"I'm against the picture of the artist as the starry-eyed visionary not really in control or knowing what he does. I think I'd almost prefer the word 'craftsman.' He's like one of the old-fashioned shipbuilders, who conceived the boat in their mind and then, after that, touched every single piece that went into the boat. They were in complete control; they knew it inch by inch, and I think the novelist is very much like that."
"Our humanity rests in the capacity to make value judgments, unscientific assessments, the power to decide that this is right, that wrong, this ugly, that beautiful this just, that unjust."
Golding's father was a schoolmaster, his mother a suffragette. At the age of 12, he began writing a 12-volume epic novel that began, "I was born in the Duchy of Cornwall on the eleventh of October, 1792, of rich but honest parents." Upon graduating from Oxford, Golding taught English and philosophy at a school in Salisbury until, when World War II began, he served in the navy as a rocket ship commander. LORD OF THE FLIES, his first published novel, appeared in 1954 after being rejected by 21 pu more...
Golding's father was a schoolmaster, his mother a suffragette. At the age of 12, he began writing a 12-volume epic novel that began, "I was born in the Duchy of Cornwall on the eleventh of October, 1792, of rich but honest parents." Upon graduating from Oxford, Golding taught English and philosophy at a school in Salisbury until, when World War II began, he served in the navy as a rocket ship commander. LORD OF THE FLIES, his first published novel, appeared in 1954 after being rejected by 21 publishers; Golding was 45. Thereafter, he published five novels in 10 years, to great critical and popular acclaim; then, for 15 years, he published very little, and nothing of significance, until DARKNESS VISIBLE (1979) and RITES OF PASSAGE (1980) restored his reputation. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1983. In 1961, he came to the States spent a year as writer-in-residence at Hollins College. Golding was also an accomplished musician, playing the piano, violin, viola, cello, and oboe. He was knighted in 1988.less...
hated it