What Buddhist burst of contemplation led to this great novel written by that technician, W Somerset Maugham? Of all the great books of the 20th century, which one could compare with its raw nerve and sinew? Here are no word games, no playing with the chronology, no obfuscation. With the limpid prose that had become his trademark, Maugham took us by the most direct route into his own private inferno. <p> What in his hero Philip Carey was a clubfoot was for Maugham a painful stammer. What...
