, one of the best books written in the last century. "Up at the Villa" is another beautiful work of art; it contains all of the recognizable Maugham hallmarks but displays them in a short novella. It's entirely possible to read "Up at the Villa" in a couple of hours if one is so inclined. The first thing I noticed with this book was how little time it took for the author to completely grab my attention. Within a few pages, my enthrallment with the character of Mary Panton was complete.

"Up at the Villa" takes place in Florence, Italy shortly before WWII breaks out. A thriving colony of British expatriates spends each day and night basking in the warmth of the climate and attending endless parties where they reinforce each other's social position. The main character is Mary Panton, a young widow drifting into her early thirties without a concrete sense of direction. There is a lot of pressure for Mary to marry again, as her ravishing beauty draws all sorts of suitors out of the woodwork. One of the men who wishes to corral Mary is Edgar Swift, a distinguished British diplomat and old family friend who now hopes to take Mary with him to a new appointment as Governor of Bengal. One of Edgar's competitors is Rowley Flint, a dissolute bloke with money to burn and a fierce reputation as a ladies man. Mary's indifference to these men is apparent from the start; she considers Edgar's proposal only because of his social position. As for Rowley, she hardly considers him at all. Mary's beauty always brings her much attention, but it also brings out her strident vanity. When Mary meets a young Austrian exile by the name of Karl Richter, her beauty causes all sorts of problems, one of which could result in a legal entanglement of scandalous proportions.

There are more moral quandaries in this novella than in the entire Old Testament. Not only does Mary need to decide whom she should marry, she must deal with the emotional fallout of a personal calamity brought about by her overweening sense of self. Maugham masterfully moves the reader through the treacherous pitfalls of Mary's Florence experiences, and he does it in astonishingly few words. As I floated through the final few pages of "Up at the Villa," I remarked to myself that this prose style is the way I want to write myself: a clear, crisp style that conveys immense amounts of detail with precious few words. You won't find strings of compound verbs or unnecessary wanderings in this story. Within a few pages, you know the characters intimately, have a great sense of the surrounding atmosphere, and a profound understanding of Mary's situation.

I really have no idea why this book sat around the house so long before I finally read it. Since I have read Maugham before, I knew I had no reason to think I would not appreciate the story. Now that I got off my duff and read "Up at the Villa," I urge you to do the same. If you have never read Maugham before, this is a great place to start. If you do know the joys of this extraordinary writer, spend a few hours brushing up on the wonders of this author's magnificent abilities.