William Golding | Slightly Foxed literary review magazine

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the novels of, [7] 18, 24; The Spire, [71] 7; The Inheritors, [83] 52

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From World to World

Nick Hunt on William Golding, The Inheritors

We are observing a group of people trying to find a log. The log is not where they left it. They have been away for some time. Now it is not where it was, and they are perturbed. It is, we gather, a long log. They need it in order to cross a marsh. Finally one of them – he is called Lok – has the bright idea of finding another log, and putting it where the old one was. His companions are deeply impressed by this. A new log is located and moved by communal effort. Now they can cross the marsh to get to where they want to go. They take it in turns to walk along the log, but one of them, an old man, falls into the water. They pull him out, but he is wet and cold, and starts shivering. This seems to trouble them much more than we might expect. We infer that being cold represents a mortal threat.

Jocelin’s Folly

Andrew Joynes on William Golding, The Spire

Across the east end of the nave of Canterbury Cathedral, where I was a volunteer guide for over a decade, there is a stone strainer arch erected by Prior Thomas Goldstone 500 years ago. It is a kind of tiebar, one of six which bind together the columns that support Bell Harry Tower, the cathedral’s dominant feature. The arch is essential to the integrity of the building’s central structure and is decorated with flowered designs and an inscription. On either side of the Prior’s initials and his rebus – three golden pebbles, a visual pun on his surname – there is the first verse of the psalm that begins Non nobis Domine (‘Not unto us, O Lord, but unto thy name give glory . . .’).

. . . and Tempests and Doldrums

Andrew Sinclair on the works of William Golding

William Golding was the only writer I have ever pursued. An Angry Young novel I wrote in three weeks when up at Cambridge, The Breaking of Bumbo, outsold Lord of the Flies that year for Faber & Faber. This was ludicrous, but it was followed by Golding’s kindness when I wrote to him. He sent me an open invitation to visit him by the watercress beds at Bowerchalke, halfway between Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge – midway between the new and the ancient faiths.

Infinite Depths . . .

Penelope Lively on the novels of William Golding

William Golding’s is not a large oeuvre: fifteen books, a play, an unfinished novel. Rereading everything, I am struck by the modesty of the pile through which I have worked, and the brevity of the books. He pared fiction down to bony essentials: an entire universe in the 223 pages of Lord of the Flies, or the 233 of The Inheritors. I wanted to try to identify what it is that sets him apart – on a pedestal, as far as I am concerned.

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