Mark well: this style did not prevent Golding from winning numerous international literary prizes. Golding enjoys one of the finest reputations in English letters. Besides his audacious ideas, (their variety, their execution) his prose is considered one of his many strengths even taken at blank, face- value. This 'forceful' and torrential style of text has won him many fans. Lots of readers enjoy his narrative voice, no matter what type-of-scene Golding happens to be describing. But will everyone appreciate it? No. When people tell you it can't be done but you hold all the cards and can have them burned as heretics for denying your will, you MAY or MAY NOT descend into madness while trying to twist yourself into knots trying to make reality conform to your will.

A priest builds a spire on a cathedral according to a spiritual vision, believing it to be the calling of God and dependant upon his will and faith to bring it to completion, destroying his congregation, vocation and sanity in the process. 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." Nu știu exact care e miza autorului, nici nu prea mă interesează. Lectura a fost iar potrivită, având în vedere ultimele "bârfe". Nu condamn construcția de biserici și edificii:)). Poate că pe parcursul istoriei unii capi de biserică au fost mai preocupați de ziduri decât de oameni, fie și așa. Nu sunt oare atât de frumoase?! Bine că le-au făcut! Să nu ne plângem, se preocupă Hristos de noi și noi unii de alții. Kitabın sonuna doğru rahibin ustayı sıkıştırmaktan başka neler neler yaptığını da öğreniyoruz. Ama o da okuyanlara kalsın. Tabi Kulemizin akıbeti ne oldu? O da sürpriz. 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.As the spire of the cathedral rises, the state of Jocelin, its Dean, declines - a sort of inverse Dorian Grey. Jocelin is the spire, absorbed by it into its stone and timber. As the spire is supported by four pillars of stone, so Jocelin is supported by the Master Builder, the Verger and their wives. Jocelin finds more of himself in each higher level, as the pillars and his supports deteriorate below him. He is insane. And his insanity is contagious.

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". 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. Nothing William Golding wrote about is what Golding wrote about—he was a master of metaphor, and his 1964 novel The Spire is a good example (as was his masterful Lord of the Flies, still on many reading lists).I found it a challenging book to read yet a completely engrossing portrayal of obsession and mental degeneration The Spire by William Golding: Footnotes

Another metaphor for the spire that Golding proposes is Jocelin's late exclamation that 'It is like an appletree!' As he gazed out of his classroom window towards Salisbury Cathedral , the author William Golding considered the technical challenges of constructing its 404 foot spire. The result was his 1964 novel The Spire, an intense narrative about a man who believes he has a God given mission to build a magnificent spire on top of a cathedral, bringing glory to the town and its people closer to God. 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. A vision is a dangerous thing. Combined with religious faith, a vision can be lethal. And not just for the visionary; a religious visionary with authority is a civil menace. The visionary must repress everything not relevant to achieving his vision - family, friends, workmates, intimacy and contentment of any kind, and, especially, the idea of reality. The visionary causes organisational chaos and political discord, and is proud of it. The visionary knows only work, effort to achieve. Like the spire, he is otherwise empty, and acutely vulnerable to the world’s ‘weather.’ Vision demands the ultimate sacrifice of oneself as a prayer.Derken inşaat sırasında bir gün toprak kayması oluyor. 120m 'lik bir kule için kazılması gereken çoook derin temel kuyusuna birde çok yağmurlu bir kaç günün ardından su da dolunca toprak kayıveriyor. Kimseye birşey olmuyor. Tabi usta hemen rahibi getiriyor ve toprak kaymasının nedenlerini anlatıyor. Ama yok. (Sıkar gırtlağını gebertirsin yaaa) Manyak rahip gene ikna olmuyor. İnşaat devam edecek. 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." 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.