Christmas Holiday

Charley Mason is off to spend his Christmas week in Paris and the young respectable middle-class life he knows is suddenly thrown into sharp relief as he comes into contact with a world-weary russian prostitute who's life story becomes the real center of this novel. Lydia works in a brothel and when Charlie's ascetic living friend Simon takes him there to show him a good time, Charlie befriends her instead and is drawn temporarily into her world. Maugham draws on his intimate knowledge of both cultures to draw vivid characters and in describing varied settings from the Louvre to the backstreet cafes and brothels of pre-war Paris. The tale related to Charlie by his new acquaintance is the heart of the story and quite a story it turns out to be. I recently read that this was not considered by Maugham to be one of his better novels but it is still highly entertaining, enlightening and a fine read.

Maughm has the unusual talent of baring truths about human nature in a most simplified fashion. His insights into the complexities of human relationships reveal his incredible talent with words. Maughm has been my absolute favorite writer for years...His unpretentious writing style reveals intelligence in the most positive way, extending out to anyone who loves to hear a wonderful story. "Christmas Holiday" begins and ends in one exhilirating whirlwind, without ever a moment of slight boredom. Maughm writes with a fluidity that cannot be matched by any other writer. He is simply the best at his art - storytelling.

Although this may not be the masterpiece of 20th literature, I have to admit that it was a very absorbing read. As we follow Charly, the well-bred perfect English gentlemen, through his week long vacation in Paris, we become ensnared in the life story of the prostitute he befriends and her web of friends and acquaintances. The story itself is interesting in its own right, but what really makes the narrative flow is how Maugham lets us peer into the psyches of various characters, all from different social strata. My personal favorite was Berger, Lydia's husband who despite his rogue behavior was one of the more memorable (and even likable) characters. Simon, Charly's friend was drawn perhaps a bit too extremely, but Maugham does use that to some effect. In any case, a fun read and a good story.

This may not be Maugham's greatest work, but it is effective and well told. Charley, a young, benevolent, middle-class Englishman goes on holiday to Paris at Christmas-time. There, with a sardonic childhood friend, he undergoes a rite of passage common to youths of earlier eras: a visit to a brothel, here an expensive one (the Sèrail) where he meets Lydia, a Russian prostitute who works there ostensibly to help her convict husband, but, she confesses to him, where she is actually expiating the sin of murder committed by her husband through selling her body to despised and despising men. She has had a difficult life: impoverished childhood, early marriage to a charming youth who hides his criminal activities from her until committing a murder for which he is sentenced to Cayenne. Lydia, aware of his malevolent side, nonetheless has always loved and always will love this man and here Maugham convincingly portrays the irrationality, pain, and depth of love. After spending several days dining, dancing, visiting the Louvre, sharing a bedroom but never bed, Charley and Lydia part, he to his comfortable home and job in England, she back to the Sèrail. Yet after returning to familiar surroundings he notices that all is not as it was: he has been changed by this "holiday" and, as he reflects, the bottom has dropped out of his world.Maugham was deprecated, perhaps due to jealousy of his success, by some literati of his day. Yet he did have a good control of language, solid descriptive skills, and a definite talent for narrative, all evident in "Christmas Holiday", making it a book that rings true and remains with one afterward.

Christmas Holiday is probably Somerset Maugham's forth most important novel after "Of Human Bondage","The Moon and Sixpense" and "The Razors Edge." At the time of its publication, "Cakes and Ale" was considered to be his most well written book, but it has not withstood the test of time. It is also about writers, and writers writing about writers is lazy self-centered writing. Holiday in the European language is also a vacation, and this is a story of a young man on a five day trip to Paris. Instead of exclusively Maxim's, The Moulon Rouge, and sight seeing he falls inside the seamy side of life. The story takes us from Paris to French Guinea and Devil's Island prison colony. The young man returns to London a changed man, but not the way his parents intended. On another level Maugham was making a statement on the self complacency of the British and their reluctance to fight Fascism {i.e. Jack London's "The Iron Heal"} in 1937, about the time Maugham started the book. The book was recieved with bad reviews from Graham Greene and glowing reviews from many others, including Glenway Wescott who included it in a Somerset Maugham anthology he put together in book form. This is not to be confused with great literature but it is a good story and very readable, like all of Maugham. It is also for anyone interested in Paris before the War. I have recommended it to three of my well-read friends and they all thanked me for it.