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Tag Archives: Money

W. Somerset Maugham on Money

17 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by jrbenjamin in Literature

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Artist, Creativity, Extravagance, Fiction, Finances, Life, literature, Money, novel, Of Human Bondage, Personal Finances, Subsistence, W. Somerset Maugham, Writing

W. Somerset Maugham

“There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one’s means of livelihood. I have nothing but contempt for the people who despise money. They are hypocrites or fools. Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. Without an adequate income half the possibilities of life are shut off. The only thing to be careful about is that you do not pay more than a shilling for the shilling you earn.

You will hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of it in their flesh. They do not know how mean it makes you. It exposes you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it eats into your soul like a cancer. It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent. I pity with all my heart the artist, whether he writes or paints, who is entirely dependent for subsistence upon his art.”

__________

From chapter 51 of W. Somerset Maugham’s magnum opus Of Human Bondage.

More for Maugham fans:

  • Also from OHB, here Maugham reflects on what he calls “patterns” of human life (I also digress on the emotive consolations of literature)
  • Contemporary novelist Julian Barnes ruminates on Maugham’s stark aphorism “Beauty is a bore”
  • In a debate with his brother Christopher, Peter Hitchens cites OHB to affirm a larger claim about why theism must underpin morality

W. Somerset Maugham

Above: Maugham in his study, 1950.

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The World Is Getting Less Innocent

26 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by jrbenjamin in Current Events, Interview, Literature

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

consumerism, excess, Experience, Germaine Greer, innocence, Martin Amis, Money, Money: A Suicide Note, the world, wealth

Martin Amis

“I, in common with many writers, feel that there’s a great convulsion of stupidity happening in the world. Mostly to do with television. People know a little about a lot, and put very little effort into accumulating knowledge and culture, and when they do, it’s almost like a sort of consumerism of culture…

But with regard to feeling disgust, I think every writer — even the blackest writer — actually loves it all. I suppose it is temperamental, but I don’t sit around feeling disgusted. I feel enthused.

Many of us think the world has reached its nadir, its low point. But in fact this era will be lamented, just like the last. That’s the paradox.

What you can say about the world is that, while it may not be getting any better, it’s getting infinitely less innocent all the time. It’s like, it has been to so many parties, been on so many dates, had so many fights, got its handbag stolen so many times. So the accumulation is what makes the world seem at its worst, always. Because it’s never been through as much as it’s been through today, the earth.”

__________

From an interview with Martin Amis in 1984, discussing his acclaimed novel about consumerism and excess, Money: A Suicide Note.

I’m glad to report that you, the consistent reader of this blog, most likely do not fall into that wide category of people who put minimal energy into absorbing culture and knowledge.

Watch the short discussion with Amis below:

Read previously posted excerpts from Money here:

Martin Amis

There’s Only One Way to Get Good at Fighting

New York

In L.A.

Thailand Plane

That Head-on-Heart Stuff

Young Martin Amis

Can You Remember Where You Left Those Keys?

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“Money” by Philip Larkin

13 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by jrbenjamin in Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Lawrence Durrell, Money, Philip Larkin, Poem, Poet, poetry

Philip Larkin

Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me:
‘Why do you let me lie here wastefully?
I am all you never had of goods and sex.
You could get them still by writing a few cheques.’

So I look at others, what they do with theirs:
They certainly don’t keep it upstairs.
By now they’ve a second house and car and wife:
Clearly money has something to do with life

– In fact, they’ve a lot in common, if you enquire:
You can’t put off being young until you retire,
And however you bank your screw, the money you save
Won’t in the end buy you more than a shave.

I listen to money singing. It’s like looking down
From long French windows at a provincial town,
The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad
In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.

__________

“Money” by Philip Larkin, which you’ll find along with other classics in Larkin’s Collected Poems.

In my view, the brilliance of Larkin is bound up in his effortless ability to turn rhymes that read as almost conversational. This subtle skill has — at least in my reading — two effects, the first of which is that Larkin’s poetry has an inviting quality; not only do you want to repeatedly return to some of his best work, you also find yourself quoting it, or silently reflecting on it, in moments that are otherwise utterly mundane. Larkin wrote about money, relationships, society, and family in ways as accessible as those topics are themselves familiar to all of us. Towards the end of his life, Larkin said that he liked to think that people in pubs would talk about his poems, and I’ll say that although I don’t currently have any friends who are interested in both poetry and pubs, if I did, Larkin would probably be the first name dropped in our hypothetical discussions.

The second quality of Larkin’s that I always find myself admiring is — and this may surprise devotees of his — the fearlessness with which he writes. It’s not easy to identify, much less write about, the shortcomings of one’s character, the wounds in one’s psyche. Yet Larkin never seems to flinch in revealing these elements of his personality. As Lawrence Durrell quipped, “It’s unthinkable not to love – you’d have a severe nervous breakdown. Or you’d have to be Philip Larkin.” And Larkin was certainly a distinctly neurotic and isolated person. But his cold eye on the world is always counterbalanced by the warming, heartening quality of his voice, as if he’s enjoining us to share in his view while also softly nudging us to reflect that we are comparatively well-adjusted and connected. There’s a reason why Larkin called his most-beloved collection of poetry High Windows: he stands remote, secluded and single, separated from the human universe by a pane of glass. There’s a reason why he’s looking down at the mad world of “Money”.

To note: “bank your screw” refers to the money earned at a day job that one then saves. The “shave” referenced is the third stanza is the final shave that an undertaker gives a corpse in the casket.

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