Rain and Other South Sea Stories

This was my first adventure with Somerset Maugham, and I must say that I'm quite impressed by what I read. If I were to get someone into reading classic literature, I would tell them to start with this short story collection for numerous reasons.

Maugham does a lot of things that modern writers of literary fiction are discouraged from doing nowadays: For the most part he is telling us a story rather than showing it, and he sometimes spends numerous pages, more than most authors would do in even a long novel, describing a characters appearance, mannerisms and past. Many less gifted authors would make a hack out of their writing if they were to use the same techniques, but I imagine Maugham as a very shrewd and perceptive observer as he, for the most part, knows what is interesting and what is not. His style makes for incredibly vivid characters and settings.
The prose is also perfect for people who are usually dscouraged from reading classics because of the language. If I were to describe Maughams prose with one word I would say that it is balanced. His sentences are of medium or short length, and although he expresses things clearly and matter of factly, he doesn't shy away from using more poetic and obscure language as well. It's like a perfect hybrid, or link, between the style of prose used in a victorian novel and the economical prose we are used to today.
Another reason to read this is that the short stories utilize an amazingly clear and classical style of plot structure, as if he used Aristoteles “Poetics” like a recipe book and Sophocles tragic plays as examples. His characters of focus usually end up having some sort of fatal epiphany by the end of the short story that brings about their downfall. At the same time, the psychology of his characters rivals that of someone like Henry James or Flannery O'Connor so that their ruin gives actual food for thought for modern readers. Summing it up, he builds his stories on a classical foundation, but fills them with modern psychological and moral depth.

Rain and Macintosh are among the very best short stories I've ever read, and the rest of the stories are of a consistent high quality, which is an achievement itself when it comes to short story collections. I can't give it a full 5 stars as I found that his inabiliy to write female characters were particularily jarring when compared to how well he wrote male characters, and I found that the stories sometimes lack a bit of playfulness or ingenuity that for me would elevate them to a bit of a higher level. As someone who is not a particularily big fan of short stories however I must say that this collection is up there for me as one of the most enjoyable and consistent ones, alongside Flannery O'Connors “Everything That Rises Must Converge”. Recommended!