The Spire by William Golding

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Kule; evet bir Sineklerin Tanrısı değil. Ancak şu takıntıdan kurtulalım artık. Bu başka bir roman. (Nasıl da kendi takıntımı sizlere mal ettim ama:) Second readings are dangerous enterprises. Anything can happen. When I first read this novel, I thought the Spire, that gives the name to the title, stood defiantly by the end of the book. My attention was focused on the descriptions of how architects and builders managed to pull up the complex architectural structures that miraculously were built during the Middle Ages. I did not pay too much attention to the writing. At the time, my English did not have strong foundations, and it was as much a guess-work as the art & craft of the medieval masons. Some readers today may find it daunting; especially here in this strange 'religious novel' which has a lot of content which isn't particularly appealing. Muscular prose was adequate to Golding's purpose in 'The Inheritors' (that tale describes neanderthal men). It was adroit in 'Lord of the Flies' (a band of boys reverting to primitivism). Both these stories deal with 'extreme' situations and rough-hewn prose didn't hinder Golding at all in his exploration of either of his themes there. Both are still enjoyable readings experiences. As Golding lived in Salisbury for several years, the reader easily thinks of Salisbury Spire being in the author’s mind when he worked on the scaffolding of his book. But any Spire would do. One can also forget about spires since any other building, or enterprise, could play the role. For what this novel does is edify the process through which a fixation can absorb one’s mind. Firm obsessions can dissolve uneasily as perceptions shift and flounder. And Golding’s equivocal language captures splendidly the way a fleeting chimera can take over one’s life and one’s will until it can either triumph or destroy.

In this case, not a pillar, exactly, but a nose: "He stood, smiling round his nose, head up …", "so Jocelin felt a smile bend the seams of his own face as he looked round his nose at him." The nose stands for the obstacle of the self. stars out of 5. Perhaps it is not the most engaging story, but for me it marks my very first exposure to true literary art and the seed from which my pretentious reading habit grew. Golding respects the way medieval individuals actually might have thought, felt, or spoken in their world --not in ours. He 'keeps faith' with them; even though this renders them awkward and unfamiliar to our eyes and ears. It is difficult material; but Golding conquered it in the writing and you must conquer it in the reading. That is the arrangement here. You keep up with him, rather than him pandering to you. It's refreshing in that respect.Kitabın sonuna doğru rahibin ustayı sıkıştırmaktan başka neler neler yaptığını da öğreniyoruz. Ama o da okuyanlara kalsın. Tabi Kulemizin akıbeti ne oldu? O da sürpriz. In other words, it was kind of a mixed bag for me. If I read it like a classic novel in its own right, I'd still be trying to compare it to the better Pillars of Earth or even a bit of Thornbirds, but in the end, it just felt like a criticism of the *many* people who rationalize their way into making everyone's lives a living hell. The more I think about this brilliant novel the more it opens up questions. The ambiguity that I am sure has frustrated many a reader is, for me, the core of its power and strength as a work of literature." Or, in his perhaps more realistic moments, it is the realisation of Jocelin's extraordinary "will". It is what he has been able to force on the world through the power of his mind. It is a testament – as Jocelin himself frequently urges those around him to see it – to the power of faith.

Religious imagery is used towards the end of the novel, where Jocelin lies dying. Jocelin declares "it's like the apple-tree!", making a reference to the Garden of Eden and Humanity's first sin of temptation but also perhaps the pagan ideas that have been constantly threaded into Jocelin's mind as he spends more and more time up in the Spire, raised above the ground (and further away from his church and his role as God's voice on earth). Nothing William Golding wrote about is what Golding wrote about—he was a master of metaphor, and his 1964 novel The Spire is a good example (as was his masterful Lord of the Flies, still on many reading lists).

Father Adam is dubbed by Jocelin as " Father Anonymous", indicating Jocelin's feelings of superiority. Until the end of the novel, when Father Adam becomes Jocelin's caretaker, he is largely a minor character who is surprised by how Jocelin was never taught to pray, doing his best to help him to heaven. All this affirms the views expressed above that The Spire is, among other things, about the creation of something from nothing: buildings from empty space, gods from human needs, and books from thoughts. It's a fascinating, invigorating and challenging read." I've tended to read Jocelin's folly as part of a profoundly human condition – the search for meaning, the construction of belief, even as exemplar of the novelist's ability to invent and elaborate. Nailing The Spire to Christianity works, but it limits or rather narrows our understanding of Art's capacity." Recent interest includes comparisons between The Spire and Brexit [18] and as an example of contemporary historical fiction. [19] Reception [ edit ]

As the spire of the cathedral rises, the state of Jocelin, its Dean, declines - a sort of inverse Dorian Grey. Jocelin is the spire, absorbed by it into its stone and timber. As the spire is supported by four pillars of stone, so Jocelin is supported by the Master Builder, the Verger and their wives. Jocelin finds more of himself in each higher level, as the pillars and his supports deteriorate below him. He is insane. And his insanity is contagious. Jocelyn is seriously ill. He learns from Adam's father that the work to build the spire is ongoing, that Goody is not showing up anywhere, and Pengall has escaped. Having hardly risen from bed, Jocelyn goes to the cathedral, feeling that he is losing his mind; he laughs with a strange, shrill laugh. Now he sees his mission in direct participation in the construction. From the artisans, he learns that Goody, before this childless, is expecting a child. He also reveals that Roger the Mason is afraid of heights, but overcomes fear and that he is still building against his will. In word and deed, supporting the master, Jocelyn forces him to build a spire.T he Spire was published in 1964. The Dean of a cathedral, Jocelin, wants to add a spire to the building, which has no foundations and is therefore a kind of miracle already. The novel is about the second, highly imperfect miracle, the erection of the spire – and the cost, which is financial, physical and spiritual. And it is about creative realisation, bringing the impossible into being. William Golding wrote the first draft of The Spire in 14 days – itself a kind of miracle. The concept of a cathedral spire piercing the sky as a spiritual as well an architectural statement is a metaphor of longstanding. I thought of the line from Robert Browning's poem, "A man's reach should extend his grasp, or what is a heaven for?" With William Golding's The Spire, there seems irretrievable space between the reach & the grasp, an obsessive descent rather than an uplifted "prayer in stone". That said, the telling of this tale is at times magical but almost always frustratingly dark & cheerless. I grasp why a few reviewers found the novel disappointing & even confounding to read but there is also ample reward for the reader's perseverance with this & other Golding novels. He goes to Roger the Mason. That is drunk. He cannot forgive Jocelyn for being stronger; curses the steeple in every possible way. Jocelyn apologizes to him: after all, he “believed that he was doing a great thing, but it turned out that he only brought death to people and sowed hatred.” It turns out that Pangall died at the hands of Roger. Jocelyn blames himself for having arranged Pangall’s marriage with Goody. He seemed to have sacrificed her - he killed her ... Roger can not listen to the revelations of the abbot and drives him away. Indeed, because of Jocelyn, who broke his will, he lost Goody, work, artisans. And what is the answer to this question? The sculptor shakes his head. "Humming in the throat, headshake, doglike, eager eyes." Is the dumb sculptor denying that Jocelin's humility is vulnerable? Or is he denying that he ever thought of portraying Jocelin as an angel in the first place? Jocelin's extrapolation is, after all, based on a gesture. As noted, removed as I am from the internet, I have no idea how much of The Spire is based on real events, how much of Jocelin's erection was actually built and how much remains. I do know there's still a spire on Salibsury cathedral. But I don't know if this was the one Jocelin is supposed to have built. Whether the one Jocelin built fell down and the current one replaced it. Or whether there was no Jocelin, there were no worries about the depths of the foundations and no drama about the construction.