I launched into The House of Doors enthusiastically because I was in the mood for some historical fiction set in the heyday of the British Empire. Also, Somerset Maugham intrigues me even if he has a penchant for describing female characters variously as frivolous and hysterical/ broad and dumpy or pretty yet oddly unattractive, but that's the 1920s for you. The House of Doors is partly a biographical novel, based on a few facts of William Somerset Maughm's life. It depicts the creative process, how literature and reality intersect, and the clash between mundane everyday life and the writer's creativity. An interesting coincidence: I was thinking how Colm Tóibín’s route in his biography of Thomas Mann, The Magician, was different, and in the evening, I read in The Guardian his enthusiastic opinion on this book: The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng is fascinating, engrossing and has given me infinite pleasure. I couldn't agree more. Just before reading this, since it centers around Maugham's composition of the short story (and subsequent stage adaptation of) The Letter, I not only read both of those, but also rewatched the 1940 Bette Davis film adaptation - and would strongly suggest doing at least one of those before attempting to read this. Maugham, one of the great novelists of his day, is Having long hidden his homosexuality, his unhappy and expensive marriage of convenience becomes unbearable after he loses his savings-and the freedom to travel with Gerald. His career deflating, his health failing, Maugham arrives at Cassowary House in desperate need of a subject for his next book. Lesley, too, is enduring a marriage more duplicitous than it first appears. Maugham suspects an affair, and, learning of Lesley's past connection to the Chinese revolutionary, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, decides to probe deeper. But as their friendship grows and Lesley confides in him about life in the Straits, Maugham discovers a far more surprising tale than he imagined, one that involves not only war and scandal but the trial of an Englishwoman charged with murder. It is, to Maugham, a story worthy of fiction. There is so much to love: history, topography….the complexities of betrayal, adultery, murder, friendships, marriages, art, literature, music, philosophers, poets, scholars, political strife, corruption, race, gender, secrets, sexuality, illness, death, loss, love…

Penelope Lively’s Moon Tiger. I think she’s an underrated writer and should be more widely known. Her shifts of time and viewpoint (the two often happening simultaneously) are seamless and masterful. A person dies in the final scene in Moon Tiger, but Lively doesn’t describe it. All the reader senses is that something has depleted from the room in the nursing home, and that something is… life. And yet… life still goes on.The House Of Doors is divided in two mingled points of view, Lesley Hamlyn written in 1st person and Somerset “Willie” Maugham written in 3rd person. The two characters intersect in 1921 in Straits Settlement of Penang. Lesley lives in Cassowary House together with his husband, Robert, a lawyer and her two sons. During his Asian trip, the famous Writer Somerset Maugham, a good friend of Robert’s, decides to visit the family for three weeks. He travels together with his secretary/lover, Gerald. We walked between the rows of painted doors, our shoulders and elbows setting them spinning slowly. Each door pirouetted open to reveal another set of doors, and I had the dizzying sensation that I was walking down the corridors of a constantly shifting maze, each pair of doors opening into another passageway, and another, giving me no inkling of where I would eventually emerge. The House of Doors is a 2023 historical novel by Tan Twan Eng, published by Bloomsbury Publishing. The novel, set in the 1920s British colony of the Federated Malay States, tells the stories of the local residents and visitors, including a fictionalized version of William Somerset Maugham. Despite the differences between them Maugham finds himself drawn to Lesley and she finally tells him not only her story but that of a friend whose affair spiralled out of control with devastating consequences. This is the third nomination you’ve received for the Booker Prize, and you’ve been nominated for each of your three novels - a 100 per cent strike rate. Does it feel any different this time?

The second point of view is the voice of W Somerset Maugham, the writer who spent most of his life away from Britain writing his own fiction about people he met on his travels.Also, do a Google photo search on each of the particulars to familiarize oneself with what everybody looks like (it enhances one's enjoyment!) - and listen to this (which is a recurring musical motif throughout): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p32vl....