CATALINA a Romance (Hardcover)

'Catalina', published in the late 1940s, is one of Somerset Maugham's last novels. If nothing else, it offers incontrovertible proof that he was a bitchy old misanthrope who had no more business writing a 'romance' than Helen Fielding would have writing a car maintenance manual.

Writing simple characters who love and are loved seems to be beyond him. There are moments in the story where it drifts into the mythic, where a magic realism suffuses the action and it becomes almost a fairytale. At those times, one sees the potential. Unfortunately these are only glimpses, and it soon slides back into curdling misanthropy.

In Maugham's world, there are two kinds of people: those who think they are virtuous but are really dark-hearted, and those who recognise their dark-heartedness and embrace it. We're either cheerful knaves or hypocritical knaves, but never anything more than knaves. Cynicism is a virtue and piety is always false.

Beyond Maugham's hatred for all things good and holy, there's an issue, too, with the actual writing. The opening paragraph begins thusly:

"It was a great day for the city of the Castel Rodriguez. The inhabitants, wearing their best clothes, were up by dawn. On the balconies of the grim old palaces of the nobles rich draperies were spread and their banners flapped lazily on the flagpoles. It was the feast of the Assumption, August the fifteenth, and the sun beat down from an unclouded sky. There was a feeling of excitement in the air."

You see? It's about as adroit as the average schoolchild's "What I Did On My Summer Holidays" essay. The metaphors are cliched, and the sentence structure is terrible - the third one especially so. Coming from the same man who composed such beautiful language as that found in 'Of Human Bondage' and 'Cakes and Ale', it's all the more of a disappointment.

It's in its last chapters that 'Catalina' gets actively unhinged, as opposed to simply misconceived. It begins as Catalina escapes with her lover from the evil machinations of the Bishop and the Prioress. They experience a series of odd miracles, which have all the grandeur of The Miracle Of The Jar of Pickles That's Hard To Open Suddenly Opening Easily, or The Miracle Of The Lost Carkeys Turning Up. All this leads them into getting married in the first little church they come across, with the Virgin Mary rematerialising, like the Fairy Godmother in a bad pantomime, to act as witness. Then they're off again, pausing briefly to consummate their marriage in the woods, before they bump into Don Quixote.

Yes, Don Quixote. Maybe Maugham had had one too many bovrils and was beginning to hallucinate. His fairly straightforward story suddenly takes on a silly, light-hearted tone. The characters start to slow down and become aimless, like musicians indulging in a jam session following a successful concert. It all falls apart and eventually limps to an unsatisfying conclusion.

If you want to read good Maugham, read 'The Razor's Edge'. 'Catalina' is an easy read with an often amusing little story, but almost all of the rest of Maugham's oeuvre is better.