The Spire: With an introduction by John Mullan

Product Information

Miller, Jeanne C. "ELUSIVE AND OBSCURE." The Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 40, no. 4, 1964, pp. 668–671. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26444912. Accessed 16 Apr. 2020. The prose is dense and disorientated, flashing between coherent thought, delirium, reality, reverie and nightmare. Certain themes and motifs are repeated throughout some of which hints at an understated, repressed sexuality. There is often reference in the narrative to previous scenes and conversations that were either only partially, or just inadequately depicted in the first instance, meaning that at times the story loses coherency, even descending into abject nonsense. This may be an attempt to portray the thin line between revelation and delusion existentially? The Spire is distinctly allegorical and there are many references to how the grand medieval cathedral resembles a human body both in structure & function. Workers curse & chant bawdy songs, oblivious to the building's continuing function as a place of worship & one even conducts a sexual liaison within the walls. Another places the model for the spire between his legs to taunt Pangall, the much-beleaguered caretaker of the cathedral, someone whose red-haired wife Goody, becomes the object of continuing lust on the part of the master builder, while also infecting the mind & dreams of Dean Jocelin. For every foot a spire goes up above the church, an increased support system must be put in place below ground. And for every hope that the raising of a monumental steeple will glorify God by reaching toward heaven, there is corresponding, antithetical human depravity occurring below. Day & night, acts of worship went on in the stink & the half dark, where the candles illuminated nothing but close haloes of vapor; and the voices rose, in fear of age & death, in fear of weight & dimension, in fear of darkness & a universe without hope. "Lord, let our cry come unto thee!" There was a rumor of plague in the city. The number of faces--the strained, silent, shining eyed faces before the light that betoken the Host--increased to a crowd. If there was a Jocelin, and his spire fell, it becomes something else. All that incredible effort was for something – but left nothing, Or in fact, less than nothing, given the financial, physical and mental toll it took on everyone connected to its construction.

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. 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. However, as the spire is gradually erected, a hole is dug that seems to point to the fragility of the cathedral's underpinnings, an insufficiency of the original beams, also revealing an array of crawling specimens below ground that make the place resemble a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. The author's verbal imagery is often stunning and the interplay between good & evil is quite reminiscent of The Lord of the Flies, Golding's best-known work.Craven, Peter (23 January 2015). "Benedict Cumberbatch animates William Golding's symbolistic novel The Spire". The Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 25 September 2020. On the surface, the plot looks very simple. Nepotism plays a main role in placing a less qualified person as a Dean of a Cathedral. The Dean considers it as his Call. Later as a Dean he has a vision and wants to transform the vision into a reality by building a spire to the cathedral. This is an impossible undertaking for the Cathedral is on a marshy land and does not have the foundation necessary to hold a spire of 400 feet. Everyone is against. The Deans considers it his Call and goes ahead. This foolish attempt is always referred to as Dean's Folly. We can't be sure they are referring to Jocelin, except for the word "but" which begins this sentence: "But when the two deacons saw the dean looming over them, they fell to their knees." Carey, Professor John (2009). William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies . London: Faber and Faber Limited. ISBN 978-0-571-23163-8. He opened his eyes and found that he was looking away from the tower and out into the world.... He could see over the bending workmen ... the valleys of the three rivers that met by the cathedral close opened themselves up.... You could see that all those places which had been separate to feet and only joined by an act of reason were indeed part of a whole.

Jocelin ceases to care. He neglects his religious duties and stops praying. All his waking hours are devoted to spurring the workmen on to build higher and higher, even climbing up the scaffolding himself to help their endeavours. Jocelin may feel he is "comforted" by an angel – but we can't help but feel that the angel is a sign of his madness, or, in fact, a devil. Jocelin's act of faith is folly.urn:lcp:spire0000gold_n6f6:epub:fc2d5db0-824c-48a2-b99e-a4062f6bd9c2 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier spire0000gold_n6f6 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t37186j2s Invoice 1652 Isbn 0571064922 Benedict Cumberbatch records audiobook of William Golding novel". The Guardian. 6 August 2014 . Retrieved 25 September 2020. Beyond Mantel: the historical novels everyone must read". The Guardian. 29 February 2020 . Retrieved 25 September 2020. Interesting that again this presumably refers to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that bore the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden in Genesis. The 'apple' consumed by Eve introduced mankind to an inclination for evil. Other significant trees of the New Testament – the fig tree that Jesus curses or the sycamore that Zaccheus, the tax collector, climbs into are not within the scope of Jocelin's vision." But, 'The Spire' is much less savory. It really has no appealing characters at all. Every character in the story is rather slimy and vile. There's just no one to really admire in this tale. It's a struggle to 'care deeply about' these figures. And Golding's unforgiving style doesn't help any.