book review - The Spire - William Golding

William Golding is one of those authors who ends up as a staple on English exam syllabuses because he is almost poetic in his use of imagery and symbolism. That means of course that you have to invest some concentration to get the point of what he is trying to say and to take the full ramifications of his sometimes oblique references to significant events.

The result can often be disappointing for your casual, non exam preparing reader, who doesn't sit in a classroom going through it line by line working out that the colour red might stand not only for love but danger. The crux of the story is around the belief held by Jocelin, the dean of the cathedral that the structure can support a spire. He gets the funding from a rich aunt who then makes demands on him that he is unwilling to fulfil. But he is also deaf against the remonstrations of the builders and the master builder Roger Mason that the structure cannot support a spire. The lack of foundations are seen by Jocelin as a test of faith and by the builder as a challenge to sanity.

But added to that conflict there is a challenge for Jocelin in fighting his attraction to Goody Pangall, the wife of a much mocked servant who helps clean the cathedral. When he discovers an affair between the red haired woman and Mason he is torn not just by anger and grief but also by jealousy. He has failed to protect the servant, kept adultery out of the cathedral and not been able to reach or teach any of the parties involved.

The stress here is on whet do you believe. In Fire Down Below there is a similar argument about the prospect of a fire developing in the hold of a ship. It becomes a question of faith and divides the ship's crew.

Here Jocelin badgers and protests until the end when the spire is built. But he loses his mind, position and faith as things unravel. Goody dies in childbirth losing her life as well as mason's baby. that drives the master builder to drink and as the church authorities move to dismiss Jocelin there appear to be no winners in the battle of the spire. As he breathes his last Jocelin is told the spire is still standing but that it is expected to fall any day and cause damage to the building. Will it fall? That of course is the sort of question of faith that has driven the dean to madness.

The Spire - post III

Tormented by his failure to understand the damage caused by his determination to build the spire Jocelin is facing the clerical version of being struck off. He fails to understand just how much he has lost the support of the local community, the builders and his own colleagues.

Even when he is faced with a few home truths he fails to understand his capacity for causing insult and damage and if he wasn't dying you suspect he would have had a much harder time of it.

In the end it almost become irrelevant if the spire stands or falls because it has destroyed several lives. Jocelin's back problems are a metaphor for the destruction of the body of his church as well as himself. He gives everything to make his vision come to life but completely misunderstands the danger of becoming enclosed 'in a tent' of his own vision.

Although the symbolism, with swirling devils and angels, blossom and kingfishers, becomes slightly too much it does add to the pace and the conclusion. Even at the very end he remains totally misunderstood.

A review will come soon...

The Spire - post II

At times with the symbolism swirling round the dean's head with his angel versus demon battle and visions of those he has let down it is hard to make out quite what is going on.

As the Spire starts to reach its final stages of being built Dean Jocelin loses all sense of perspective and just hangs out with the builders at the top of the ladders above the church, which most of the time lies idle.

But as the winds come and the autumn rains mount a challenge to the spire that it is certain to fail the world below in the literal sense of on the ground catches up with Jocelin. He loses the abiliuty to parley and get through to the master builder. He loses the ability to save Pagnall's wife and marriage and he starts to lose the ability to keep the church functioning.

The net result is that as he becomes fixated on the final days of building he is a very small step from being a mad man.

if and when the spire comes down quite what it will do for the dean, who has pinned everything on it's construction is hard to guess.

Final chunk Monday...

The Spire - post I

When you are finding reading difficult and your pace is not quite where you would like it to be then a quick book can do wonders. What I mean by that is not necessarily a novella but a book that is accessible and quick to get through.

The Spire is fitting the bill, although I could not have predicted that before starting it. The story of a Dean determined to build a spire on a cathedral that doesn't have the foundations is a tragedy waiting to happen. For the Dean it is a question of faith but others, including his colleagues, see it as folly.

Written in the Golding style - which calls on the reader to work hard filling in blanks and putting half stories together - this Is building into not just a question of faith but also about the arrogance of a single man. The idea that the deal breaker, the foundations holding, is beneath and largely unseen reminds you if Fire Down Below. those worried in that book about the fire destroying the ship were proved right. The doubters just might be right again this time..

book review: Pincher Martin

The one word that keeps coming back when you think of this book is bubbles. Not the large things children blow around the garden but the small numerous bubbles that float to the surface as someone struggles for life in the water. As this is almost like a stream of consciousness the idea of bubbles floating like ideas up to the water is one the seems apt.

This novel by William Golding is the sort of thing that you would be handed as part of your coursework if you were studying English Lit. The reason is not just because it is a great work of imagination but it also has that sense of being written in the 60s as almost perfect fodder for polytechnic teachers.

The story centres on a single person - Christopher Martin - as he struggles to survive after his boat is sunk by a U-boat torpedo. The Second World War is in full flow and as he struggles for life the last thing he can remember is falling into the water and kicking his sea boots off. He manages to get washed to a rock and clamber onto it and then it becomes a battle to survive and keep morale hoping for rescue.

The rock is described in detail and named by the narrator to make it easier for the reader to remember and the memories of pre-war life as well as the moments before the sinking come back in waves. Also on board the ship was an old acquaintance who has married the girl that he loved. There is a sense that he has wronged people in his life.

There is also a sense that the trial on the rock island, where he sustains himself by drinking trapped rain water and sea life, is somehow something he has tempted. This sense increases during a storm when Martin seems to lose his mind and fear that supernatural powers are coming for him.

Presumably he could have stayed on the rock for quite a while longer going mad or possibly being rescued. But the twist comes with the shifting of the scene to a dead body being washed up on a remote island like the Shetlands where there are a couple of locals discussing the body. One comments that his death would have been quick because he didn’t even have time to kick off his sea boots.

What then is the book about if Martin has been dead all along? Is it some sort of religious allegory about purgatory and the fact that given the chance to consider a life most of us would find ourselves guilty of cruelty? Alternatively is it some sort of dream of what could have been raising the question of whether or not it was better to die quickly and relatively painlessly instead of living in the hope of being rescued and finally losing your mind?

Of course the essays that have been written on those questions are probably legion. I personally like to think that it is a case of the former, bearing in mind my recollection of Lord of the Flies, with Christopher Martin showing that in the space and forced confinement of being shipwrecked we all have to face our demons, which are lying in us all.

Pincher Martin - post IV

It was only at the very end of the book, and I’m not going to give away the ending, that you sat up and thought about what Golding had done. For a few moments on the train on the way to work I just looked out of the window and pulled the final scenes together.

Golding left you wondering whether or not the lucky ones where those that die in war rather than limp on waiting to be rescued and also about the human costs of war. But that comes in a way as a relief because having expressed the desire the other day to see what happens to the stranded survivor you almost wish you could turn away your eyes as he goes slowly but very surely mad. The turning point seems to be a change in the weather with a thunder storm turning his world into a dark and lightning streaked hell. The wind also plays a part pushing him into the sea with such a thud he is convinced for a while somebody hit him.

But as the end nears the ghosts of the past become stronger and the hallucinations more real.

Golding does something clever with the point of view at this point and splitting Martin into mind and body he takes up the story clearly out of the body turning Martin into something of a third person although still connected via the mouth between mind and body.

Close to the end you feel that this has been as tortuous to read as it has been to live for Martin but the twist at the end and the thoughts it leaves you with were worth reading for.

A review will follow soon…

Pincher Martin - post III

One of the main aims of writing is to paint a picture through words that is so believable the reader is lost in that world and moment. Golding manages to put you on the rock with the shipwreck survivor Christopher Martin.

Although of course you want to see if he will be rescued you are half tempted by the prospect of him being left there because that would take the writing to a challenging and darker place.

Through flashbacks you get the picture of a young actor who seems to have a series of spurned relationships before he joined the navy to go and fight for his country. But despite the experience on the rock there has not yet been an indication that if he gets back to normal life he might lead it differently.

The other challenge for the reader is the style where hints and not just a couple of failed female relationships but also one with a young boy are mentioned but never really drawn out in great detail.

Maybe the past will become clearer as the pages and the chance of rescue start to run out? More tomorrow…

Pincher Martin - post II

I remember reading Golding as a schoolboy and his style is not the easiest and this reminds me of struggling with homework. Not sure what I was meant to be learning reading this sort of stuff but as an adult it is still a test of endurance.

The struggle that the survivor has to find food and water and plan a rescue attempt on his rocky outcrop is being written in what feels like real time.

The battle to survive is mixed in with memories fleshing out the characters recent history and background. His drafting into the navy and his pre-war relationship with shipmate Nathaniel is also given more context with the two of them being connected someway, possibly through the acting field that the main character is involved in.

More tomorrow…

Pincher Martin - post I

There are certain styles of writing that really challenge the reader to concentrate. This book starts with a man drowning but the metaphor of a glass diver bobbing away in a jar throws you a bit.

But bit by bit the fact this man swimming in the Atlantic has ended up there because his boat was hit by a U-boat starts to help you out it all together. But to get there involves reading through swirling and slightly surreal passages that are as unclear as the drowning man’s future.

He finally manages to pull himself out of the water onto a rock after a moment when you expected him to be saved by a ship which almost kills him. Once on the rock he changes again from a drowning swirling glass diver in a jar to a limpet on a rock.

In an opening devoid of any characters other than the survivor and the names of his dead crew men the drowning man’s legs and arms become characters of their own as they drift, swim and cling out of the sea onto the rocks.

More tomorrow…

book review - Fire Down Below

This is the last book in the trilogy by William Golding that charts the passage across the oceans from England to Australia of Edmund Talbot. The young man is propped up by a relationship with a wealthy and politically influential godfather. By this last book he has managed to set himself apart from almost everyone because of his often naive but firmly held views.

His love for a girl he met for an afternoon and evening in the second book manages to irate his closest friends and annoy his enemies, with Mr Benet in particular badgered by Talbot for details on the girl he had shared a ship with.

Most of the focus of the narrative is on the debate between the first lieutenant Summers and the Captain and his favourite Benet about how to best fix the sail. Benet argues that it can be strengthened and repaired by driving red-hot bolts through the base. Summers believes that this ‘fire down below’ will lead to destruction.

But there is also the question of the ‘fire down below’ in Talbot’s heart when he is challenged by utopian Mr Prettiman to turn his back on responsibility and class and follow his heart. Talbot cannot do it but he develops a friendship with the anti-establishmentarian that confuses Summers and some of the other passengers.

All the way through this trilogy it has been hard to see how it could end. It seems to be a tale of growing up with the privileged Talbot coming into contact with members of the lower orders and their brutality – the destruction of Colley in Book one Rites of Passage – and the political views of extremists.

Talbot is also exposed to extremes of love and fear and witnesses the suicide of his steward and the demise of his friend Summers along with the destruction of the ship.

As a cross section of society the ship manages to illustrate the dangers of standing out against the majority. It costs Colley his life and at points seems to cost Talbot company as he is shunned by various sections of the ship.

Once he lands at Australia at the conclusion of his voyage he receives news that his godfather has died. He is then treated to the fickle nature of success with everyone around him treating him with indifference. Even when Marion turns up she is advises by her mentor Lady Somerset not to pursue a relationship with a man that will not be able to provide for her.

But news arrives that reveals that the godfather has left his money and his seat in the houses of parliament to Talbot and those fickle friends return. The tragedy is that he cannot tell his friend Captain Summers, who hew helped get promotion, because the fire down below finally consumes the Captain and his ship.

For Talbot the fire down below turns out to be his love but for other characters those words meant different things, both literal and metaphorical. Golding manages to spin a complete tale across this trilogy of a voyage through extreme heat, horrendous storms and into ice fields and although it is pleasant enough reading it you certainly would not have wanted to step into Talbot’s shoes and boarded that ship with him.

Version read – Faber & Faber paperback

Fire Down Below - post V

So the voyage comes to an end and for some it is a joyous climax but there is also plenty of regret and misery still to come.

Edmund manages to get a promotion for his friend Summers to the position of captain and then almost immediately loses his relationship to the man. Summers becomes obsessed with his boat and the jobs he might have to undertake in the harbour.

In a cruel twist of fate the fire down below that he always suspected was there in the mast bursts into life and Charles and the boat he loved are destroyed. At the same time Talbot’s influential godfather dies and he loses his position. Most of those around him start to snub him and consider him no longer in the ascendancy.

Most importantly the love of his life Marion arrives and because of his fall in fortune she is advised to keep him at arms bay by her patron Lady Somerset. But they declare their love for each other and she leaves him promising to wait for him for as long as it takes.

Meanwhile, the utopian dreamers the Prettimans disappear into the bush and most of the other passengers also vanish leaving Talbot alone working for the governor.

But another reversal in fortunes follows the reading of his godfather’s will and the announcement that Talbot has won his godfather’s old seat in a rotten borough. He heads back to England via India. He finally gets the chance to run into the arms of his beloved Marion.

During the voyage what is most interesting is the growing fire down below, which for Talbot concerns his love for Marion. For others it might be political, jealousy or ambition but for Talbot it is reasonably innocent.

A review will follow soonish…

Fire Down Below - post IV

After a while you start to see the world of the ship as a metaphor for society and the different social strata and the different [political views. After having made his piece with the Prettimans, who he has insulted and almost killed who both hold socialist ideals, Talbot is challenged to be consumed by the fire down below – in his heart and work towards some sort of utopia.

He resists because of his inhibitions but also because of his inability to believe it could really happen.

Meanwhile the officers are fighting for the captain’s favour and the ship continues to sail through waters without anyone in the crew having much idea where they actually are. The consequences of that action are suddenly put into stark context as Talbot spots ice and brings the ship to life and the end of the voyage that sudden moment closer as they sail towards the ice.

More tomorrow…

Fire Down Below - post III

The main character of this trilogy Edmund Talbot continues on his personal journey of discovery. He manages to offend and infuriate a fair few passengers and members of the ship’s crew. Making it no secret that he disagrees with the decision to repair the mast by driving red-hot bolts through the bottom of it he clashes with those that have supported that plan.

Once the mast is held by the red hot bolts, which are meant to go cold because of the lack of oxygen, Talbot and his friend officer Summers continually express unease about the fire below but the advanced speed seems to undermine their concerns.

Meanwhile a ferocious sea attacks the boat and the boat is tossed through storm and high seas with even the sailors deciding to hide below than face the fury of the ocean.

Talbot continues to walk into arguments because of his ability to irritate people with a missed place remark here or there and he almost kills a fellow passenger who he tries to help by moving on his deathbed.

By now the story has settled into a pattern that is regulated by the conditions of the sea and the moods of the crew and passengers. Talbot seems to be spending more time reflecting on his own faults and you get hints that he will be a different man once they land.

More tomorrow…

Fire Down Below - post II

Life on board the ship is dominated by the divisions between the first lieutenant Summers and the upstart Mr Benet. Edmund Talbot favours the first and is keen to try and delay any attempt to rebuild the main mast using burning iron – presumably the reason for the title.

In the meantime Talbot moves back into the hutch that has already been the location for the deaths of the parson Colley and his steward. He moves because of the comments made by fellow passengers who accuse him of being too cosy with the officers.

The only other break in the concentration on the debate about the main mast and the likelihood of the boat sinking is the marriage of two of the passengers. Talbot is called onto be a witness to the ceremony of two people he doesn’t care a great deal for.

Not a great deal happens in these books but you do feel that it is a passage from innocent and sheltered youth to something more substantial for Talbot who is continually making mistakes and overstepping the mark because of arrogance and ignorance.

More next week…

Fire Down Below - post I

Apologies all over the place today. Working from home denied me the opportunity to do any major reading and the concept of a lunch hour also disappears when you work through.

The other problem is juggling several books at once. Ambitiously, I took the option to start the third in the Golding trilogy so here are some thoughts on that. Tomorrow will get back into Wise Children and start a lunchtime read book for this week.

The most obvious comment to make after the opening couple of chapters is to wonder what on earth the point of the summary was at the end of part two, Close Quarters. Those few pages indicated that the voyage was successful in terms of getting to the destination and despite the loss of the main mast the ship did not sink.

So you half expect this book to start with the main character Edmund Talbot detailing the work he is doing helping the governor run one of the far flung parts of the British Empire. But things start almost exactly where they left off. There is something reassuring about the old characters but you do wonder where it is going. Bearing in mind how slow the second book took to get going you wonder if this is more of the same. Probably not but it is not the start that was expected.

More tomorrow…

book review - Close Quarters

This is the second book in the Passage to the Sea trilogy and it starts with William Golding having his hero Edmund Talbot admitting that he does not know what to write about.

If the first volume was about the short life on board of the reverend Colley then this second volume starts suffering from a hangover from the parson’s death. The end of the parson leaves a vacuum that is not immediately filled. Talbot looks for inspiration from the second most powerful officer on board Lieutenant Summers but after a while there us a limit to the depth of that personality.

What saves the book from straggling off into nowhere is the bringing together of the boat Talbot is on with another English ship. After initially panicking that it is a French vessel and the nerves and adrenalin that pumps as it comes into sight the reality is that it is British and brings news of peace. For Talbot it also brings him into close quarters with a girl he falls head over heels in love with.

He tries to stay with her but a series of knocks on the head leaves him cabin bound when the boats split apart and Talbot and company are then left at the mercy of the waves. With the ship damaged the rest of the focus of the book deals with the dual problems of Talbot’s jealousy fuelled love for the girl he met and the fear gripping most of the ship about sinking.

In the end the story is wrapped up quickly because Talbot confesses locking his journal away to ensure it survives if he drowns so he provides a speedy summary of what happened until they docked safely.

This is a book that has the feel of being a second in a trilogy and presumably lays down some characters that are going to become important in the concluding part of the story. It drifts along and it feels almost as if it is a book you have no connection with. But slowly but surely by the time the end is near and the crew and passengers are gripped with fear about sinking the description of the situation of the boat has you wanting to read until the end.

But the conclusion, which is and feels tacked on, makes you hungry for the conclusion but almost happy to dispense with Close Quarters. At this stage it is hard to say how important it will be when looking back over the three books, but it lacks the central story that dominates Rites of Passage and fails to work on an emotional level in quite the same way as the first book, which described in chilling detail the humiliation of Colley.

But as the final paragraphs promise it is a taster that will indeed lead onto the final part of the trilogy, Fire Down Below.

Version read – Faber & Faber paperback

book review - Rites of Passage

If there is one thing most people know about William Golding it is about his ability to describe in words the moment when a crowd turns ugly and someone is destroyed either physically or mentally.

One of the things you remember about Lord of the Flies apart from the conch and the island home of the boys is the demise of Piggy who is bullied to his death. There is a similar figure here in the first part of the Pssage of the Sea trilogy with the parson Colley. He becomes the focus of the book but it takes a while to get there.

The story is told through the journal entries of Edmund Talbot who is going to Australia to take up some sort of government service and has connections with some powerful backers in the form of his godfather. Talbot joins the crew of on a ship that is sailing around not too long after nelson because we are still at war with the French. That would date it at around the early 19th century when it was still the age of sail and Britain ruled the waves.

The book settles down with Talbot becoming the eyes you see the world through with him meeting other passengers and importantly the captain. Because he enrages the captain, who likes passengers never to come near him, the naval warrior decides to exert his power over the crew by picking on the parson. The captain has a pathological hatred of the clergy believing himself to have been robbed out of his inheritance by one.

With the captain’s blessing the parson becomes an open target for abuse and things come to a head when he appears ramshackled and drunk on the deck and is led away to his cabin in disgrace. No one can tempt him out to talk and he slowly withers away refusing food and drink and dies on an evening when the captain has ironically invited some guests, including Talbot into his cabin for dinner.

The captain is forced to thaw because of the announcement of Talbot of his journal, which will be sent to his godfather, with the implied threat that the bullying will be revealed to a wider audience. The captain calls for agreement that Colley died from a low fever and Talbot is forced to go along with that conclusion.

But the last third of the book is taken up with Talbot printed ad verbatim the words that Colley had put down in a letter to his sister. When compared to the facts that start to emerge from the inquest following the death of the parson it creates a heart-rendering account through the eyes of an innocent bullying victim.

Colley is naïve but that is his only real fault along with maybe his dogged persistence to serve the Lord by demanding services are held. He is humiliated by the sailors and the other passengers and is finally exploited when drunk and a sailor performs an act of oral sex on him, the act the forces him to do die with shame.

This is powerful writing and for anyone who has ever considered joining in when someone is being taunted and humiliated then this should make them think long and hard about what it does to the victim of the bullying.

Version read - Faber & Faber paperback

Close Quarters - post III

The ship does become the main focus of the last third of the book. But it never becomes as full a character as the ships in the world of Patrick O’Brien do. The reason for that is no matter where he goes on the boat life on board is always seen through the landlubber eyes of the main character Talbot.

The result is both good and bad. The bad is that sometimes it is difficult to visualise where he is. But on the positive side the panic that sweeps the ship when it looks like it might break up and sink is more believable because Talbot does not have the instinctive knowledge to know for sure whether he will sink or not.

The love sick and increasingly isolated aristocrat moons about the place dreaming about the young girl he has left behind on the other ship. He manages to annoy most of his fellow passengers and has been nicknamed ‘Lord’ by the sailors who don’t have much time for him.

He seems largely unaware and in a series of odd encounters with the ship’s carpenter, purser and its officers is made aware the ship is in real danger of breaking up. He is seen as a link between the passengers and the captain but after his servant Wheeler chooses to kill himself Talbot makes his third move into the officers quarters. There he makes the decision to lock his journal in a watertight box just in case the ship sinks. As a result there is a postscript that is clearly written after he has reached land acting as a partial conclusion and a lead-in for the final part of the trilogy.

A review will follow soon…

Close Quarters - post II

If the first book was all about hate, humiliation and regret. Then the second book is about love and peace with the narrator falling head over heels for a young woman while the entire crew celebrates peace against France.

The peace is announced by a fellow English boat that is heading to India. Because the wind has dropped to almost nothing the boats pull up aside each other and the captain and Talbot are invited to lunch with the fellow captain Sir Henry and Lady Somerset. They introduce their protégée who wows Talbot who is still suffering from a head wound gained firstly in a storm and then again as he volunteered to fight on the gun deck when the crew thought the advancing English ship was in fact French.

For most of the time Talbot is suffering from concussion and he seems to forget himself on regular occasions becoming over familiar with the captain and the officers and then declaring love to a girl he has known for just a few hours. But he becomes determined to get the girl transferred to his cabin.

That night the two boats lie alongside each other before being parted as the wind returns and Talbot finally collapses and is sent to bed. When he awakes the boat with Sir Henry, Lady Somerset and the girl have gone and the story then returns to more mundane matters like life and death as the crew struggle against storms without much of their sails.

Where the story goes from here is not quite clear unless as you suspect slightly the young woman did indeed get transferred to his cabin and no one has yet told him about it? We shall see tomorrow…

Close Quarters - post I

It is not compulsory to go from book one to book two in a trilogy but it was close to hand and so seemed like a natural choice. If Rites of Passage was about the story of the demise of the parson Colley then it is not quite clear what Close Quarters is about.

Talbot the narrator is still on his voyage to Australia and things start to get slowly back to normal after the death of the parson. In a bid to make his journal, which is now purely for personal consumption not for his Godfather’s eyes, interesting he searches for a hero. He settles on Summers and opens up to him about his ambitions to make it in politics but before their relationship develops the weather intervenes.

A storm smashes into the ship and a drunk officer who has left an apprentice on duty is pulled before the captain and faces certain court martial once back on dry land. Talbot who tried to help in the crisis is knocked down by a rope end and is semi-conscious for quite a while and spends the next few days half-cut with not too much sympathy for his injuries.

The weather is the cause again of the main excitement as a boat draws near. The boat prepares for a battle with the French and the excitement and fear is palpable. But when the boat finally draws alongside it appears to be English with the news that the war against Napoleon and the French is over.

More tomorrow…