W. Somerset Maugham’s ‘The Moon and Sixpence’ is an ode to the powerful forces behind the creative genius. It is a fictional novel heavily influenced by the life of French painter Paul Gauguin. The novel is told in first-person, dipping episodically into the mind of the artist.
It narrates the story of Charles Strickland, an English stockbroker, who suddenly deserts his wife and children in order to devote his life to painting. He is a man possessed of an unquenchable desire to create art. Unpleasant in a manner yet strangely charismatic, he makes his way to Paris, Marseilles, and finally Tahiti, producing works of genius that few in his lifetime appreciate—while those he left behind speculate about what drove him to abandon them so abruptly.