W. Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence is loosely based on the life of painter Paul Gauguin, but even if it were a work of pure fiction, it would be a treasure of a book.
The story focuses on Charles Strickland, a London stockbroker who shocks friends and family by throwing his staid life aside to live in squalor in Paris as a painter.
The story is told through a narrator who is only very loosely associated with Strickland's family, and who doesn't even really like Strickland, but has somewhat unexplainedly become a confidant of Strickland's abandoned wife.
Maugham's style with this book is no-nonsense, straightforward and compelling especially when he is not writing about Strickland's wife, who I find to be tedious in the way that many turn-of-the-century wives are helpless without a man around. By the end of the story, though, she seems to come to terms with her situation and gather the same strength of character that the oddly infuriating, yet awesomely intriguing Strickland has in his new life.
I found myself hating Strickland much of the time, primarily for his bull-headed, damn-the-rest-of-the-world attitude. However, the majority of the time, I found myself admiring his persistence in his struggle on the path to achieve an artistic vision that eludes him until the very end of his life, when he is blind with leprosy.
Many artists have gone mad in search of the idea of beauty they carry within and try to express in their work. The story of Strickland, along with its implied parallel to the life of Gauguin, helps one see the trials of the creative process, and how the rewards are chiefly spiritual.
