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William GoldingEnglish writer, Nobel Prize in Literature 1983
Date of Birth: 19.09.1911
Country:  Great Britain |
Biography of William Golding
Early Life and Education
William Gerald Golding, an English writer and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate in 1983, was born in the village of St. Columb Minor in Cornwall. His father, Alec Golding, a school teacher and brilliant scholar, was a rationalist, while his mother was a feminist. Golding studied at Marlborough Grammar School and Oxford University, where he initially studied natural sciences at the request of his parents for two years. However, Golding, who had been writing since the age of seven, eventually switched to studying English philology and published a collection of poems in 1934, a year before he received his Bachelor of Arts degree. After graduating from Oxford, Golding initially worked in the social field. During this time, he wrote plays and staged them in a small London theater. In 1939, the aspiring writer married Ann Brookfield, a specialist in analytical chemistry, and became an English language and philosophy teacher at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury, where he worked until 1961, excluding the war years. From 1940 to 1945, Golding served in the Royal Navy. By the end of the war, he commanded a rocket launcher and participated in the Allied invasion of Normandy. After leaving the navy, Golding returned to teaching in Salisbury and soon began studying ancient Greek and writing four novels, none of which were published. Nevertheless, he continued his literary experiments, and in 1954, after his novel manuscript was rejected by twenty-one publishers, Faber and Faber published "Lord of the Flies," which immediately became a bestseller in the UK. Although the novel was also published in the US the following year, it gained popularity among American readers only after being reissued in 1959. Golding gained even greater recognition in 1963 when English director Peter Brook adapted the novel into a film. World War II had a decisive influence on Golding's views. Based on his wartime experiences, he said, "I began to understand what people are capable of. Anyone who has been through a war and has not realized that people are capable of committing evil, just as a bee produces honey, is either blind or insane." The base nature of man became the main theme of "Lord of the Flies." This novel, which was as popular as J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye," sold over 20 million copies. The book was conceived as an ironic commentary on R.M. Ballantyne's "The Coral Island," an adventure story for young readers that extolled the optimistic imperialistic ideals of Victorian England.
Writing Career
The plot of "Lord of the Flies" describes the inevitable process by which a group of middle-class adolescents stranded on a deserted island gradually transforms into savages. Their democratic, rational, and moral relationships become tyrannical, bloodthirsty, and corrupt, leading to primitive rituals and sacrifices. Symbolically, the novel is more of a religious, political, or psychological allegory than a realistic narrative. Golding's allegorical style sparked numerous critical debates. Some critics argued that allegory not only burdens the narrative but is also pretentious, inappropriate, and forced. In 1961, after working for a year at Hollins College in Virginia, Golding ceased teaching and devoted himself entirely to literature. By that time, he had published three more novels - "The Inheritors" (1955), "Pincher Martin" (1956), and "Free Fall" (1959) - as well as the play "The Brass Butterfly" (1958). Like "Lord of the Flies," the novel "The Inheritors" also critiques another writer's work, this time H.G. Wells' "A Short History of the World," which was filled with optimistic beliefs in rationalism and progress. Golding noted that Wells' book played a significant role in his life, as his own father was a rationalist and considered "A Short History of the World" to be the "ultimate truth." In "The Inheritors," the writer paints a horrifying picture of the extinction of Neanderthals at the hands of Homo sapiens. According to Golding, the former are our noble, innocent, and guileless ancestors, while the latter are cruel and bloodthirsty killers.
Golding's third novel, "Pincher Martin," part of a series of works exploring the struggle for survival, tells the story of a shipwrecked naval officer clinging to a rock that he mistakes for an island. At first, readers admire Martin's heroic efforts and will to live, but as they learn more about his self-centered life, they are repulsed by his tenacity, which Golding ironically compares to Prometheus' determination. In the end, it becomes clear that the hero is already dead, and his apparent existence is a voluntary purgatory, a refusal to accept God's mercy and die. Unlike the first three novels, the novel "Free Fall" is not allegorical, but thematically corresponds to Golding's other works: the transition from childhood innocence to the guilt of an adult, the conflict between religion and rationalism, myth and history.
Golding's novel "The Spire" (1964), set in a 14th-century English city, is considered by some critics to be the culmination of his career in terms of both ideas and artistic skill. In "The Spire," reality and myth are even more intertwined than in "Lord of the Flies." Here, Golding once again delves into the essence of human nature and the problem of evil. The novel's main character, Dean Jocelin, decides to decorate the cathedral with a spire at any cost, regardless of the loss of money, happiness, life, or even faith itself, in order to "raise prayer in stone." Jocelin's attempt to contend with the stone is also a metaphor of another kind: Golding likens Jocelin to himself, a writer striving to "contend" with his literary material. English critics Mark Kinkead-Weekes and Ian Gregor believe that "The Spire" marks a turning point in Golding's life, as his subsequent works developed in two independent directions - metaphysical and social. These critics also point out that metaphysical works like "Darkness Visible" (1979) are more appealing to American readers, while the social analysis of "Rites of Passage" (1980), a book that won the Booker Prize in the same year, is preferred by the English.
In 1982, Golding published a collection of essays entitled "A Moving Target." In an earlier collection, "The Hot Gates" (1965), Golding included journalistic and critical articles and essays he wrote from 1960 to 1962 for the magazine "The Spectator." In 1983, Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for novels that, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, help us understand the conditions of human existence in the contemporary world." For many, Golding's Nobel Prize came as a surprise, as the favored English candidate, Graham Greene, garnered more attention. During the discussion on the most deserving candidate, one of the members of the Swedish Academy, literary critic Arthur Lundkvist, broke tradition and voted against Golding, stating that Golding was purely an English phenomenon, and his works were "of no essential interest."
"William Golding's novels and stories are not only grim moralities and dark myths about evil and treacherous destructive forces," said Lars Gyllensten, the representative of the Swedish Academy, in his speech. "They are also entertaining adventure stories that can be read for pleasure."
After receiving the Nobel Prize, Golding worked on his novel "The Paper Men," which was published in the UK and the United States in 1984. The book explores the psychological and spiritual struggle between aging English writer Wilfred Barclay and ambitious American academic Rick Tucker, who dreams of writing Barclay's authorized biography. "On one level," wrote English critic Blake Morrison, "it is a defense of talent against the threat that hangs over a living writer... in the form of the dead hand of scholarship. On another level, Tucker can be seen as either a Christ-like figure, redeeming Barclay's sins, or as a Satan... whose temptation Barclay must reject." The novel "The Paper Men" received mixed reviews in both the UK and the US.
Throughout his career, Golding received mixed reviews from critics. For example, American critic Stanley Edgar Hyman believed that Golding "is the most interesting contemporary English writer." This opinion was shared by English novelist and critic V.S. Pritchett. At the same time, Frederick Karl criticized Golding for his "inability... to give intellectual substantiation to his themes" and for the "didactic tone in almost all his books." According to Karl, Golding's eccentric themes lack balance and maturity, which are indicative of literary craftsmanship.
Golding was elected to the Royal Society of Literature in 1955 and knighted in 1966. He currently resides with his wife in Wiltshire County near Salisbury, and has two children: son David and daughter Judith. In his youth, the writer was an avid sailor, and now he enjoys playing the piano, studying Greek, and reading literature on archaeology.
