Short, therefore, is a man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.
The Narrow Corner is a South Seas novel by W. Somerset Maugham written in 1932. It's a character driven tale of a Dr. Saunders of Fu-Chou. Fully integrated into Chinese society, he speaks the dialect fluently and was revered as the finest eye doctor. Asked to travel to the Malay Archipelago to treat a rich Chinese merchant, he left for the Philippines, via New Guinea and finally to Takana, where the citizens are a mix of Javanese, Arab, Dutch, English and Chinese. There he meets wily Captain Nichols and his companion, the Australian Fred Blake. Nichols has been commissioned to keep young Fred Blake occupied with cruising around the islands. Blake's family in Australia is political, and the recent incident involving an adulterous affair, murder and suicide means his whereabouts should remain unknown for the next few months. Dr. Saunders decides to accompany them en route to a Dutch trading ship which will return him home.
They arrive at Kanda-Miera, unsuspected twin isles in the far-off seas, as wine dark as the sea on which Odysseus sailed and scented with spices. Dutch merchants once made their fortune in the spice trade here, before abandoning their homes to nature. Erik Christessen is their guide, who introduces them to the Frith family; a widower, his father and his nubile blond daughter, ostensibly engaged to Erik. The entangled relationships and true nature of Fred's leaving Australia form the rest of the novel.
It was a popular story when it was published, near the time of Nordhoff and Hall's The Hurricane, and South Seas adventures must have seemed amply exotic in the early 1930's. Maugham hits the right note of drama, tinged with intrigue that makes the story real, and not tawdry or fanciful.
It was made into a movie in 1933 with a young Douglas Fairbanks Jr as Fred Blake, and Ralph Bellamy as Erik.
I have a beautiful clothbound edition from Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1932 with gold illustrations on the spine of a ship and island and the name of a previous owner Marie S Hyde written on the flyleaf in the kind of beautiful cursive you don't see anymore. Another pleasing feature is the yellowish paper (not tanned) with a laid finish, the rows of parallel lines imprinted into the wet paper to replicate the look of the handmade paper screens. The look and feel of the book really does, to me, make a difference in this age of downloadable eBooks.
1932 / Hardcover / 314 pages
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