Books & Arts
109. William Golding
Not a one-trick pony
Sep 3rd 2009 From The Economist print edition

Dreaming of conch shellsWilliam Golding: The Man Who Wrote "Lord of the Flies". By John Carey. Faber and Faber 573 pages ￡25. Buy from Amazon.co.uk

109-1-503
A READER once complimented William Golding on his book, "The Lord of the Rings"a cruel twist for a man who is famous for just one book. The title of John Carey's biography acknowledges the problem that dogged Golding ever after the success of his 1954 novel, "Lord of the Flies". But this first authorised biography confirms Golding as a writer of range and power who deserves far wider recognition. Reading it has sent this reviewer back to "Pincher Martin", "The Inheritors" and his other books with a sense of revelation.
Golding's novels gain enormously from an understanding of his life. Their bare mythic quality, their dreamlike intensity, their bleak understanding of cruelty and humiliation, even their famous misogynyall these things have their origins there. Mr Carey has had access to the family's huge archive of previously unseen manuscripts (several of them outright masterpieces, he thinks) as well as stories, notes, poems, drafts and above all a 5,000-page journal that Golding kept every day for 22 years.
Born in Cornwall in 1911, Golding was raised in Marlborough, Wiltshire. His father, the son of a bootmaker, taught science at the local grammar school. Marlborough exemplified England's class system, for it lay in the shadow of Marlborough College, one of the nation's great public schools, a preserve of tradition and privilege. Golding himself attended the grammar school, and the social humiliation he felt as a childreinforced later at Oxford University, where he read sciencewas "as real as a wound".

A. 어휘
trick 재주, 곡예, 책략. pony 조랑말. “Lord of the Flies". 〈파리 大王〉.
compliment...on 에게 ...에 관해서 축사를 말하다. "The Lord of the Rings"〈반지의 제왕〉. cruel 잔인한. twist 왜곡, 혼돈. biography 傳記(전기).
acknowledge 인정하다. dog 따라다니다, 미행하다. authorised 권위 있는.
confirm 확인하다, 確定(확정)하다.
a writer of range and power 범위가 넓고 힘이 있는 작가.
deserve...을 받을 만한 자격이 있다. inheritor 계승자.
revelation 종교적 啓示(계시), 黙示(묵시). enormously 거대하게.
bare 꾸밈이 없는, 노골적인, 있는 그대로의. mythic 신화적인.
intensity 강렬함. bleak 쓸쓸한, 황량한. humiliation 치욕, 屈辱(굴욕).
misogyny 여자를 싫어하기. archive 공문서, 문서 보관소.
previously 이전에. manuscript 원고. masterpiece 걸작. draft 草稿(초고).
journal 日記(일기). bootmaker 구두장이. grammar school 영국 인문고등학교.
exemplify 例示(예시)하다. class system 계급제도.
college 어떤 특정 public school(사립학교)의 명칭. ex. Eton College.
Marlborough College 말보르 사립고등학교.
preserve 보존장소, 양어장, 禁獵地(금렵지), 영역. reinforce 강화하다.

B. 구문
- A READER once complimented . . . famous for just one book.
[언젠가 어느 독자가 William Golding에게 그의 소설 “반지의 제왕”에 대해서 讚辭(찬사)의 말을 하였다. 이것은 단 한 권의 소설로 유명하게 된 사람에게는 잔인한 착각의 말이었다.]

109-2-504
The boy was morbidly sensitive, with a hallucinatory imagination. The dark old Marlborough house backing on to a graveyard was a source of terror, particularly the cellar, which haunted his dreams all his life. This feeling for the unseen set him apart from his parents' rational, atheist, progressive outlook. He loved them, especially his father, a gifted and creative man. But their scepticism shrivelled him, as did their chilly inhibitions. By the time he was six, any budding friendships with the little girls at his dancing class were promptly nipped. Golding could remember his father touching him only twice in his life.
No wonder he developed odd notions about women (poor, soft, cleft creatures) or that he grew inward and self-examining. Understanding his "muddy mind", as he once called it, became a guiding principle, his job as a writer. The schoolboys he taught before and after the second world war, and the war itself, cast a blight on his view of humanity. But he firmly believed that "Lord of the Flies" grew out of the knowledge of his own cruelty: "I have always understood the Nazis", he wrote, "because I am of that sort by nature."
Mr Carey's biography doesn󰡑t mince matters. Golding had a bullying streak and he drank too much. But he was always remorseful, genuinely modest and witty at his own expense. He had many friends and vivid passions: for music, sailing and chess, for ancient Greek and Greece, for composing Latin verse and raising orchids. He knew about ecology before most people, and his friend James Lovelock adopted the goddess Gaia at his suggestion.

A. 어휘
morbidly 병적일 만큼, 음울하게. sensitive 예민한. hallucinatory 환각적인.
house 학교 건물. backing on to ...에 등을 맞대고 있는. graveyard 묘지.
cellar 지하실, 지하묘지. haunt 생각 따위가 끊임없이 붙어 다니다.
the unseen 눈에 보이지 않는 것. rational 합리적인, 이성적인.
atheist 무신론자. outlook 세계관. gifted 천부의 재능이 있는.
scepticism 종교적 懷疑主義(회의주의), 의심. shrivel 시들게
chilly 차가운. inhibition 억제, 억압. bud 싹이 트다. promptly 즉시.
nip 저지하다, 잘라 버리다, 꼬집다. odd 이상한. notion 생각.
cleft 갈라진. cleave-cleft-cleft 갈라지다. muddy 맑지 못한, 우중충한.
blight 어두운 그림자, 식물이 말라죽는 병. sort 종류.
by nature 천성적으로. biography 傳記(전기).
mince 말을 삼가서 하다, 고기를 잘게 썰다. bully 위협하다, 뻐기다, 거만하게 굴다.
streak 기질, 경향, 줄무늬, 광선. remorseful 후회하고 있는.
genuinely 진실로, 순수하게. modest 겸손한, 허식이 없는.
at his own expense 자기를 희생시켜서. vivid 강렬한, 생생한, 潑剌(발랄)한.
ancient Greek 고대 그리스어. verse 詩, 시의 한 행. orchid 난초.
ecology 생태학. adopt 양자(양녀)로 삼다, 채택하다.
Gaia 大地(대지)의 여신(그리스 신화).