CompleteMartialArts.com - Up at the Villa
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List Price: $12.95
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Manufacturer: Vintage
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780375724626
ISBN: 0375724621
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: 2000-04-04
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 2000-04-11
Studio: Vintage
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Editorial Reviews:
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Now a major motion picture from USA Films starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Sean Penn, and director Philip Haas (director of Angels and Insects).
In Up at the Villa, W. Somerset Maugham portrays a wealthy young English woman who finds herself confronted rather brutally by the repercussions of whimsy.
On the day her older and prosperous friend asks her to marry him, Mary Leonard demurs and decides to postpone her reply a few days.  But driving into the hills above Florence alone that evening, Mary offers a ride to a handsome stranger.  And suddenly, her life is utterly, irrevocably altered.
For this stranger is a refugee of war, and he harbors more than one form of passion.  Before morning, Mary will witness bloodshed, she will be forced to seek advice and assistance from an unsavory man, and she will have to face the truth about her own yearnings.  Erotic, haunting, and maddeningly suspenseful, Up at the Villa is a masterful tale of temptation and the capricious nature of fate.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good story, but not a great book
Comment: I know a lot of people who liked this book and think Somerset Maugham is a great writer and who am I to judge, but I found reading some of the sentences awful. As another reviewer commented on the "economy of language", I felt words were deliberately dropped to get the shortest sentence possible and then some sentences were 5th grade level: "Mary drove through the silent streets of Florence, along the road by which she had come, then up the hill..." (big yawn)Lastly, it seemed to me as you were reading, the subject matter just simply changed in the next sentence. Perhaps this is how they wrote back then, in the late 1930's. I have read Maugham's "Of Human Bondage" and thought it quite good.
I was also disappointed with the description of Florence. Maugham gives you a tiny flavor and description of this beautiful Italian city. This is my own flaw and assumptions. I bought the book because it took place in Florence and at a villa. So I readily admit, I had some preconceived ideas that didn't pan out. I think only fair I explain as one reads my personal review here.
I wouldn't call it `another beautiful work of art'. A good story of a crime committed and perpetrator(s) gets away with it. I would call it a suspense novel. It is indeed a quick read. The story itself is good in the fact you have "some" wrestling with a moral dilemma issues, and personally, I do not think Maugham's character, Mary, did much wrestling. Mostly, we see her struggling with her guilt, and rightly so, though it seems quickly disposed of. There was no crime to begin with, only embarrassment. How many of us would act the way Mary did? I dare say not many. And who could live with the guilt of what you did? I think most people of good character, which Mary is reported to be, would be haunted by this desperate act, and therefore it wouldn't get as far as Mary allowed it. Despite other reviewers, this is not a romance. Mary does indeed do a kindness and could be considered a romantic gesture - but it ends abruptly and the moral dilemma begins. There are some very good lines in the book that are clever and thoughtful. It is a book worth reading. It is just not my kind of story.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written novella
Comment: This is the story of a young widow and three men, a respectable older gentlement who wants to marry her, a poor violin playing refugee, and a sexy rogue with a bad reputation. A brief affair and a death reveal the complexities of these four people. This is a beautifully crafted story.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Dramatic Novella from a master story teller
Comment: There is no writer who captures the haugtiness of Edwardian upper class culture better than Maugham and in many of his writings dramatic tension derives from cultural and class contrasts between upper class English expatriots and the local people that they become involved with.
Here the protaganist is a young unmarried and very attractive woman staying in Florence at a friends Villa who draws attention from all of the men she encounters. One of the encounters results in a tragedy and the event and it's aftermath drives the story to it's quick conclusion.
Maugham writes dialogue that is quick, witty and obviously adaptable to the stage or screen since he was primarily known as a playwrite as well as a novelist.This short work is no exception.
The action proceeds quickly and this makes Up At The Villa a short but very satisfying book to read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: slight and temporary
Comment: There is a certain sense of accomplishment when you read a book in one sitting. It is an achievement that can make you view a work more fondly than it deserves.
I spent a pleasant hour and a bit with this short novel and it was good fun but, despite the
one-sitting euphoria, I cannot pretend it was anything more than a slight diversion. Effectively an extended short story this is fairly disposable and won't be troubling my 'ones to keep' bookshelves.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A snapshot of Maugham's genius
Comment: As short as Of Human Bondage is long and as prosaic as The Razor's Edge is profound, Up at the Villa fails to inspire the way these aforementioned works of genius or other such timeless tomes as Cakes and Ale or Moon and Sixpence.
This book, however, was not all bad. It was eminently enjoyable and, as all of Maugham's efforts, was a pleasure to read. Maugham's gift with the English language is unsurpassed and vastly underrated. Unfortunately, Up at the Villa just didn't have enough Maugham. Not enough characterization or plot or theme development as I would have liked and have grown accustomed to with the genius of Maugham. I have yet to see the movie with Kristin Scott Thomas and Sean Penn, although I'm sure I will in due time. Overall, if you thoroughly enjoy Maugham as I do, check it out at the library.
"That's what life's for - to take risks."
- Rowley to Mary
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