| Sir William Golding |
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Golding in 1983
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| Born | William Gerald Golding
19 September 1911
Newquay, Cornwall, England,UK |
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| Died | 19 June 1993 (aged 81)
Perranarworthal, Cornwall,England, UK |
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| Occupation | Writer of novels, plays andpoems |
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| Nationality | British |
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| Genres | Survivalist fiction, robinsonade,adventure, sea story, sciencefiction, essay, historical fiction,stageplay, poetry |
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| Notablework(s) | Lord of the Flies |
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| Notableaward(s) | Booker Prize
1980
Nobel Prize in Literature
1983 |
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| Signature |  |
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Sir William Gerald Golding CBE (19 September 1911 – 19
June 1993) was an
English novelist, poet, playwrightand Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, best known for his novel Lord of the Flies. He
was also awarded theBooker Prize for literature in
1980 for his novel Rites of Passage,
the first book of
the trilogy To the Ends of the Earth.
Biography
Early life
William Golding was born in his grandmother's house, 47 Mountwise, Newquay, Cornwall and he spentmany childhood holidays there. He grew up at his family home in Marlborough, Wiltshire, where his father (AlecGolding) was a science master at Marlborough Grammar School (1905 to retirement). Alec Golding was asocialist with a strong commitment to scientific rationalism, and the young Golding and his elder brother Josephattended the school where his father taught. His mother, Mildred (Curnroe),kept house at 29, The Green,Marlborough, and supported the moderate campaigners for female suffrage. In 1930 Golding went to Oxford University as an undergraduate at Brasenose College, where he read Natural Sciences for two years before transferring to English Literature.
Golding took his B.A. degree with Second Class Honours in
the summer of
1934, and later that year his first book,Poems,
was published in
London by
Macmillan & Co,
through the help of
his Oxford friend, the anthroposophistAdam Bittleston.
Marriage and family
Golding married Ann Brookfield, an
analytic chemist,[9](p161) on 30
September 1939 and they had two children,Judith and David.[5]
War service
William Golding joined the Royal Navy in
1940.[10] During World War II,
Golding fought in
the Royal Navy (onboard a
destroyer) briefly involved in
the pursuit and sinking of
the German battleship Bismarck. He
alsoparticipated in
the invasion of
Normandy on
D-Day, commanding a
landing ship that fired salvoes of
rockets ontothe beaches, and then in a
naval action at
Walcheren in
which 23
out of 24
assault craft were sunk.[11] At
thewar's end, he
returned to
teaching and writing.[5]
Golding's Crisis
Soon after Golding's third novel, The Spire (1964), had been published, critical opinion was divided, and theauthor hoped for a positive boost from the BBC. But the programme turned sour with a vehement review. Inretrospect, it marked the beginning of more than a decade in which Golding underwent a profound personal andartistic crisis, drove his wife and children to the brink of despair, and began the obsessive compilation of anextraordinary dream diary that charted his pain. Over more than 20 years, the diary's volumes would run tothousands of pages and some two million words. The grim and protracted aftermath of The Spire's troubledpublication was all the more poignant because, as a batch of recently discovered colour photographsdemonstrates, the 1950s had seen Golding enjoying some of his happiest, most carefree years.
Death
In
1985, Golding and his wife moved to
Tullimaar House at
Perranarworthal,
near Truro,
Cornwall, where he
died of
heart failure, eight years later, on 19
June1993.[citation needed] He
was buried in
the village churchyard at
Bowerchalke,
South Wiltshire (near the Hampshire and Dorset county boundaries). He
left the draft ofa
novel, The Double Tongue,
set in
ancient Delphi,
which was published posthumously. He is
survived by
his daughter, the author Judy Golding, and his sonDavid, who still lives at
Tullimaar House.
Career
Writing success
In
September 1953, Golding sent a
manuscript to
Faber & Faber of
London. Initially rejected by a
reader there, the book was championed by
Charles Monteith,then a
new editor at
the firm. He
asked for various cuts in
the text and the novel was published in
September 1954 as
Lord of the Flies. It
was shortly followed by
other novels, including The Inheritors,
Pincher Martin and Free Fall.
Publishing success made it
possible for Golding to
resign his teaching post at
Bishop Wordsworth's School in
1961, and he
spent that academic year in
theUnited States as
writer-in-residence at
Hollins College,
near Roanoke, Virginia.
Having moved in
1958 from Salisbury to
nearby Bowerchalke, he
met his fellowvillager and walking companion James Lovelock.
The two discussed Lovelock's hypothesis that the living matter of
the planet Earth functions like a
singleorganism, and Golding suggested naming this hypothesis after Gaia,
the goddess of
the earth in
Greek mythology.[14]
The ONDB asserts that "At the end of
the twentieth century, Golding's reputation was at
its highest in
continental Europe, particularly in
Belgium, Holland, Germany,and France".[15]
Fiction
Golding's often allegorical fiction makes broad use of
allusions to
classical literature, mythology, and Christian symbolism. No
distinct thread unites his novels(unless it be a
fundamental pessimism about humanity), and the subject matter and technique vary. However his novels are often set in
closed communities suchas
islands, villages, monasteries, groups of
hunter-gatherers, ships at
sea or a
pharaoh's court. His first novel, Lord of the Flies (1954; film, 1963 and 1990; play,adapted by
Nigel Williams,
1995), dealt with an
unsuccessful struggle against barbarism and war, thus showing the moral ambiguity and fragility of
civilization. It
has also been said that it is an
allegory of
World War II. The Inheritors (1955) looked back into prehistory, advancing the thesis that humankind's evolutionaryancestors, "the new people" (generally identified with Homo sapiens sapiens),
triumphed over a
gentler race (generally identified with Neanderthals) as
much by
violence and deceit as by
natural superiority. The Spire (1964) follows the building (and near collapse) of a
huge spire onto a
medieval cathedral church(generally assumed to be
Salisbury Cathedral);
the church and the spire itself act as a
potent symbols both of
the dean's highest spiritual aspirations and of
hisworldly vanities. His 1956 novel Pincher Martin concerns the last moments of a
sailor thrown into the north Atlantic after his ship is
attacked. The structure is
echoed by
that of
the later Booker Prize winner by
Yann Martel,
Life of Pi.
The 1967 novel The Pyramid comprises three separate stories linked by a
commonsetting (a
small English town in
the 1920s) and narrator. The Scorpion God (1971) is a
volume of
three novellas set in a
prehistoric African hunter-gatherer band('Clonk, Clonk'), an
ancient Egyptian court ('The Scorpion God') and the court of a
Roman emperor ('Envoy Extraordinary'). The last of
these is a
reworking of
his1958 play The Brass Butterfly.
Golding's later novels include Darkness Visible (1979), The Paper Men (1984), and the comic-historical sea trilogy To the Ends of the Earth,
comprising theBooker Prize-winning Rites of Passage (1980), Close Quarters (1987), and Fire Down Below (1989).
List of works
Further information: Category:Novels by William Golding
Poetry
Plays
- The Brass Butterfly (1958)
Novels
Nonfiction
- The Hot Gates (1965)
- A Moving Target (1982)
- An Egyptian Journal (1985)
Unpublished works
- Seahorse was written in 1948. It is a biographical account of sailing on the south coast of England whilst in training for D-Day.[18]
- Circle Under the Sea is an adventure novel about a writer who sails to discover archaeological treasures off the coast of the Scilly Isles.[19]
- Short Measure is a novel set in a British boarding school.[20]
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