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I've Come Across A Novel Called The Palm-wine Drinkard, By The Nigerian Writer Amos Tutuola, That Is Really Remarkable Because It Is A Kind Of Fantasy Of West African Mythology All Told In West African English Which, Of Course, Is Not The Same As Standard English.

-William Golding

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I've Come Across A

William Golding

...

I've Come Across A Novel Called The Palm-wine Drinkard, By The Nigerian Writer Amos Tutuola, That Is Really Remarkable Because It Is A Kind Of Fantasy Of West African Mythology All Told In West African English Which, Of Course, Is Not The Same As Standard English.

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Graham Greene At 82 Years Old Was Still Writing, And I Don't Think Anyone Can Deny The Force, The Expertise, And The Unique Quality Of His Writing, If You Take His Complete Oeuvre.

They Walked Along, Two Continents Of Experience And Feeling Unable To Communicate.

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I Am Not A Theologian Or A Philosopher. I Am A Story Teller.

We've Got To Have Rules And Obey Them. After All, We're Not Savages. We're English, And The English Are Best At Everything.

The Thing Is - Fear Can't Hurt You Any More Than A Dream.

It Is At Least Scientifically Respectable To Postulate That At The Centre Of A Black Hole The Laws Of Nature No Longer Apply. Since Most Scientists Are Just A Bit Religious And Most Religious Are Seldom Wholly Unscientific We Find Humanity In A Comical Position. His Scientific Intellect Believes In The Possibility Of Miracles Inside A Black Hole While His Religious Intellect Believes In Them Outside It.

What Are We? Humans? Or Animals? Or Savages?

The Greatest Ideas Are The Simplest.

Before The Second World War I Believed In The Perfectibility Of Social Man; That A Correct Structure Of Society Would Produce Goodwill; And That Therefore You Could Remove All Social Ills By A Reorganisation Of Society. .... But After The War I Did Not Because I Was Unable To. I Had Discovered What One Man Could Do To Another... I Must Say That Anyone Who Moved Through Those Years Without Understanding That Man Produces Evil As A Bee Produces Honey, Must Have Been Blind Or Wrong In The Head...

I Also Know Patrick White In Australia, Both Personally And As A Writer, And Salman Rushdie In India.

Sleep Is When All The Unsorted Stuff Comes Flying Out As From A Dustbin Upset In A High Wind.

Only One Novel Is A Novel: That Is A Successful Novel.

The Man Who Tells The Tale If He Has A Tale Worth Telling Will Know Exactly What He Is About And This Business Of The Artist As A Sort Of Starry-eyed Inspired Creature, Dancing Along, With His Feet Two Or Three Feet Above The Surface Of The Earth, Not Really Knowing What Sort Of Prints He's Leaving Behind Him, Is Nothing Like The Truth.

Together, Joined In Effort By The Burden, They Staggered Up The Last Steep Of The Mountain. Together, They Chanted One! Two! Three! And Crashed The Log On To The Great Pile. Then They Stepped Back, Laughing With Triumphant Pleasure.

The Greatest Pleasure Is Not - Say - Sex Or Geometry. It Is Just Understanding. And If You Can Get People To Understand Their Own Humanity - Well, That's The Job Of The Writer.

What Kind Of Human Person Has A Favorite Eraser?

One Thing Should Be Put Firmly. Where People Have Commented On That Novel [the Paper Men], They Generally Criticize The Poor Academic, Rick L. Tucker, Who Is Savaged By The Author, Wilfred Barclay. I Don't Think People Have Noticed That I Have Been Far Ruder About Barclay Than I Have Been About Tucker. Tucker Is A Fool, But Barclay Is A Swine. The Author Really Gets His Come-uppance.

I Hope My Books Make Statements About Our General Condition.

The Mask Was A Thing On It's Own, Behind Which Jack Hid, Liberated From Shame And Self-conciousness.

Serve You Right If Something Did Get You, You Useless Lot Of Cry-babies!

I Suppose I'd Have To Say That My Favourite Author Is Homer. After Homer's Ilaid, I'd Name The Odyssey, And Then I'd Mention A Number Of Plays Of Euripides.

Philosophy And Religion-what Are They When The Wind Blows And The Water Gets Up In Lumps?

The Rules!" Shouted Ralph, "you're Breaking The Rules!" "who Cares?

Utopias Are Presented For Our Inspection As A Critique Of The Human State. If They Are To Be Treated As Anything But Trivial Exercises Of The Imagination. I Suggest There Is A Simple Test We Can Apply. We Must Forget The Whole Paraphernalia Of Social Description, Demonstration, Expostulation, Approbation, Condemnation. We Have To Say To Ourselves, How Would I Myself Live In This Proposed Society? How Long Would It Be Before I Went Stark Staring Mad?

If I Blow The Conch And They Don't Come Back; Then We've Had It. We Shan't Keep The Fire Going. We'll Be Like Animals. We'll Never Be Rescued." "if You Don't Blow, We'll Soon Be Animals Anyway.

But Forgiveness Must Not Only Be Given But Received Also.

When You Take A Child Who's Hollering Like Hell, Sit Him On Your Knee, And Say "once Upon A Time", You Stop Him Hollering. As Long As You Go On Telling Him A Story, He Will Listen. Novelists Who Neglect This Fundamental Effect Do So At Their Peril. They Become What Is Known As The Experimental Novelist, And An Experimental Novel Is Not Really A Novel At All.

Once Upon A Time

I Am By Nature An Optimist And By Intellectual Conviction A Pessimist.

The Navy's A Very Gentlemanly Business. You Fire At The Horizon To Sink A Ship And Then You Pull People Out Of The Water And Say, 'frightfully Sorry, Old Chap.'

Are We Savages Or What?

I Mean, If We're Concerned Genuinely With Writing, I Think We Probably Get On With Our Work. I Think This Is Very True Of English Writers, But Perhaps Not So True Of French Writers, Who Seem To Read Each Other Passionately, Extensively, And Endlessly, And Who Then Talk About It To Each Other - Which Is Splendid.

Malcolm Bradbury Made The Point, And I Don't Know Whether It's A Valid One Or Not, That The Real English At The Moment Is Not The English Spoken In England Or In America Or Even In Canada Or Australia Or New Zealand. The Real English Is The English Which Is A Second Language, So That It's Rather Like Latin In The Days Of The Roman Empire When People Had Their Own Languages, But Had Latin In Order To Communicate.

I Play The Piano Passionately And Inaccurately. Indeed, I Worked Out The Other Day That Of My Seventy-five Years; I Have Spent At Least One Year Sitting On A Piano Stool.

Art Is Partly Communication, But Only Partly. The Rest Is Discovery.

The Novel Is Very Much Alive, Indeed. In Toronto At The Sixth Annual International Festival Of Authors (october 1985) I Listened To Novelists By The Dozen.

Simon Became Inarticulate In His Effort To Express Mankind's Essential Illness.

There Is, They Say, No Fool Like An Old Fool.

Kill The Pig. Cut Her Throat. Spill Her Blood.

People Don't Help Much.

I Have A Confession To Make. The Love Affair Of My Life Has Been With The Greek Language. I Have Now Reached The Age When It Has Occurred To Me That I May Have Read Some Books For The Last Time. I Suddenly Thought That There Are Books I Cannot Bear Not To Read Again Before I Die. One That Stands Out A Mile Is Homer's Iliad.

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The Candle-buds Opened Their Wide White Flowers....their Scent Spilled Out Into The Air And Took Possession Of The Island.

There's A Kinship Among Men Who Have Sat By A Dying Fire And Measured The Worth Of Their Life By It.

The Pile Of Guts Was A Black Blob Of Flies That Buzzed Like A Saw. After A While These Flies Found Simon. Gorged, They Alighted By His Runnels Of Sweat And Drank. They Tickled Under His Nostrils And Played Leapfrog On His Thighs. They Were Black And Iridescent Green And Without Number; And In Front Of Simon, The Lord Of The Flies Hung On His Stick And Grinned. At Last Simon Gave Up And Looked Back; Saw The White Teeth And Dim Eyes, The Blood—and His Gaze Was Held By That Ancient, Inescapable Recognition.

Experimental Novels Are Sometimes Terribly Clever And Very Seldom Read. But The Story That Appeals To The Child Sitting On Your Knee Is The One That Satisfies The Curiosity We All Have About What Happened Then, And Then, And Then. This Is The Final Restriction Put On The Technique Of Telling A Story. A Basic Thing Called Story Is Built Into The Human Condition. It's What We Are; It's Something To Which We React.

Maybe Half A Dozen Think They Are A Community, But, In General Terms, I Think English Writers Tend To Face Outwards, Away From Each Other, And Write In Their Own Patch, As It Were.

Biography Always Has Fulfiled This Role. Robinson Crusoe Is A Biography, As Is Tom Jones. You Can Go Through The Whole Range Of The Novel, And You Will Find It Is Biography. The Only Difference Between One Example And The Other Is That Sometimes It's A Partial Biography And Sometimes It's A Total Biography. Clarissa, For Example, Is A Partial Biography Of Clarissa And A Partial Biography Of Lovelace. In Other Words, It Doesn't Follow Lovelace From When He Is In The Cradle, Though It Takes Him To The Grave.

He Who Rides The Sea Of The Nile Must Have Sails Woven Of Patience.

Worse Than Madness. Sanity.

He Doesn't Mind If He Dies... Indeed, He Would Like To Die; But Yet He Fears To Fall. He Would Welcome A Long Sleep; But Not At The Price Of Falling To It.

I Know There Isn't No Beast—not With Claws And All That, I Mean—but I Know There Isn't No Fear, Either." Piggy Paused. "unless—" Ralph Moved Restlessly. "unless What?" "unless We Get Frightened Of People.

Latin, As We All Know, Ultimately Broke Down Into Spanish, Italian, French, And So On. One Wonders Whether There Will Be An Imperial Parallel With English Breaking Down Into, Shall We Say, North American, European, Australian, And So On. On The Other Hand, There Is This Immense, Inward-driving Influence Of Radio And Television That Is Bringing Us All Back Together. One Could Say It's A Fight Between The Two: A Fight Between Regionalism And The Standardization Through Communication.

The Water Rose Further And Dressed Simon's Coarse Hair With Brightness. The Line Of His Cheek Silvered And The Turn Of His Shoulder Became Sculptured Marble.

They Accepted The Pleasures Of Morning, The Bright Sun, The Whelming Sea And Sweet Air, As A Time When Play Was Good And Life So Full That Hope Was Not Necessary And Therefore Forgotten.

I Believe Man Suffers From An Appalling Ignorance Of His Own Nature. I Produce My Own View In The Belief That It May Be Something Like The Truth.

This Is Our Island. It's A Good Island. Until The Grownups Come To Fetch Us We'll Have Fun.

The Beast Was Harmless And Horrible; And The News Must Reach The Others As Soon As Possible.

The Writer Probably Knows What He Meant When He Wrote A Book, But He Should Immediately Forget What He Meant When He's Written It.

They Looked At Each Other, Baffled, In Love And Hate.

Life's Scientific, But We Don't Know, Do We? Not Certainly, I Mean.

I Wouldn't Have Thought That The Techniques Of Story-telling, Which Is What The Novel Is After All, Can Vary Much Because There Are Two Things Involved.there's A Story And There's A Listener, Whose Attention You Have To Keep. Now The Only Way In Which You Can Keep A Reader's Attention To A Story Is In His Wanting To Know What Is Going To Happen Next. This Puts A Fairly Close Restriction On The Method You Must Use.

An Orotundity, Which I Define As Nobelitis A Pomposity In Which One Is Treated As Representative Of More Than Oneself By Someone Conscious Of Representing More Than Himself.

Representatives

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Couldn't A Fire Outrun A Galloping Horse?

We Just Got To Go On, That's All. That's What Grownups Would Do.

Kill The Pig! Cut His Throat! Kill The Pig! Bash Him In!

My Yesterdays Walk With Me. They Keep Step, They Are Gray Faces That Peer Over My Shoulder.

I Don't Think They [contemporary Writers] Read Me Either. I Mean, If We're Concerned Genuinely With Writing, I Think We Probably Get On With Our Work.

We're Not Savages. We're English.

As Far As The Novel Is Concerned In My Own Country, I Think It's In A Pretty Healthy State.

I Began To Write When I Was Seven, And I Have Been Writing Off And On Ever Since. It Is Still Off And On. You Can Say That When I Am On, When I Know I Have A Book Which I Am Going To Write, Then I Write Two Thousand Words A Day. That's So Many Pages Longhand.

Novelists Do Not Write As Birds Sing, By The Push Of Nature. It Is Part Of The Job That There Should Be Much Routine And Some Daily Stuff On The Level Of Carpentry.

I've Come Across A Novel Called The Palm-wine Drinkard, By The Nigerian Writer Amos Tutuola, That Is Really Remarkable Because It Is A Kind Of Fantasy Of West African Mythology All Told In West African English Which, Of Course, Is Not The Same As Standard English.

You Have The Older Generation Like Iris Murdoch And Angus Wilson Who Are Not As Old As Graham Greene, But Still Are Coming On. I Dare Say Anyone Who Knew The Scene Better Than I Know It Could Fill It In With A Very Satisfactory Supply Of Novels.

A Star Appeared...and Was Momentarily Eclipsed By Some Movement.

While I Am On, I Can Discipline Myself To That Extent. When I Am Off, I Can't Discipline Myself At All. On The Other Hand, When I Am Off, There Are So Many Things I Like Doing, It Doesn't Really Matter.

At The Moment Of Vision, The Eyes See Nothing.

I Do Think That Art That Doesn't Communicate Is Useless.

Maybe, He Said Hesitantly, Maybe There Is A Beast. The Assembly Cried Out Savagely And Ralph Stood Up In Amazement. You, Simon? You Believe In This? I Don't Know, Said Simon. His Heartbeats Were Choking Him. [...] Ralph Shouted. Hear Him! He's Got The Conch! What I Mean Is . . . Maybe It's Only Us. Nuts! That Was From Piggy, Shocked Out Of Decorum.

What Could Be Safer Than The Bus Center With Its Lamps And Wheels?

The World, That Understandable And Lawful World, Was Slipping Away.

One's Intelligence May March About And About A Problem, But The Solution Does Not Come Gradually Into View. One Moment It Is Not. The Next It Is There.

Life Should Serve Up Its Feast Of Experience In A Series Of Courses.

I Think They've Got 250 Languages In Nigeria, And So English Is A Sort Of Lingua Franca Between The 250 Languages.

His Mind Was Crowded With Memories; Memories Of The Knowledge That Had Come To Them When They Closed In On The Struggling Pig, Knowledge That They Had Outwitted A Living Thing, Imposed Their Will Upon It, Taken Away Its Life Like A Long Satisfying Drink.

Of The Authors Writing In English, I'd Mention Shakespeare And Milton. But All This Is Terribly High-hat And Makes Me Sound Very Po-faced, I'm Afraid; However, I Just Happen To Like These Enormous, Swinging, Great Creatures.

For A Small Island, The Place Is Remarkably Diverse. Writers Tend To See Things From Their Own Points Of View, Looking In One Direction Very Much.

A Crowd Of Grade-three Thinkers, All Shouting The Same Thing, All Warming Their Hands At The Fire Of Their Own Prejudices, Will Not Thank You For Pointing Out The Contradictions In Their Beliefs. Man Is A Gregarious Animal, And Enjoys Agreement As Cows Will Graze All The Same Way On The Side Of A Hill.

Then You Have People Coming Up Like Malcolm Bradbury, A Relatively Young Writer Who Deals With The Academic Scene And Deals With It, I Think, Brilliantly.

One Tries To Tell A Truth, And One Hopes That The Truth Has A General Application Rather Than Just A Specific One.

You'll Get Back To Where You Came From.

Every Novel Is A Biography. Well, Then, This Is A Novel [the Paper Men] Which Is A Biography That Is Pretending To Be An Autobiography. That's What You Could Say About It.

I Think Women Are Foolish To Pretend They Are Equal To Men, They Are Far Superior And Always Have Been.

Put Simply The Novel Stands Between Us And The Hardening Concept Of Statistical Man. There Is No Other Medium In Which We Can Live For So Long And So Intimately With A Character. That Is The Service A Novel Renders.

The Conch Exploded Into A Thousand White Fragments And Ceased To Exist.

Maybe There Is A Beast… Maybe It's Only Us.

Roger Stooped, Picked Up A Stone, Aimed And Threw It At Henry-threw It To Miss. The Stone, That Token Of Preposterous Time, Bounced Five Yards To Henry's Right And Fell In The Water. Roger Gathered A Handful Of Stones And Began To Throw Them. Yet There Was A Space Round Henry, Perhaps Six Yards In Diameter, Into Which He Dare Not Throw. Here, Invisible Yet Strong, Was The Taboo Of The Old Life. Round The Squatting Child Was The Protection Of Parents And School And Policemen And The Law. Roger Was Conditioned By A Civilization That Knew Nothing Of Him And Was In Ruins.

I Suppose Drama Can Either Take The Place Of A Novel Or Can Be Very Closely Allied With It. It's Quite Customary To Turn A Successful Novel Into A Film Or A Television Series Because You Can Dramatize And Pictorialize A Novel.

Among The Virtues And Vices That Make Up The British Character, We Have One Vice, At Least, That Americans Ought To View With Sympathy. For They Appear To Be The Only People Who Share It With Us. I Mean Our Worship Of The Antique. I Do Not Refer To Beauty Or Even Historical Association. I Refer To Age, To A Quantity Of Years.

I Do Like People To Read The Books Twice, Because I Write My Novels About Ideas Which Concern Me Deeply And I Think Are Important, And Therefore I Want People To Take Them Seriously. And To Read It Twice Of Course Is Taking It Seriously.

If Faces Were Different When Lit From Above Or Below -- What Was A Face? What Was Anything?

Childhood Is A Disease - A Sickness That You Grow Out Of.

We're All Mad, The Whole Damned Race. We're Wrapped In Illusions, Delusions, Confusions About The Penetrability Of Partitions, We're All Mad And In Solitary Confinement.

He Lost Himself In A Maze Of Thoughts That Were Rendered Vague By His Lack Of Words To Express Them. Frowning, He Tried Again.

I'm Scared Of Him," Said Piggy, "and That's Why I Know Him. If You're Scared Of Someone You Hate Him But You Can't Stop Thinking About Him. You Kid Yourself He's All Right Really, An' Then When You See Him Again; It's Like Asthma An' You Can't Breathe.

Even If You Got Rid Of Paper, You Would Still Have Story-tellers. In Fact, You Had The Story-tellers Before You Had The Paper.

Percival Was Mouse-coloured And Had Not Been Very Attractive Even To His Mother.

Honestly, I Haven't The Time To Read Contemporary Writers. I Know This Is Awful, But In The Main It Is True.

In India The Odd Thing Is That English Is This Almost Artificial Language Floating On The Surface Of A Place With About Fifty Other Languages. The Same Is True Of Nigeria But Even More So.

I Will Tell You What Man Is. He Is A Freak, An Ejected Foetus Robbed Of His Natural Development, Thrown Out Into The World With A Naked Covering Of Parchment, With Too Little Room For His Teeth And A Soft Bulging Skull Like A Bubble. But Nature Stirs A Pudding There.

I Am Here; And Here Is Nowhere In Particular.

I Began To See What People Were Capable Of Doing. Anyone Who Moved Through Those Years Without Understanding That Man Produces Evil As A Bee Produces Honey, Must Have Been Blind Or Wrong In The Head.

Nothing Is So Impenetrable As Laughter In A Language You Don't Understand.

I Really Feel The Novel Has Certain Conveniences About It And Has Something So Fundamental About It You Could Almost Say That As Long As There Is Paper, There Is Going To Be The Novel.

He Became Absorbed Beyond Mere Happiness As He Felt Himself Exercising Control Over Living Things. He Talked To Them, Urging Them, Ordering Them. Driven Back By The Tide, His Footprints Became Bays In Which They Were Trapped And Gave Him The Illusion Of Mastery.

What A Man Does Defiles Him, Not What Is Done By Others.

The Trouble Was, If You Were A Chief You Had To Think, You Had To Be Wise.

Consider A Man Riding A Bicycle. Whoever He Is, We Can Say Three Things About Him. We Know He Got On The Bicycle And Started To Move. We Know That At Some Point He Will Stop And Get Off. Most Important Of All, We Know That If At Any Point Between The Beginning And The End Of His Journey He Stops Moving And Does Not Get Off The Bicycle He Will Fall Off It. That Is A Metaphor For The Journey Through Life Of Any Living Thing, And I Think Of Any Society Of Living Things.

Ralph... Would Treat The Day's Decisions As Though He Were Playing Chess. The Only Trouble Was That He Would Never Be A Very Good Chess Player.

To Be In A World Which Is A Hell, To Be Of That World And Neither To Believe In Or Guess At Anything But That World Is Not Merely Hell But The Only Possible Damnation: The Act Of A Man Damning Himself. It May Be

It May Be -- I Hope It Is -- Redemption To Guess And Perhaps Perceive That The Universe, The Hell Which We See For All Its Beauty, Vastness, Majesty, Is Only Part Of A Whole Which Is Quite Unimaginable.

I'm Not A Critic So Much Of My Own Writing. People Must Make Up Their Own Minds Over That.

Which Is Better -- To Be A Pack Of Painted Indians Like You Are, Or To Be Sensible Like Ralph Is? Which Is Better -- To Have Rules And Agree, Or To Hunt And Kill? Which Is Better, Law And Rescue, Or Hunting And Breaking Things Up?

Which Is Better--to Have Laws And Agree, Or To Hunt And Kill?

I Am Astonished At The Ease With Which Uninformed Persons Come To A Settled, A Passionate Opinion When They Have No Grounds For Judgment.

Towards Midnight The Rain Ceased And The Clouds Drifted Away, So That The Sky Was Scattered Once More With The Incredible Lamps Of Stars.

As Soon As Oliver Twist Is Serialized, People Who Would Never Dream Of Reading [charles] Dickens, If They Hadn't Seen Him On Their Box, Buy The Paperback.

How Would I Myself Live In This Proposed Society? How Long Would It Be Before I Went Stark Staring Mad?

The Skull Regarded Ralph Like One Who Knows All The Answers And Won't Tell.

Fancy Thinking The Beast Was Something You Could Hunt And Kill! You Knew, Didn’t You? I’m Part Of You? Close, Close, Close! I’m The Reason Why It’s No Go? Why Things Are What They Are?

For A Small Island [great Britain], The Place Is Remarkably Diverse.

Heaven Lies Around Us In Our Infancy.

No Human Endeavour Can Ever Be Wholly Good... It Must Always Have A Cost.

Ralph Wept For The End Of Innocence, The Darkness Of Man's Heart, And The Fall Through The Air Of The True, Wise Friend Called Piggy.

Beethoven For Listening; Liszt, Chopin, And Beethoven For Playing As Well As Bach And Prokofiev And So On. If I Kept Going, This List Would Spiral. It's As Wide As Literature; In Fact, It Is Probably Wider.

Which Is Better, Law And Rescue, Or Hunting And Breaking Things Up?

I Think There Might Even Come A Time When I Would Read Virgil Again. Ovid's Metamorphoses, Perhaps, Not Because The Music Goes Round And Round And Never Comes Out, But Because It's An Extraordinary Picture Of Ceaseless Change That Never Comes To An End.

And I've Been Wearing Specs Since I Was Three.

My Father Was Very Musical, And Music Plays Quite A Large Part In My Life.

It Wasn't Until I Was 37 That I Grasped The Great Truth That You've Got To Write Your Own Books And Nobody Else's, And Then Everything Followed From There.

He Found Himself Understanding The Wearisomeness Of This Life,where Every Path Was An Improvisation And A Considerable Part Of One's Waking Life Was Spent Watching One's Feet.

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