The Moon and the Sixpence

MP3 Audio CD. First published in 1919, The Moon and the Sixpence, by W. Somerset Maugham, is a novel dedicated to the creative genius that cannot be suppressed and is bound to become the governing force in the life of exceptional people.

Partly based on the life of Paul Gauguin, the novel features a middle-aged banker called Charles Strickland who decides to follow his calling and become an artist, abandoning his life of wealth and his family, too. Strickland lives in London, but he leaves his home to pursue his artistic drive first in Paris and then in Tahiti.

The journey is difficult and full of sacrifices, talent being described as both a curse and a blessing. Strickland himself is a very complex character, sometimes sensitive and suffering, at other times cruel, insensitive and abominable. He leaves his wife and two children without any financial means, but the paintings he creates reveal an entirely different person, thus creating an irreconcilable conflict and a paradox about the relationship between the character of the artist and his art.

The origin of the novel?s title is not known for certain, but according to some it comes from a review about one of Maugham?s other extraordinary books, the novel entitled Of Human Bondage? the reviewer characterizes the novel?s protagonist as being so busy longing for the moon that he couldn't see the sixpence lying at his feet. Strickland is, indeed, too busy following his desire to create art and never looking at what life throws his way.In the end, he creates his magnum opus, a painting on the wall of his hut in Tahiti, finished before he loses his eyesight, but he also orders his Tahitian wife to burn down the hut after his death.His greatest creation is lost for good, what really matters being the process of creation and not the outcome of it.