Cakes and Ale
Encyclopedia
Cakes and Ale: or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930
) is a novel by British
author William Somerset Maugham. It is often alleged to be a thinly veiled roman à clef
examining contemporary novelists Thomas Hardy
(as Edward Driffield) and Hugh Walpole
(as Alroy Kear) — though Maugham maintained he had created both characters as composites and in fact explicitly denies any connection to Hardy in his own introduction to later editions of the novel. Maugham exposes the misguided social snob
bery leveled at the character Rosie Driffield (Edward's first wife), whose frankness, honesty and sexual freedom make her a target of conservative propriety. Her character is treated favourably by the book's narrator, Ashenden, who understands her sexual energy to be a muse to the many artists who surround her.
Maugham drew his title from the remark of Sir Toby Belch to Malvolio
in William Shakespeare
's Twelfth Night: "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Cakes and ale are the emblem
s of the good life in the tagline to the fable attributed to Aesop
, "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
": "Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear".
Interestingly, it is one of two books to take the same quote for a title, the other being by Edward Spencer Mott aka Nathaniel Gubbins. In 1958 Maugham stated in a CBC interview that Cakes and Ale was his favourite of all his novels.
's character, Molly Bloom
.
Amy Driffield requests that Alroy Kear write the biography of her late husband. Kear, who is trying to prove his own literary worth, jumps at the opportunity to ride the coat-tails of the great Edward Driffield. It is Kear, knowing that William Ashenden had a long acquaintanceship with the Driffields as a young man and as a young writer, who contacts Ashenden to get privy information about Edward's past — including information about his first wife who has been oddly erased from the official narrative of Edward's genius.
The plot revolves around how much information the narrator will divulge to Driffield's second wife and Kear (while exposing it all to the reader), who ostensibly wants a "complete" picture of the famous author, but who routinely glosses over the untoward stories that might upset Driffield's surviving wife. It is William Ashenden who holds the key to the deep mystery of love, and the act of love, in the life of each character as he recounts a fascinating literary history of creativity, infidelity and literary memory.
(Feb–Apr, Jun 1930). The first British edition of the novel was published by William Heinemann Ltd.; the novel was published contemporaneously in the U.S. by the Garden City Publishing Company, Inc. in Garden City, New York and printed by The Country Life Press.
"It must be that there is something naturally absurd in a sincere emotion, though why there should be I cannot imagine, unless it is that man, the ephemeral inhabitant of an insignificant planet, with all his pain and all his striving is but a jest in an eternal mind" (286).
Alroy Kear:
"You don't know America as well as I do. . . .They always prefer a live mouse to a dead lion" (279).
William Ashenden:
"On his advice I read The Craft of Fiction by Mr Percy Lubbock, from which I learned that the only way to write novels was like Henry James
; after that I read Aspects of the Novel by Mr E M Forster, from which I learned that the only way to write novels was like Mr E M Forster; then I read The Structure of the Novel by Mr Edwin Muir
, from which I learned nothing at all."
Mrs Hudson:
‘Don’t talk to me about the country. The doctor said I was to go there for six weeks last summer. It nearly killed me, I give you my word. The noise of it. All them birds singin’ all the time, and the cocks crowin’ and the cows mooin’. I couldn’t stick it. When you’ve lived all the years I ’ave in peace and quietness you can’t get used to all that racket goin’ on all the time.’
A few doors away was the Vauxhall Bridge Road and down it trams were clanging, ringing their bells as they went, motor buses were lumbering along, taxis were tooting their horns. If Mrs Hudson heard it, it was London she heard, and it soothed her as a mother’s crooning soothes a restless child.
William Ashenden:
"The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried this device [the use of "ready-made phrases"] to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment's reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication." (p. 25)
1930 in literature
The year 1930 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 6 - The first literary character licensing agreement is signed by A. A. Milne, granting Stephen Slesinger U.S...
) is a novel by British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
author William Somerset Maugham. It is often alleged to be a thinly veiled roman à clef
Roman à clef
Roman à clef or roman à clé , French for "novel with a key", is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction...
examining contemporary novelists Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
(as Edward Driffield) and Hugh Walpole
Hugh Walpole
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, CBE was an English novelist. A prolific writer, he published thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two plays and three volumes of memoirs. His skill at scene-setting, his vivid plots, his high profile as a lecturer and his driving ambition brought him a large...
(as Alroy Kear) — though Maugham maintained he had created both characters as composites and in fact explicitly denies any connection to Hardy in his own introduction to later editions of the novel. Maugham exposes the misguided social snob
Snob
A snob is someone who believes that some people are inherently inferior to him or her for any one of a variety of reasons, including real or supposed intellect, wealth, education, ancestry, taste, beauty, nationality, et cetera. Often, the form of snobbery reflects the snob's personal attributes...
bery leveled at the character Rosie Driffield (Edward's first wife), whose frankness, honesty and sexual freedom make her a target of conservative propriety. Her character is treated favourably by the book's narrator, Ashenden, who understands her sexual energy to be a muse to the many artists who surround her.
Maugham drew his title from the remark of Sir Toby Belch to Malvolio
Malvolio
Malvolio is the steward of Olivia's household in William Shakespeare's comedy, Twelfth Night, or What You Will.-Style:Malvolio's ethical values are commonly used to define his appearance.In the play, Malvolio is defined as a "kind of" Puritan...
in William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Twelfth Night: "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Cakes and ale are the emblem
Emblem
An emblem is a pictorial image, abstract or representational, that epitomizes a concept — e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory — or that represents a person, such as a king or saint.-Distinction: emblem and symbol:...
s of the good life in the tagline to the fable attributed to Aesop
Aesop
Aesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...
, "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
"The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse" is one of Aesop's Fables. It is number 352 in the Perry Index and type 112 in Aarne-Thompson's folk tale index. Like several other elements in Aesop's fables, 'town mouse and country mouse' has become an English idiom....
": "Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear".
Interestingly, it is one of two books to take the same quote for a title, the other being by Edward Spencer Mott aka Nathaniel Gubbins. In 1958 Maugham stated in a CBC interview that Cakes and Ale was his favourite of all his novels.
Plot summary
The story is told by a first-person narrator and well-to-do author, William Ashenden, who, at the beginning of the novel is suddenly and unexpectedly contacted by Alroy Kear, a busy-body literary figure in London who has been asked by the second Mrs. Driffield to write the biography of her deceased husband, Edward Driffield. Driffield, once scorned for his realist representation of late-Victorian, working-class characters, had in his later years become lionised by scholars of English letters. The second Mrs. Driffield, a nurse to the ailing Edward after his first wife left him, is known for her propriety and interest in augmenting and cementing her husband's literary reputation. Her only identity is that as caretaker to her husband in life and to his reputation in death. It is well known, however, that Driffield wrote his best novels while married to his first wife/muse, Rosie, who seems similar to James JoyceJames Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's character, Molly Bloom
Molly Bloom
Molly Bloom is a fictional character in the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. The wife of main character Leopold Bloom, she roughly corresponds to Penelope in the Odyssey. The major difference between Molly and Penelope is that while Penelope is eternally faithful, Molly is not, having an affair with...
.
Amy Driffield requests that Alroy Kear write the biography of her late husband. Kear, who is trying to prove his own literary worth, jumps at the opportunity to ride the coat-tails of the great Edward Driffield. It is Kear, knowing that William Ashenden had a long acquaintanceship with the Driffields as a young man and as a young writer, who contacts Ashenden to get privy information about Edward's past — including information about his first wife who has been oddly erased from the official narrative of Edward's genius.
The plot revolves around how much information the narrator will divulge to Driffield's second wife and Kear (while exposing it all to the reader), who ostensibly wants a "complete" picture of the famous author, but who routinely glosses over the untoward stories that might upset Driffield's surviving wife. It is William Ashenden who holds the key to the deep mystery of love, and the act of love, in the life of each character as he recounts a fascinating literary history of creativity, infidelity and literary memory.
Publishing history
Cakes and Ale was first published in serialised form in four issues of Harper's BazaarHarper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
(Feb–Apr, Jun 1930). The first British edition of the novel was published by William Heinemann Ltd.; the novel was published contemporaneously in the U.S. by the Garden City Publishing Company, Inc. in Garden City, New York and printed by The Country Life Press.
Characters
- William Ashenden: Narrator/author
- Amy Driffield: Nurse and second wife to Edward Driffield.
- Edward Driffield (Ted): Realist, late-Victorian author.
- Rosie Driffield/Iggulden (née Gann): First wife of Edward Driffield; Second wife to George Kemp.
- Miss Fellows: William Ashenden's Landlady.
- Mrs Hudson: William Ashenden's first London Landlady.
- Alroy Kear: Biographer of Edward Driffield, literary acquaintance of Ashenden.
- George Kemp/Iggulden (Lord George): Vivacious middle-class coal merchant and entrepreneur of Blackstable. Runs off with Mrs. Driffield to America and changes name to Iggulden to protect himself from prosecution.
- Mrs. Barton Trafford: Patron of the arts and generous supporter of Edward Driffield.
- The Vicar, Mr. Ashenden: William's conservative uncle who initially forbids his nephew from fraternizing with the Driffields.
- Mary-Ann: Maid to the Ashendens in Blackstable; childhood acquaintance of Rosie Driffield; caretaker of young William Ashenden.
Memorable quotes
William Ashenden:"It must be that there is something naturally absurd in a sincere emotion, though why there should be I cannot imagine, unless it is that man, the ephemeral inhabitant of an insignificant planet, with all his pain and all his striving is but a jest in an eternal mind" (286).
Alroy Kear:
"You don't know America as well as I do. . . .They always prefer a live mouse to a dead lion" (279).
William Ashenden:
"On his advice I read The Craft of Fiction by Mr Percy Lubbock, from which I learned that the only way to write novels was like Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
; after that I read Aspects of the Novel by Mr E M Forster, from which I learned that the only way to write novels was like Mr E M Forster; then I read The Structure of the Novel by Mr Edwin Muir
Edwin Muir
Edwin Muir was an Orcadian poet, novelist and translator born on a farm in Deerness on the Orkney Islands. He was remembered for his deeply felt and vivid poetry in plain language with few stylistic preoccupations....
, from which I learned nothing at all."
Mrs Hudson:
‘Don’t talk to me about the country. The doctor said I was to go there for six weeks last summer. It nearly killed me, I give you my word. The noise of it. All them birds singin’ all the time, and the cocks crowin’ and the cows mooin’. I couldn’t stick it. When you’ve lived all the years I ’ave in peace and quietness you can’t get used to all that racket goin’ on all the time.’
A few doors away was the Vauxhall Bridge Road and down it trams were clanging, ringing their bells as they went, motor buses were lumbering along, taxis were tooting their horns. If Mrs Hudson heard it, it was London she heard, and it soothed her as a mother’s crooning soothes a restless child.
William Ashenden:
"The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried this device [the use of "ready-made phrases"] to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment's reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication." (p. 25)