Customer Reviews

The Scorpion God

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Not quite three short novels, but three long stories - "The Scorpion God", set in ancient Egypt; "Clonk Clonk", set in Africa somewhere around the Dawn of Man; and "Envoy Extraordinary", set during the late Roman Empire. All are distinguished by Golding's glorious if occasionally difficult style - it's sometimes hard to discern precisely what is going on, but that's because the author is trying to project you into the consciousness of people who are fundamentally different from you - pre-Christian, pre-industrial, pre-rational and in one case prehistoric. All three stories deal with the emergence of new forms of consciousness and hence, new forms of society - in the first, we see the vague beginnings of the Pharaohs; in the second, perhaps, the beginning of the sex war; in the third (in many ways the least difficult of the three) the brilliantly ironic fate of a few ideas which were centuries, not years, before their time. In "Envoy Extraordinary" only - the story set closest to modern times - the attempted change of consciousness does not succeed, is deliberately repressed - or rather, removed until later. There's a real sting in this tale, just as logical, just as inevitable and far less predictable than the ending of Golding's excellent Pincher Martin; the barbs in "Clonk Clonk" and "The Scorpion God" are a bit more subtle and may take longer to sink in, but you'll feel them all right.

Three short stories set in ancient Egypt,Rome and stoneage times all exploring mans ambivilent relatoinship with nature;the rational and reasoning of man always being repressed by our over weening need for rituals and superstitious explanations.
Each tale needs to be read in one sitting for the whole effect to hit;Golding is not the sort of writer where you can read a couple of pages then go back to later. His writing has a cumulative effect, and his anthropological observations are acute.
My particular favourite was 'Clonk Clonk' as it was very much in the vein of (to me) his greatest work,'The Inheritors'.

Three different stories in three different ages. They are all about an individual in a moral conflict with society or with its rulers. In the novels written by William Golding -from "Lord of the flies" to "The Double Tongue"- there is always a conflict with any form of society, even the most primitive and even among children ('Lord of the Flies').

This three short novels set in varying places and times exhibit the manifold talents of a writer who has been called the most original and imaginative of his generation. The title piece depicts a challenge to primal authority as the god-ruler of an ancient civilization lingers near death. "Clonk Clonk" is a convincing account of a crippled youth's triumph over his tormentors in a primitive society. "Envoy Extraordinary" is a tale of Imperial Rome and of the poetic illegitimate son of the emperor, whom the emperor loves more than he does his own arrogant, loutish heir.

This is Golding at his best

.Lord of the Flies (50th Anniversary Edition)The Double Tongue