Golding, William (Vol. 17) - P. N. Furbank

P. N. FURBANK

The leading proposition in Golding's mind as a writer, endorsed alike by Freud and Christian theology, is that each of us recapitulates the history of the race. For Golding, the ink is not yet dry on the social contract. Civilisation, like Jocelin's spire rests on foundations still writhing like hell-mouth. This being his bent, his interests naturally concentrate on boyhood—that is, on the embryonic stage of the civilised human: for there animism and polytheism, matriarchy and the primal horde, are re-experienced one by one—as is the Fall, if you believe in the Fall. But indeed, for good or evil, Golding is somewhat tied as a writer to boyhood, for some imaginative block prevents him from handling adult life with confidence. With great tact and intelligence, he has largely accepted the limitation, which is also a stimulus. He began writing in the era of Camus, Sartre and Orwell, a classic age for the fable, and his allegories are now part of the...

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