Somerset Maugham on Russians, Scrambled Eggs, and Freedom

 I read Maugham's Ashenden decades ago; it is one of my missing books. I think I had it when arrested, but that memory may be false.

On Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity, Erica Verrillo published Love and Russian Literature and Somerset Maugham. This includes an excerpt from Maugham. One might not want to be bourgeois, but that does not mean one should need to eat scrambled eggs for the rest of one's life.

These Russians, what fun they have!

 That brought to mind that life under the Soviets was just one damned day of scrambled eggs after another.

Actually, that applies to life under any idealistic government.

There is such a cynicism in Maugham. It feeds his satire. The realist sees little good in idealism. Bettering humanity is an illusion if not an outright drudgery. 

I am left wondering if this lack of illusion is why critics disparage Maugham as an artist. 

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