Book Review: THE SPIRE by William Golding

The Spire by William Golding
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I put this book down (after devouring it over a prolonged breakfast the day before a national election), I could only breathlessly mutter one word, uttered with both layers of meaning, sacred and profane: "Holy."

This kind of glorious and ambiguous writing is what English teachers and book clubs live to dissect. It can be read as a tribute to the miracles wrought by vision and faith, but can also be a warning against religious fanaticism blind to common sense.

Since it's May 8, 2022, the day before history is to be made in my country, of course I read it in a highly charged political light. What happens when a man believes himself chosen by God to unite people under his vision, that he himself is magnificently underqualified and unprepared for? What happens when those under him obey out of fear (because the book is, after all, set in the Middle Ages) because of the protection of his rank?

Let's examine the physics. A mere 4 feet of foundation. A cathedral whose very existence on such a flimsy foundation is already a miracle unto itself. But then the dean wishes to add a tower and a 400-foot high spire, amounting to an additional 6500 tons of weight!!!

Golding's words transport us into his own clear vision of what it's like to be inside a church where pillars bend under enormous weight, where workmen fall and stones plummet as the earth moves, as the stones sing in agony.

How one interprets this book reveals much about the character of the reader. The faithful will cry out, "But look at Golding's inspiration, Salisbury Church, and how it still stands 764 years later through God's grace!" Realists will point out man's genius behind Early English Gothic architecture.

Golding himself wrote: "What holds it up? I? The nail? Does she? Do you?" and also reminds us that "Life itself is a rickety building." Much like democracy and its institutions.

Not all visions, Golding reminds us, are Heavenly in nature. And madness is contagious.



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