LIZA OF LAMBETH - Book review

Somerset Maugham’s first novel Liza of Lambeth was published in 1897; my edition is 1978.

Almost all of the dialogue is in the vernacular of the period, a bold decision for a first book. Maugham uses the omniscient point of view, which was probably appropriate at the time of publication due to the story’s controversial nature. ‘That is not precisely what she said, but it is impossible always to give the exact unexpurgated words of Liza and the other personages of the story; the reader is therefore entreated with his thoughts to piece out the necessary imperfections of the dialogue’ (p10). ‘Oh, you - ! she said. Her expression was quite unprintable, nor can it be euphemized’ (p12).

Liza Kemp is a nineteen-year-old factory girl who lives with her ailing often drunk mother in fictional Vere Street in Lambeth. Her best friend is Sally, who is being courted and is eventually wed: Sally had ‘an enormous mouth, with terrible square teeth set wide apart, which looked as if they could masticate an iron bar’ (p22). The Blakeston family has just arrived in the street – Jim, his wife and five children.

 Liza is popular with everyone, especially Tom who wants to court her. She likes him, but not that much: ‘Na then, she repeated, tike yer ’and away. If yer touch me there you’ll ’ave ter marry me’ (p33). She’s quite outspoken yet ingenuous at the outset. ‘Neither modesty nor bashfulness was to be reckoned among Liza’s faults’ (p40).

On a hot day, during a jolly street outing that entailed the quaffing of much beer, they all have a good time. ‘The ladies removed their cloaks and capes, and the men, following their example, took off their coasts and sat in their shirt-sleeves. Whereupon ensued much banter of a not particularly edifying kind respecting the garments which each person would like to remove – which showed that the innuendo of French farce is not so unknown to the upright, honest Englishman as might be supposed’ (p34). It is during this outing that Jim makes a pass at Liza, which has a stirring effect upon her. ‘Her heart seemed to grow larger in her breast, and she caught her breath as she threw back her head as if to receive his lips again. A shudder ran through her from the vividness of the thought’ (p49).

There is quiet humour, ribaldry, and black humour – notably when there’s a discussion about a corpse seemingly too large for his coffin. The grimness of the life in the slums is conveyed without layering it on with a trowel. Apparently, when first published this book received a mixed reception due to its subject matter, working-class adultery and its consequences and its tragic end, and yet it sold out within three weeks and was reprinted. Maugham was a medical student by day and wrote at night, qualifying shortly after the publication of Liza. While a student he encountered the poorest working-class, ‘life in the raw’ as he put it.

Maugham’s Liza is a vividly revealed character – as is her mother (‘me with my rheumatics, an’ the neuralgy!’ (p73)). It’s a moral tale, delivered with empathy, told by a twenty-three-year-old observant writer who quit medicine and relied on his writing for the rest of his life.

Editorial comment (for the benefit of writers):

 ‘he lifted her off her feet and threw her to the ground’ (p106). Unfortunately, this happens indoors, so ‘ground’ should properly read ‘floor’.