Cakes and Ale

By: W. Somerset Maugham

Narrated by: James Saxon

When Cakes and Ale was first published in 1930 it roused a storm of controversy, since many people imagined they recognised portraits of literary figures now no more. It is the novel for which Maugham wished to be remembered.

©2009 W. Somerset Maugham (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Love Maugham

Takes you to a place and time like you were there, and so wonderfully written

A bit mercenary with Hugh Walpole

A bit mercenary with Hugh Walpole... Don't have to use a sledge hammer to point out character flaws.

In spite of myself I liked the story so well I could hardly stop listening. The narrator is excellent, 90 out of 100.

One of Maugham's lighter and lesser novels

I love Somerset Maugham. This isn't his best but is still good and the performance is very convincing.

Couldn't finish it

Halfway through I realized I was forcing myself to read this; so, I stopped.

Audio narration is very good, but I found the story, such that it was, boring. Whatever others like about it is lost on me. Perhaps one has to have an academic background in literature to "get" the satire here? If you're plugging along, hoping it gets better, highly unlikely.

Absolutely love this book

Love all his works - but this one in particular with its bitchinesses, snobbery and social cultural insights of that time - I like this type of book

Well crafted novel read very well

What made the experience of listening to Cakes and Ale the most enjoyable?

The delivery was very good and the story was compelling.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Cakes and Ale?

The scene where the narrator, as a boy, loses his virginity was written in a most humble and a-typical way. The events were described from a distance of 40 years or so, with near total objectivity and frankness.

Which character – as performed by James Saxon – was your favorite?

You will never forget Rosie Driffield, and the author never forgot the woman who inspired her.

A Little Confection of a Book

Those aren’t my words. They come from an online review by Rohan Amanda Maitzen, a self-professed “Reader, Professor, Critic”. It’s just one of several reviews I found online that, to my surprise, echoed my own mixed reactions to Cakes and Ale.

Funny? Yes. Satirical? No doubt. Quotable? Undoubtedly. But does it hang together? Does it even have a plot? The openly sensuous nature of our somewhat cardboard-cutout demi-heroine makes it easy for Wikipedia to enthuse about her “frankness, honesty, and sexual freedom [that] make her a target of conservative opprobrium”. Yet until the very end we aren’t given the tragic detail in her life that may have made her more understandable. And even then, in the words of Professor Maitzen, “I’m not convinced”.

On the other hand, as a reader and writer myself I found Maugham’s dissection of the life literary addictively appealing. Our first-person narrator’s meditations on reputation, beauty, genius, and other matters may be only skin-deep, but they are engaging. And maybe that’s the point of the book: a sort of nihilistic denial of the reality of beauty, genius, monogamy, in the devastated between-the-world-wars world in which these characters, none of them heroic or even very likeable, reside.

Whatever the merits of the book, James Saxon’s narration is impeccable. He is a delight to listen to.

Note: if you do decide to listen, watch out for an egregious editorial error. The end of Chapter 7 somehow gets repeated at the end of Chapter 15. Chapter 7 should end with the words, “because she was fond of me”.

Delightful

I consider Maugham to be under appreciated. His prose is lovely, and this story is witty and poignant, with ineresting characters. The narration is sublime. RIP James Saxon.

A classic worth reading

I enjoyed this insight into a society so surreal. Although the novel took a while to get into, the narration is delightful and entertaining.

Excruciating

This very well may be the worst book I have ever read. It is full of description, and the story goes almost nowhere. I had to read it to participate in a book group. It was painful.