William Golding Biography and List of Works
Books by William Golding | Shop used books at Biblio.com English novelist who
received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. The choice was unexpected, because the
internationally famous novelist Graham Greene (1904-1991) was considered the
strongest candidate from the English writers. In many works Golding has
revealed the dark places of human heart, when isolated individuals or small
groups are pushed into extreme situations. His work is characterized by
exploration of 'the darkness of man's heart', deep spiritual and ethical
questions. "Twenty-five
years ago I accepted the label 'pessimist' thoughtlessly without realising
that it was going to be tied to my tail, as it were, in something the way
that, to take an example from another art, Rachmaninoff's famous Prelude in C
sharp minor was tied to him. No audience would allow him off the concert
platform until he played it. Similarly critics have dug into my books until
they could come up with something that looked hopeless. I can't think why. I
don't feel hopeless myself." William Golding was born in the
village of St. Columb Minor in Cornwall. His father was a schoolmaster who
had radical convictions in politics and a strong faith in science. Golding
started writing at the age of seven, but following the wishes of his parents,
he studied natural sciences and English at Brasenose College, Oxford. His
first book, a collection of poems, appeared a year before Golding received
his B.A. After graduation
Golding became a settlement house worker, and wrote plays in London. In 1939
he moved to Salisbury, where he began teaching English at Bishop Wordsworth's
School. During World War II he served in the Royal Navy in command of a
rocket ship. His active service included involvement in the sinking of the
German battleship Bismarck and participating in the Normandy invasion.
After the war Golding returned to writing and teaching, with a dark view of
humanity's progress. "They
cried for their mothers much less often than might have been expected; they
were very brown, and filthily dirty." In Salisbury Golding wrote four
books, but did not get them published. His novel LORD OF THE FLIES, set in
the near future during wartime, was turned down by twenty-one publishes,
until it finally appeared in 1954. The book became an immediate success in
Britain and a bestseller among American readers in the late 1950s. In the
gripping story a group of small British boys stranded on a desert island
lapse into tribal battles and murder after they have lost all adult guidance.
Ironically the adult world is devistated by nuclear war. The success of the
novel allowed Golding to give up teaching. Lord of the Flies was followed by THE INHERITORS (1955), which
overturned H.G. Wells's Outline of History (1920) and depicted the
extermination of Neanderthal man by Homo sapiens. Neanderthals are first
portrayed compassionate and communal, but they are finally led by example of
the Cro-Magnons into sin and selfishness. Lok, the early Neanderthal
point-of-view character, is as unreliable a narrator as Tuami, of the
"new people." PINCHER MARTIN (1956) was story of a naval officer,
Christopher Hadley Martin, who faces death on his torpedoed ship. Much like
Ambroce Bierce's 'Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', the story shows
Christopher imagining his survival on a rock island in the middle of the
ocean. The FREE FALL (1959) was set in contemporary society, focusing on an
ordinary man who looks back over his past. Golding resigned in
1961 from teaching and devoted himself entirely to writing. THE SPERE (1964)
was a story about the construction of a cathedral spire. Jocelyn, dean of a
cathedral, has decided to erect a 400-foot spire before his death. But its
construction causes sacrifice of others, treachery, and murder. From this
novel Golding's work developed into two directions: the metaphysical with the
theme of the fable like fall from childlike innocence into guilt, and the
social without mythical substructure. "...What
a noble prospect the ocean is under a low sun! Only when the sun is high does
the sea seem to lack the indefinable air of Painted Art which we are able to
observe at sunrise and sunset." Among Golding's later works is the historical trilogy RITES OF PASSAGE
(1980), which portrayed life abroad an ancient ship of the line at the end of
the Napoleonic Wars. It was awarded the Booker Prize. Other parts of the trilogy were CLOSE QARTERS (1987) and FIRE DOWN
BELOW (1989). Golding's novel THE PAPER MEN (1984) was about the pursuit of
world-famous English novelist Wilfred Barclay by American academic Rick L.
Turner. Lord of the Flies has been
translated into many languages and filmed in 1963 and 1990. It is an ironic
comment on R.M. Ballantyne's Coral Island, describing of a group of children,
who are evacuated from Britain because of a nuclear war. Their airplane
crashes on an uninhabited island, and all the adults are killed. The boys
create their own society, which gradually degenerates from democratic,
rational, and moral community to tyrannical, bloodthirsty, and evil. The
older boys take control; a boy called Piggy is the target of bullying.
Leaders emerge, two of the older boys get killed and they begin to hunt
another, just as a ship arrives. Golding's view is pessimistic: human nature is inherently violent,
which reflects the mood of the post-war and post-Hitler years. The values
that the boys have been raised by are nothing compared to their desire to
kill. The Lord of the Flies is Beelzebub, Prince of Devils, the source of
evil outside oneself, and through his parable the author shows that man is a
fallen being. - See: Daniel Defoe and Robinsonade, a story of a person
marooned on a desert island. Golding was knighted in 1988. He died in Perranarworthal on June 19,
1993. Golding's last novel, THE DOUBLE TONGUE, left in draft at his death,
was published in 1995. The story is set in ancient Greece, and depicts a
Delphic oracle who witnesses the rise of Roman power, and the decline of Hellenistic
culture. For further reading: William
Golding: a Critical Study by I. Gregor and M. Kinkead-Weekes (1967); The
Novels of William Golding by H.S. Babb (1973); W. Golding: Lord of the Flies
by J. Whitley (1970); William Golding by S. Medcalf (1975); William Golding:
Some Critical Considerations, ed. by J.I. Biles and R.D. Evans (1978);
William Golding: A Structural Reading of His Fiction by Philip Redpath (187);
The Modern Allegories of William Goldman by L.KL. Dickson (1990); William
Golding by Lawrence S. Friedman (1992); William Golding by Pralhad A.
Kulkarni (1994); The Robinsonade Tradition in Robert Michael Ballantyne's the
Coral Island and William Golding's the Lord of the Flies by Karin Siegl
(1996); Readings on Lord of the Flies, ed. by Clarice Swisher (1997);
Language and Style in the Inheritors by David L. Hoover (1998) Free shipping on select books. No
minimum purchase Selected works: POEMS, (1934)
From LitWeb.com Searched and seaved
02 12 2008
More Biographies. [Next]
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [Home] |
