great, simply great

This didn't make any sense to me at first...just seemed like a lot of rambling. Things started to pick up and come together around the 4th chapter and then they got great, really great.
This is a story about a writer writing a story about an artist. The characters are terrific and the plot unexpected. Although the book is relatively short, I felt nothing was left out. It was concise and complex, and I was fully engaged to the end.
The narrator did an absolutely superb job. He's one of the best I've heard.

10 persone l'hanno trovata utile

Fascinating, discomforting, and worthwhile

The first few chapters might get you worried, rest assured after this extended idle this novel gets going. The novel is an exploration of character and philosophy, which may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I really enjoyed it. The story examines the depth of the veneer of society and the utility of endeavor, even for art, at the expense of all else.

3 persone l'hanno trovata utile

chef d'oeuvre

complexity of life and art and love is written with so much intelligence and humour, that even with my difficult english (I'm french), I appreciate this book as one of the best book I ever read, near Dostoievski or Garcia Marquez.

2 persone l'hanno trovata utile

a great reading by a great reader

excellent.

3 persone l'hanno trovata utile

Strange

Strange how some persons love the reader and some can’t stand him.
I belong to the second category. I wonder how anyone can be so enthralled by his/her own voice that she/he completely loses any self criticism.
The story I had already read several times. I like Maugham very much.
I find this novel original . It makes one reflect a lot about the human mind.

Strange novel which is not like many modern/American stories

“The Moon Sixpence”

….leaves a person disturbed, uneasy, and wondering about many things….(Things near, distant and unknown).

Wonderings about oneself + how this story fits (if at all) within the world/space one occupies themselves. But mostly (for me), I am left with the question: How do I account for this tale + should I gain a message or lesson with which to fortify my own life’s travels?

Slow start, but s great story.

The narrator was excellent in pivoting from one character to another. The slight inflection in voice kept my interest. After the first couple of chapters, I was irrevocably hooked. This wasn't a neat, tidy happy ending tale. The drama and challenges of the characters were told in such a way that you wanted to know more. The author didn't leave you dangling trying to understand each person and truly brought the motives of all full circle. Well done!

Disappointing

Most of the characters were unsympathetic. The plot (such as it was) was hard to follow. I am a fan of the movie The Razor’s Edge but I don’t feel interested in reading any more by Maugham.

5-star to Somerset Maugham, 0-stars to Davidson

The writer is a master, the reader a madman.
Frederick Davidson had previously ruined another Audible I purchased and returned. For various reasons, I had to stomach his ridiculous reading style through, this time: he is unbearable. And dulcis in fundo, he reads the last line of the whole book is such a way that is shockingly callous, abrupt, and doesn't allow the listener to gently come to a landing (so to speak) of this long journey... He just reads it with his idiotic intonation that does not know how to sound an actual full stop!
If you have a chance, read the physical book.
The story is good--almost a "take 2"/alternative version of "Of Human Bondage" by the same author... there are some elements in common between the two (the love of visual arts, the fascination with artists' lives, and so on), but "The Moon and Sixpence" is actually a tighter, more precise narrative, and strangely without a proper central character: the stage is ultimately shared by Strickland as much as by the narrator and other characters who populate the narrative with their own important presence. In fact, if anything, Strickland/Gauguin's elusiveness (his shallow characterization) is W. Somerset Maugham's major flaw here.

Good Book

This was an interesting book that was well written and well narrated. I enjoyed it. I think also, that the portrait of character based on the painter Gauguin, was a depiction of a sociopath. The observations of the author are strikingly on point in this regard.