Talk:The Casuarina Tree

A fact from The Casuarina Tree appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 February 2008, and was viewed approximately 1,307 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that The Casuarina Tree short stories set in the 1920's Malaya by W. Somerset Maugham came out of travels he paid for by working as a British spy?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/February.

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Rating[edit]

I've rated this article as Start-Class because it's no longer a stub, but needs some context for the stories that began in literary publications to test their appeal, which stories became plays and films, including remakes. It's rated Mid-importance which may change later when something is added about the infuence of this genre of Maugham's stories making him famous as a chronicler of the last days of colonialism though they are a fraction of his output. I'd add it but need references first. Julia Rossi (talk) 01:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Politically incorrect?[edit]

I should like to see some justification for passages like this:

The book and the author are true to their times but express views and language that are considered politically incorrect today.

Do we need to perpetuate those silly old prejudices? Whether the book - not to mention the author - is 'politically correct' is quite irrelevant to its value. This is fiction. Waldstein1981 (talk) 11:43, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Edit to opening section[edit]

The current opening of this section reads as follows:

The Casuarina Tree is a collection of short stories set in 1920s Malaya by W. Somerset Maugham that came out of travels he paid for by working for the British Secret Service^[1] as a spy.

Based on my reading of the various Maugham biographies, the statement that Maugham's travels were paid for by his work as a spy is inaccurate, as Maugham made his money as a writer and was unpaid while working as an intelligence agent in Switzerland (although not in Russia). I'm making an edit to remove this statement. Laughing sandbags (talk) 12:12, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "His collections of short stories entitled South Sea Stories and Casuarina Tree are directly attributed to travels afforded by his intelligence (work)".

Yellow Streak[edit]

I don't think it is correct to call Izzart a "snob". This term is used a lot in Outstation to describe Warberton, but never to describe Izzart. Izzart is tormented by his decision to not help Campion because Izzart's mother was half Malay and he is terrified of people finding out he is "half-caste" and labeling him incompetent. And the line about "every white man for himself" is completely untrue because Izzart deeply feels his half-casted-ness. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samlidbury (talk • contribs) 02:02, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "His collections of short stories entitled South Sea Stories and Casuarina Tree are directly attributed to travels afforded by his intelligence (work)".

[1]