714. Rites of Passage

Rites of Passage
William Golding
1980

Around 280 pages

Since Hemingway and Melville have exited the scene, we haven't had a lot of sea-faring stories, so I was happy to accompany Edmund Talbot on his nautical journey. This was an enjoyable novel and increased my respect for the breadth of Golding's work.

It's always fun to have a novel presented as a journal, although it's an outdated practice by this point on the List. Edmund shares his account of a six month voyage to Australia in the early 1900s. I don't really want to give anything else away here, but suffice to say the story deals with shame and the class system. 

Golding eases us into this narrative by starting with somewhat comical descriptions of the ship and its passengers, and then shifting into a more shocking tale. This tone change could have been too jarring in another writer's hands, so I was impressed by Golding's deftness here. And Edmund was a great choice for a narrator, as he begins the novel in a very stuffy, Eustace Scrubbs place and ends up somewhere entirely different. 

Edmund being our voice also prevented the novel from being heavily weighed down by nautical terms like other stories from this genre have been. Worth reading just to see how much more Golding has to offer than just Lord of the Flies.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Won the 1980 Booker Prize.

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