An Outstanding Person

William Golding is a prominent English novelist, an essayist , poet and winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize for literature. In many novels Golding has revealed the dark places of human heart, when isolated individuals or small groups of people are pushed into extreme situations. His often allegorical fiction makes broad use of allusions to classical literature , mythology, and Christian symbolism.

William Golding was born in the village of St. Columb Minor in Cornwall. He started writing at the age of seven, but following the wishes of his parents, he studied first natural sciences and then English at Brasenose College, Oxford. Golding's first book, a collection of poems, appeared in 1934, a year before he received his B.A. in English and a diploma in education. During his life, he worked as a writer, actor, producer, and a settlement house worker. He married Ann Brookfield; they had two children. He even served in the Royal Navy, and after this experience, he said that "man produces evil, as a bee produces honey."

In Salisbury Golding wrote four books, but did not get them published. LORD OF THE FLIES, an allegorical story set in the near future during wartime, was turned down by twenty-one publishes until it finally appeared in 1954. E.M. Forster named it the Book of the Year and in the late 1950s it became a bestseller among American readers. At the time of its appearance, Golding was 44, but the success of the novel allowed him to give up teaching.

In this story the group of small British boys, stranded on a desert island, lapse into violence after they have lost all adult guidance. Ironically, the adult world is devastated by nuclear war. In this novel he introduced one of the recurrent themes of his fiction--the conflict between humanity's innate barbarism and the civilizing influence of reason.

•Golding got the idea for the book because of his experiences in the war, where he served in the Navy and learned the inherent sinfulness of man. It’s interesting that the war is mentioned indirectly at the beginning and end of the novel but nowhere in between. This is a remarkable literary device of Golding.•According to Golding’s view, anarchy defeats order. This is the outcome because Golding believed that government is an ineffective way to keep people together. No matter how logical or reasonable, government will eventually have to give in to the anarchical demands of the public.

Golding’s next novel, reaches into prehistory, advancing the thesis that humankind's evolutionary ancestors, "the fire-builders," triumphed over a gentler race as much by violence and deceit as by natural superiority.

It is an allegory concerning the hero's obsessive determination to build a great cathedral spire regardless of the consequences. Jocelyn, a medieval dean, has decided to erect a 400-foot spire to the top of the cathedral before his death. But its construction causes sacrifice of others, treachery, and murder; the Dean's own faith is tested. From this novel Golding's work developed into three directions: novels dealing with contemporary society without mythical substructure, the metaphysical novels in which the theme of fall from innocence into guilt was central, and sea novels imitating an 18th-century style. Golding also used in his works ideas familiar from science fiction, such as the origin of man, nuclear holocaust, and highly advanced inventions.

•DARKNESS VISIBLE - exposes the struggle between good and evil is set in a modern context mixing terrorism with naïve saintliness, sexuality, and incessant attempts to escape from the mundane.

Historical trilogy:•RITES OF PASSAGE (1980) - portrayed life abroad an ancient ship of the line at the end of the Napoleonic War. It was awarded the Booker Prize.•CLOSE QUARTERS (1987)•FIRE DOWN BELOW (1989)

Condemned by reviewers as Golding's worst work, was about the battle between the world-famous English novelist Wilfred Barclay and the American academic Rick L. Turner, who has decided to write Barclay's biography. "In this book, however, Barclay and Tucker are not only poorly defined as individuals, but are also wholly inadequate as symbols. They are indeed no more than paper men."

In 1961 Golding resigned from teaching and devoted himself entirely to writing. He lived quietly in Corwall, gaining the reputation of a mildly eccentric and reclusive person. In 1965 he received the honorary designation Commander of the British Empire (CBE), in 1983 he got the Nobel Prize for his LORD OF THE FLIES, and in 1988 he was knighted. Golding died in Perranarworthal on June 19, 1993. His last novel, THE DOUBLE TONGUE, left in draft at his death, was published in 1995. The story was set in the ancient Greece, and depicted the life of the last Delphic oracle, the Pythia, who witnesses the rise of the Roman power, and the decline of the Hellenistic culture.

After his death in 1993 Golding left other material: his journal, running from 1971 until the night before his death; reminiscences; unpublished stories, plays, poems; and a large collection of letters from many correspondents. Many of these are being prepared for publication.

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