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pussreboots's review
3.0
William Golding by John Carey is a biography of the man who is best known for writing Lord of the Flies. It was one of the first assigned books in school that I actually really liked (the other was A Separate Peace, assigned by the same teacher). Twenty five or so years later I'm still mulling over the book and seriously contemplating a re-read of it.
I can't recall where I heard about this biography, but I do know I wanted some idea of what made Golding tick. I also wanted the story behind his most famous novel.
Before Golding found his niche as a writer he was a teacher. His time in the trenches gave him the insight he needed to create believable archetypes.
The remaining half of the book covers the rest of his life and the other books he wrote. I'm curious enough about his other books to want to read them. I picked one at random from the library but it was so far removed in style from Lord of the Flies that I didn't make it through the first chapter. My next plan of attack is to go through his books in order when I have the time.
I can't recall where I heard about this biography, but I do know I wanted some idea of what made Golding tick. I also wanted the story behind his most famous novel.
Before Golding found his niche as a writer he was a teacher. His time in the trenches gave him the insight he needed to create believable archetypes.
The remaining half of the book covers the rest of his life and the other books he wrote. I'm curious enough about his other books to want to read them. I picked one at random from the library but it was so far removed in style from Lord of the Flies that I didn't make it through the first chapter. My next plan of attack is to go through his books in order when I have the time.
psr's review
5.0
It has become something of a summer holiday habit with me to read the vast biography of some writer whom I admire. I suppose it’s the only time I feel that I have the space and energy to take on reading tasks of this scale. As a writer, I find it hugely instructive but humbling also to be in the presence of genius. And make no mistake, in this instance, that overused term is apposite. What might one give to have written a sequence like Golding's first five novels? Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, Pincher Martin, Free Fall and The Spire… Okay, so Free Fall let’s things down a little, but it doesn’t diminish the monumental achievement. The leaps of imagination and the poetry of his writing, the relentless elemental themes of evil and irrationality… And then the return, in his twilight years, with the masterful To the Ends of the Earth sea trilogy. This I also read in a summer holiday binge many years ago, looking out on a rural walled garden as Golding did. Here, we learn something of the Mephistophelean pact Golding made in order to produce these works.
If you love the novels of William Golding then this first biography of the great writer will fascinate you. If you’ve only read Lord of the Flies or indeed nothing of his oeuvre, I suspect you’ll find the book less enthralling. And if you conflate him with William Goldman, as an American acquaintance of mine did, then it’ll probably have no appeal at all. Drawing on Golding’s previously unseen journals and letters to his editor at Faber, we gain fascinating insights into the construction of the novels. I had read somewhere that he would write a draft, then start all over again, and then again and perhaps a fourth time. Light is thrown on the whole process here. We learn about abandoned projects and early drafts, many of which Carey declares tantalisingly are in urgent need of being published. It’s also a real bonus to have a round-up of the contemporary reviews for each work (items which Golding avoided like the Black Death). We get a genuine sense of the man himself, as far as this is possible with such a private individual (after all, Golding’s novel The Paper Men concerns his alter-ego, Wilfred Barclay, stymieing a would-be biographer’s attempts to write about him). Such a person ‘won’t reach the root that has made me a monster’, Golding notes in his journal and Carey laments that ‘I do not know why he thought he was a monster’. He suggests that Golding created the mask of a ‘Captain Birdseye’-type figure and this was very definitely the impression I gained.
I make my appearance on p508. Admittedly, it’s in a crowd scene with 800 or so others. Golding reads Chapter 17 of Fire Down Below at UEA in Norwich on 27th October 1992, as part of my alma mater’s annual season of interviews and readings with noted writers. “The queue for signing afterwards stretched ‘coil on coil’,” the book reports. When my turn came, I produced my second hand copy of The Spire and announced “A very fine novel, if I might say so, Sir William.” “A very fine spire,” he replied. “404 feet, I believe.” “Yes, that’s right.” Fortunately, this latter part isn’t recorded in the biography. My ex then brought forth my second hand copy of Lord of the Flies, the one with ‘Write Piggy essay’ inscribed in the front. “And did you ever write it?” Sir William asked her. I forget her mumbled answer…
Having written the biography of a creative, I’m acutely aware of fans who snipe from the sidelines, pointing out this inaccuracy and that, so I’m not going to nit-pick too much. I did feel that the accounts of the writing tours went into too much detail and we lost the overall narrative at these junctures. It’s opinionated at times in terms of ‘the canon’. Carey finds it remiss of Golding not to have read Hardy, implying that any right thinking person would find this a fault. Perhaps Hardy’s work didn’t appeal to him. When Golding had become rich and famous towards the end of his life, he met a series of privileged persons in Cornwall with marvellous houses and gardens, about which the descriptions feel distinctly unctuous. I’m told that publishing houses simply don’t provide editing services for writers in the way they used to. Certainly, Golding’s editor, Charles Monteith, who played a huge part in his writing and personal life, would have picked up on some of the inevitable typos and continuity errors here. At one point, Golding meets President Mitterand, who becomes President Chirac in the next paragraph, some twelve years before his investiture. If you look up Jacques Chirac in the index, who after all is only a typo in the book (Golding was dead by the time he assumed the presidency), he is referenced on p424, where neither man is actually mentioned.
Carey is a critic of great distinction and he has compiled Golding’s life story with enormous thoroughness and erudition. It’s beautifully written. In sum, I found it a page-turner. Carey hoped the subtitle (‘The Man Who Wrote…’) would fish in the uncommitted who were unfamiliar with Golding’s oeuvre and make them wish to explore it further. On this level, I’m not convinced it can succeed.
If you love the novels of William Golding then this first biography of the great writer will fascinate you. If you’ve only read Lord of the Flies or indeed nothing of his oeuvre, I suspect you’ll find the book less enthralling. And if you conflate him with William Goldman, as an American acquaintance of mine did, then it’ll probably have no appeal at all. Drawing on Golding’s previously unseen journals and letters to his editor at Faber, we gain fascinating insights into the construction of the novels. I had read somewhere that he would write a draft, then start all over again, and then again and perhaps a fourth time. Light is thrown on the whole process here. We learn about abandoned projects and early drafts, many of which Carey declares tantalisingly are in urgent need of being published. It’s also a real bonus to have a round-up of the contemporary reviews for each work (items which Golding avoided like the Black Death). We get a genuine sense of the man himself, as far as this is possible with such a private individual (after all, Golding’s novel The Paper Men concerns his alter-ego, Wilfred Barclay, stymieing a would-be biographer’s attempts to write about him). Such a person ‘won’t reach the root that has made me a monster’, Golding notes in his journal and Carey laments that ‘I do not know why he thought he was a monster’. He suggests that Golding created the mask of a ‘Captain Birdseye’-type figure and this was very definitely the impression I gained.
I make my appearance on p508. Admittedly, it’s in a crowd scene with 800 or so others. Golding reads Chapter 17 of Fire Down Below at UEA in Norwich on 27th October 1992, as part of my alma mater’s annual season of interviews and readings with noted writers. “The queue for signing afterwards stretched ‘coil on coil’,” the book reports. When my turn came, I produced my second hand copy of The Spire and announced “A very fine novel, if I might say so, Sir William.” “A very fine spire,” he replied. “404 feet, I believe.” “Yes, that’s right.” Fortunately, this latter part isn’t recorded in the biography. My ex then brought forth my second hand copy of Lord of the Flies, the one with ‘Write Piggy essay’ inscribed in the front. “And did you ever write it?” Sir William asked her. I forget her mumbled answer…
Having written the biography of a creative, I’m acutely aware of fans who snipe from the sidelines, pointing out this inaccuracy and that, so I’m not going to nit-pick too much. I did feel that the accounts of the writing tours went into too much detail and we lost the overall narrative at these junctures. It’s opinionated at times in terms of ‘the canon’. Carey finds it remiss of Golding not to have read Hardy, implying that any right thinking person would find this a fault. Perhaps Hardy’s work didn’t appeal to him. When Golding had become rich and famous towards the end of his life, he met a series of privileged persons in Cornwall with marvellous houses and gardens, about which the descriptions feel distinctly unctuous. I’m told that publishing houses simply don’t provide editing services for writers in the way they used to. Certainly, Golding’s editor, Charles Monteith, who played a huge part in his writing and personal life, would have picked up on some of the inevitable typos and continuity errors here. At one point, Golding meets President Mitterand, who becomes President Chirac in the next paragraph, some twelve years before his investiture. If you look up Jacques Chirac in the index, who after all is only a typo in the book (Golding was dead by the time he assumed the presidency), he is referenced on p424, where neither man is actually mentioned.
Carey is a critic of great distinction and he has compiled Golding’s life story with enormous thoroughness and erudition. It’s beautifully written. In sum, I found it a page-turner. Carey hoped the subtitle (‘The Man Who Wrote…’) would fish in the uncommitted who were unfamiliar with Golding’s oeuvre and make them wish to explore it further. On this level, I’m not convinced it can succeed.
lnatal's review
4.0
From BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week:
Christian Rodska reads from John Carey's biography of the Nobel Prize-winning author
Christian Rodska reads from John Carey's biography of the Nobel Prize-winning author
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