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Free Fall
by William Golding
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Mariner Books (2003-03-17)
ISBN: 0156028239
EAN: 9780156028233
Dewey Decimal #: 813
Binding/Media: Paperback - 264 pages
Edition: 6th THUS
SKU: 102009-0480
Condition: New
Comments: 0156028239 New, never read, may have minor wear on cover.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
"I was standing up, pressed back against the wall, trying not to breathe. I got there in the one movement my body made. My body had many hairs on legs and belly and chest and head, and each had its own life; each inherited a hundred thousand years of loathing and fear for things that scuttle or slide or crawl." from Free Fall
Sammy Mountjoy, artist, rises from poverty and an obscure birth to see his pictures hung in the Tate Gallery. Swept into World War II, he is taken as a prisoner-of-war, threatened with torture, then locked in a cell of total darkness to wait. He emerges from his cell like Lazarus from the tomb, seeing infinity in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour. Transfigured by his ordeal, he begins to realize what man can be and what he has gradually made of himself through his own choices. He determines to find the exact point at which the accumulated weight of those choices has deprived him of free will.
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Customer Reviews
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The Visionary, Inspiration, Art, Pain, Defiining Existence
Rating  (5)
Date: 2009-12-25
The aesthetic of Free Fall is akin to painting and that is a stroke of brilliance. The lack of judgment is what prevents the madness and uncleanliness of the book from being ugly. The imperfections are treated with such care and self-love that they become beautiful. I believe that Golding was extremely good at accessing his past as a vital source of inspiration, and he here re-enters various cognitive states. As with any human, the illusion wears and a weightier sensibility takes over. Yet it is obvious that this character, like Golding, has what would now be termed a mental illness. The seriousness of such conditions shouldn't be taken lightly, and even Golding's shouldn't be seen in a glamorous light, by which I mean paying mind only to this novel as, e.g., his, most autobiographical. Darkness Visible reveals the very depths of horror, and yes Golding new such delusions and madness. He was very brave to deal with those experiences in writing. A demon is not scary for what it will do to you, but for what it means about you; thus the horror. It's implicit in Golding's writing as it is in Dostoyevsy's. However, I believe this book is extraordinary in its redemptive power. Here Golding shows something that I know very well. Suffering and madness are not a source of creativity (As the wives' tale goes), yet, when spiritual, they are often caused by true visionary experience. It is also true that some people seek the visionary and get it-get it and a heavy dose. Let's just say if it gets too intense, you can't handle or interpret it--not until the dust settles anyhow. You might get 'blinded' in the middle. Yet, on the other side, when the suffering, confusion and the overwhelming pain of light passes, the reward is the knowledge of the initiate, esoterica, and finally, the song of the muses. If the visionary experience were to die, the pain would with it, but then, the doorway to the invisible would close, too.
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One of the MUST READ books
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-11-08
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Unquestionably one of the most beautiful books even written. There is nothing else to add.
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truly poetic writing
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-10-09
I am still under the spell of enchantment of this book. I picked it up by chance at a used-book store going out of business just because I had so enjoyed Lord of the Flies in high school. I don't think I have ever read anything that impacted me so much as the simplicity and painful beauty in Golding's use of the language. This is a book to read again and savour. I'm surprised there is not more literary criticism of it to be found on the web. I agree with the reviewer who states that the last line is the book is totally surprising. I'm not sure yet that I understand it.
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Free Fall
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-04-21
This book doesn't need to be introduced, as well as its writer, Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, Booker Prize literature winner, one of my favorite writters. I bought this book for my son along with "Inheritors" and hope he will love them as much as I do.
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. . . turning freedom outside-in . . .
Rating (5)
Date: 2000-11-02
5 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
Here is a mind-boggler of literary art. Golding takes you in--in through the portals of the main character's mind. And then the true adventure begins. This is an exploration on the theme of freedom lost, which goes into an existential search, taking you through a labyrinth of broodings and memories deep, deep within the psyche, and in the end you (together with the protagonist) will experience something stirring and substantial. It is the turning of freedom outside-in, and in and in and in, and then out again. Just read one chapter. That's all it will take to enter uncharted territory.
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