The Spire by William Golding

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There's never any doubt about the phallic symbolism of the spire – but there are variations in its meaning. At first it rises from the belly of the church as a fairly straightforward expression of Jocelin's pride and power. Yet the imagery becomes ever more dangerous and unpleasant. We see workmen waving models of it between their legs. It is the centre of the apparent rape of Goody Pangall. It then seems, for a while at least, to promise a kind of fertility, a hope of life and love, when Goody falls pregnant and has an adulterous affair with the master builder Roger Mason. But in this novel, such hopes breed death and madness. And afterwards, as the tower sways and looks set to fall, there is hopeless impotence. 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." 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. 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).

The Spire is really a story of overweening pride, megalomania, and the downfall that must follow. And, we wonder, just whose pride and downfall are we really talking about? My money is on Western civilization—at the time of its writing the world had recently completed a decade of Depression followed by a World War, the Vietnam was near on the horizon, and the cloud of Cold War hung over us all. Or … maybe its just about cathedral construction! It's beauty is that each of us will find something different. 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." This sensation is reinforced by the sudden appearance of Rachel, who suddenly for no reason begins to explain why she and Roger have no children: it turns out she laughed at the most inopportune moment, and Roger also could not help laughing. But then Jocelyn comes up with seditious thought: he realizes that Goody can keep Roger in the cathedral. At night, Joslin is tormented by a nightmare - it is an angel and the devil fighting for his soul. Spring is coming, and Jocelyn is again perked up. Once, when he entered the cathedral to take a look at the model of the spire, he witnesses the meeting of Pengall Goody's wife and Roger Mason. As if the abbot sees the invisible tent surrounding them, he understands the whole depth of their relationship. Disgust covers him, he sees dirt in everything ...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. Throughout the Dean's language is centred on glorifying the cathedral, but as the novel progresses it is clear that his motivations are more confused and complex. At one moment the Dean has a vision of his spire reaching up into the heavens casting an ever longer shadow across the countryside. Visible from further and further afield more distant travellers and traders turn their feet towards his cathedral. He sees the routes and roads shift to centre on to his town as the new spire becomes a major landmark. The workmen are referred to as " an army" and Jocelin is confronted numerous times by those who disagree with the disruption they cause. Pangall is their eventual sacrifice, buried "beneath the crossways" with mistletoe between his ribs. The mistletoe can be viewed as a metaphor in terms of horror and the word "obscene" occurs several times (the Druids' idea that the berries were the semen of the Gods may well contribute to Jocelin's revulsion). "The riotous confusion of its branches" is alarming as well as is Jocelin's disgust at the berry on his shoe. Golding weaves the mistletoe as a pagan symbol into the naturalistic treatment of it as a sign of a physical threat to the spire. Mistletoe grows on living oak trees – if the wood used in the building is unseasoned, the mistletoe will continue to grow on it, revealing a scientifically explicable danger. Lasând la o parte acest aspect, a fost o lectură interesantă. Autorul prezintă cazul unui preot care e chinuit de viziunea de a construi un turn uriaș de catedrală, imposibil de realizat. El se consideră "ales" de Dumnezeu pentru a duce la bun sfârșit construcția, pe care o vede ca un act al credinței. Distincția dintre obsesie personală și chemare divină poate părea inexistentă pentru un cititor neobișnuit cu "treburile religioase", cu toate că preotul nu afirmă niciodată adevăruri care stau la baza credinței creștine și e vădit obsedat de o clădire. Ce mi s-a părut interesant de observat a fost modul în care pentru a continua construcția clădirii bisericii, lasă a se prăbuși congregația (oamenii, adevărata biserică). Va afirma mai târziu "Am schimbat patru oameni pe un ciocan de piatră". Most of the length of the book we see the cathedral through Jocelin's eyes – and for him it is "the bible in stone", the realisation of an exalted vision, a tremendous prayer to his god made physical.

Benedict Cumberbatch records audiobook of William Golding novel". The Guardian. 6 August 2014 . Retrieved 25 September 2020. 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.Derken yine bir akşam bir fırtınada inşaat yüzündan her yer harap oluyor, azıcık yükselmiş olan kulede eğiliyor bükülüyor rüzgardan. Yıkılmakla kalmayacak neredeyse tarihi manastırı da yıkacak. Hatta fırtına da rahibin kendiside yaralanıyor. Ama yok. İnşaat gene de devam edecek. Usta işi bırakıyor işsiz kalma pahasına en sonunda. Hatta bir ayyaş oluyor. Kendini içkiye vuruyor. Rahip gidip başkasını buluyor. O inşaat devam edecek arkadaş. Tanrı öyle istedi.

After going to see Salisbury Cathedral and learning that Golding lived just down the street from it, near St. Anne's Gate, I was compelled to read this book in which Golding imagines the creation of the enormous spire atop the cathedral. In it, he has created is a brilliant, densely woven, intensely introspective study of obsession and faith, which pushes everyone around him to the very edge of endurance. Golding can scorch us by the immediate heat of his sentences. But sometimes he chooses the slower narrative burn. The first chapter begins with Jocelin holding the model of the spire and laughing: "He was laughing, chin up, and shaking his head. God the father was exploding in his face with a glory of sunlight through painted glass, a glory that moved with his movements to consume and exalt Abraham and Isaac and then God again. The tears of laughter in his eyes made additional spokes and wheels and rainbows. // Chin up, hands holding the model spire before him, eyes half closed; joy – "I've waited half my life for this day!"' Recent interest includes comparisons between The Spire and Brexit [18] and as an example of contemporary historical fiction. [19] Reception [ edit ] 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."But the steeple is not built with holy spirit - it is created by workers, simple, rude people, many of whom are not faith in faith. They get drunk, fight; they poison Pengall, the hereditary watchman of the cathedral, who asks the abbot to intercede for him. He does not see the point in building a spire, if for this he has to destroy the usual way of life. In response to his complaints, Jocelyn urges him to be patient and promises to speak with the master. Like Lord of the Flies, the only other of Golding's novels I've read, this is an intense study of extreme behavior, in this case of Dean Jocelin's obsession to build a spire atop the medieval cathedral over which he presides, that already is too heavy for its fragile and shifting foundation. Convinced that he has been chosen by God to lead this project, Jocelin sacrifices everything and everyone around him in his quest to complete the work before a growing array of opposing forces can stop it. 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.