KEY READS: BOOKSTHAT MATTERED 23. William Golding


The Spire, Faber & Faber, 1964 David Heath


what he thought it was about.We do know that, in the years before and after his wartime service in the Royal Navy, he was a teacher at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury, and it was during this time that he wrote his first four novels. Though Golding had ceased to be a teacher by the


T


his is not a book that gives up its meaning easily. First published in 1964, in the days when authors did not give such ready access to their intentions as is perhaps the normtoday,William Golding, as far as I know, never said


Above, Salisbury Cathedral’s medieval spire and its supporting tower weigh 6,500 tons. At 404ft it is the tallest in Britain. Above left,William Golding didn’t explicitly identify Salisbury as the inspiration for his 1964 novel (first edition, above right), but it has always been taken as such


time he wrote “The Spire”, it is often repeated that this is the novel about the building of the spire at Salisbury Cathedral. I would guess that countless readers have started to read it on this basis – but I would also guess thatmany have finished it, if they get that far, wondering if that is really what it was about. Dean Jocelin, the protagonist through whose


impressions we hear the story, is certainly what we would now call an unreliable witness. Salisbury is nevermentioned by name, but


readers with a knowledge of its plan will recognise the sort of cathedral in which the fictional story takes place. Critically, they will understand the location of the plumbery, the gap between the north walk of the cloisters and the south wall of the south nave aisle, which at Salisbury is now roofed over with an elegant glass roof by Michael Drury, and which contains amodern café, but which in the novel is still a builder's yard, and indeed with some


Cornerstone, Vol 32, No 3 2011 97


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LAURENCEWEEDY


COURTESY FABER & FABER


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