Cakes And Ale by W Somerset Maugham is a deeply surprising book. Written in 1930, the novel begins its story in Edwardian times before World War I. It comes, therefore, with the inevitable expectation that it will represent English society as a rather suffocating, perhaps dusty entity, full of flocks and aspidistras wallpaper, tired after so many years of Victoria, but not yet awakened to the new world that war so painfully introduced. But this is precisely where expectations could be wrong. In fact, Cakes And Ale takes a rather liberated view of the values of British society, scoffs at rigid conventions, and generally offers no moral judgment where other writers would surely rely on presumption.
Cakes And Ale carries the subtitle The Skeleton in the Closet, without making it absolutely clear by whom the skeleton is depicted, while the book certainly doesn’t list many closets. It must be assumed that he is referring to the relationship between the privileged character William Ashenden and Mrs. Rosie Driffield, the wife of a novelist. Their time together begins when Ashenden is a child, at least in his own eyes, and concludes many years later, by which time both characters have reinvented themselves multiple times. It is a relationship that begins in platonic fascination, graduates to physical adulthood, and ends in apparent admiration from a distance.
But generally, this relationship is allowed to flourish without the judgment you might expect to receive, so skeletons remain difficult to justify or identify. Equally, it could be Mrs. Driffield’s longtime obsession with a certain Lord George, but it eventually turns out to be sincere and long-lasting. Ms. Driffield certainly contacted enough men to create various skeletons, but they wouldn’t have been in the closets.
We follow William Ashenden from a self-identified childhood through adolescence and adulthood. He too wants to become a writer and, initially at least, it is the novelist Driffield who interests him. At one point, Ashenden laments the burden of having to describe his own experience in the first person. All writers are supposed to love inhabiting that special heaven that allows for convenient detachment and can put words in anyone’s mouth and feelings in anyone’s experience. Merely being yourself can be very restrictive.
We first come across this life while visiting his uncle on the south coast, in Kent to be precise, where Driffield, the writer, and his wife Rosie have moved in and are in the process of causing quite a local stir. The general opinion is that Ms. Driffield is quite ordinary, a bar waitress or something, and it is suggested that she does not need anatomy classes.
The moral outrage of the chattering classes is apparently unanimous. Ms. Driffield puts herself, especially in the direction of Lord George, who is not a lord, and the judgment is that anything in pants is considered of interest to her. And the outrage has nothing to do with class, as the servants in the house where Ashenden is staying are as vehement in their opinions as the boss, until they meet sad Rosie, that is, and then their tone changes, by Some reason.
Maugham has people of such low class that they lower their age and modify their vowels to such an extent that one wonders how they manage to say so many apostrophes. But Rosie Driffield completely captivates the young man. He falls in love with her although at first he does not realize it. For him, it is simply growing up.
But the relationship changes from one of curiosity and interest to one of looks and sex, but Somerset Maugham never makes Ashington or Rosie regret what they are doing. Guilt seems not to be a destination in the London where they are. They are simply human beings being human. And this is what is surprising about the book.
Rosie eventually escapes with Lord George to the United States, where he makes a fortune and she becomes as respectable as possible, first in New York and then in Yonkers, with a significant fortune, which proves something at least.
Although not explicitly stated, America is presented in the book as a land where moralizing attitudes and gossip have no place. Both Lord George and Rosie have moved there and lived their lives unaffected by social judgment. Back home in England, where one hopes that judgment is available for the stone, physical life is still denied, but not in Cakes And Ale. The fact is, Rosie has risen above criticism, but you have to assume that she can only continue in that life outside of Albion. Maybe it was his skeleton after all.