A Literary Christmas Challenge. Christmas Holiday by Somerset Maugham
My first review is Christmas Holiday by Somerset Maugham. If Christmas is annoying you, or you are generally having a rotten time, this is the book to read. It will NOT get you into the Christmas spirit! It's a cynical, dissillusioning novel with a fairly sordid story. It's a very wordy novel, and many readers will find it old-fashioned, but I liked it.
The son of wealthy parents whose lives are full of art, culture and good taste, Charley tried to rebel by becoming an artist or musician, but he ended up working for the family business. When he decides to visit Paris, see his friend Simon, and have a 'great lark' on Christmas Eve, he gets much more than he bargained for!
Cold, fanatical Simon is generally pretty nasty to Charley, and undermines him all the time, but Charley is sympathetic to him because of his background, so he puts up with it all. Simon takes him to a rather sinister brothel, and introduces him to the sweet, innocent-seeming Olga, who has a very Russian soul. Lydia stays with Charley, and gets on his nerves, and embarrasses him by sobbing at Midnight Mass, and running Simon down, but she also tells him an extremely sordid story about her past, involving love and murder. All the time, Charley wonders what he is doing in Paris, and thinks how he could have been enjoying a very English Christmas party at the Terry-Mason's.
This Christmas holiday changes young Charley forever!
The movie is free on YouTube but it has an American setting, which will be interesting, but disappointing.
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