Posted on 08/15/2009 9:40:08 PM PDT by Steelfish
From The Sunday Times August 16, 2009
Author William Golding attacked girl of 15
WILLIAM GOLDING, the author of Lord of the Flies, the allegorical novel about childhood, admitted that he had once tried to rape a girl.
He confessed to the incident in an unpublished memoir which he wrote for his wife in an effort to explain how his own “monstrous” character had developed.
The attack, on a 15-year-old named Dora, is among the revelations about the Nobel prize-winning novelist in a new biography. It also turns out that when he was a school-teacher, Golding would pitch the boys in his care against each other in a real-life forerunner of his famous work.
John Carey, the literary critic and an emeritus professor of English literature at Oxford, has had access to the previously unseen archive of Golding, who died in his native Cornwall in 1993, aged 81. It comprises three unpublished novels, two autobiographical works and a journal of 2m words written over 20 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk ...
That’s disturbing to say the least.
His description doesn’t sound like attempted rape to me. Sounds like normal, clumsy teenagers at awkward play.
What is it with these Nobel prize winners?
I am not sure it was that innocent, but it is somewhat unclear. He appears to be a man who wiht a little bit of awareness of grave, forgiveness and true love would have been trasnformed. Too bad because Lord of the Flies is a great one.
You are forbidden from further posts until Piggy passes you the conch.
Lord of the Flies == Beelzebub
Yes. She didn't get it when she didn't want it. She got it when she wanted it. And she played a joke on him in the bargain!
I always thought "Lord Of The Flies" was an allegory for the public school system (aka government schools).
Turns out I was right on the money.
Life imitates art, imitates life.
I’m glad I read the article, he sounds like a decent fellow that was too hard on himself.
If anyone is interested in the movie ‘Lord of the Flies’, the ‘Criterion Collection’ cleaned up the 1963 movie and it is supposed to be of very good visual quality now. Here is a review of the 2000 remastered version of the 1963 copy.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews8/lordoftheflies.htm
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