![]() Remembering that Ashenden knew Driffield as a boy, Roy hopes to mine his memory for some good anecdotes. He’s contacted by a popular author of his acquaintance, Alroy Kear (“I could think of no one among my contemporaries who had achieved so considerable a position on so little talent”) with a request: Roy is writing the authorized biography of the late writer Edward Driffield, at his second wife’s behest. ![]() I’d recommend his work to fans of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, or to anyone looking to expand their knowledge of the classics: his books are short (with the exception of Bondage) and accessible, and the frequent theme of struggling one’s way to love and creative success in defiance of poverty and a cruel fate resonates.Ĭakes and Ale is narrated by an older writer named William Ashenden, a Maugham stand-in who previously appeared in the 1928 linked story collection Ashenden, widely recognized as the first English spy narrative. ![]() ![]() (20 Books of Summer, #12) This is the third Maugham novel I’ve reviewed here (after Of Human Bondageand The Moon and Sixpence) and my fourth overall. ![]()
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