The stunning opening to this hallucinogenic novel of remembrance and tragedy gripped me; a true triumph of language and prose poetry: "I have walked by stalls in the market-place where books, dog-eared and faded from their purple, have burst with a white hosanna. I have seen people crowned with a double crown, holding in either hand the crook and flail, the power and the glory. I have understood how the scar becomes a star, I have felt the flake of fire fall, miraculous and pentecostal. My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are grey faces that peer over my shoulder. I live on Paradise Hill, ten minutes from the station, thirty seconds from the shops and the local. Yet I am a burning amateur, torn by the irrational and incoherent, violently searching and self-condemned.When did I lose my freedom? For once, I was free. I had power to choose. The mechanics of cause and effect is statistical probability yet surely sometimes we operate below or beyond that threshold. Free-will cannot be debated but only experienced, like a colour or the taste of potatoes. I remember one such experience. I was very small and I was sitting on the stone surround of the pool and fountain in the centre of the park. There was bright sunlight, banks of red and blue flowers, green lawn. There was no guilt but only the plash and splatter of the fountain at the centre. I had bathed and drunk and now I was sitting on the warm stone edge placidly considering what I should do next. The gravelled paths of the park radiated from me: and all at once I was overcome by a new knowledge. I could take whichever I would of these paths.There was nothing to draw me down one more than the other. I danced down one for joy in the taste of potatoes. I was free. I had chosen.How did I lose my freedom? I must go back and tell the story over. It is a curious story, not so much in the external events which are common enough, but in the way it presents itself to me, the only teller. For time is not to be laid out endlessly like a row of bricks. That straight line from the first hiccup to the last gasp is a dead thing. Time is two modes. The one is an effortless perception native to us as water to the mackerel. The other is a memory, a sense of shuffle fold and coil, of that day nearer than that because more important, of that event mirroring this, or those three set apart, exceptional and out of the straight line altogether. I put the day in the park first in my story, not because I was young, a baby almost; but because freedom has become more and more precious to me as I taste the potato less and less often.I have hung all systems on the wall like a row of useless hats. They do not fit. They come in from outside, they are suggested patterns, some dull and some of great beauty. But I have lived enough of my life to require a pattern that fits over everything I know; and where shall I find that ? Then why do I write this down ? Is it a pattern I am looking for? That Marxist hat in the middle of the row, did I ever think it would last me a lifetime ? What is wrong with the Christian biretta that I hardly wore at all ? Nick's rationalist hat kept the rain out, seemed impregnable plate-armour, dull and decent. It looks small now and rather silly, a bowler like all bowlers, very formal, very complete, very ignorant. There is a school cap, too. I had no more than hung it there, not knowing of the other hats..."You can keep your Proust Marcel, it is Golding that grapples most successfully with a remembrance of things past and even artfully wrestles the familiar stranger time to the mat: "Time is two modes. The one is an effortless perception native to us as water to the mackerel. The other is a memory, a sense of shuffle fold and coil, of that day nearer than that because more important, of that event mirroring this, or those three set apart, exceptional and out of the straight line altogether."Only Darkness at Noon rivals this work for giving the world view and hopeless recollections of mind brutalized by authoritarian imprisonment. The shards of a damaged mentality follows a crooked path to a Notebook-like ending: "I see now what I am looking for and why these pictures are not altogether random. I describe them because they seem to be important. They contributed very little to the straight line of my story. [...] They are important simply because they emerge. I am the sum of them. I carry round with me this load of memories."
این کتاب به تمام و کمال نشون میده که هر لحظه از زندگی وقتی به عقب برگردیم و رفتارهامون رو مرور بکنیم حتمن در یک برهه از زمان میبینیم که چقدر احمقانه رفتار کردیم...در حالیکه دقیقن در اون نقطه از زمان تشورمون از خود بیرونیمون و درونیمون منطقی ترین و انسانی ترین فرد بودهداستان نقاشی که در پسترین و فقیرترین بخش جامعه شخصیتش شکل میگیره... به واسطه استعدادش در نقاشی میتونه وارد جمع های مختلفی بشه...اما درک واضحی از محیط پیرامونش ندارهاتفاقات و جریان ها باید اونطور شکل بگیرن که اون خواستهادمهایی که بعد از سالها در ذهنش موندن کسایی هستن که در هر دوره از بلوغ فکری و سنی ولو با یک جمله تاثیر روش گذاشتن و خط فکریش رو سمت و سو دادنابتدای داستان کمی کند پیش میرهکمی هم ترجمه سهیل سمی سختش میکنه اما چند فصل که میگذره و با شیوه روایی داستان اشنا میشیم...وارد فضاش میشیمکتابی نیست که بگم همین الان بخونیدش اما خب اگه کتاب دیگه ای نبود که فکرکنید لازمه خونده بشه از طرفی هم نمی خاهید با خوندن یک کتاب فقط وقتتون بگذره...میتونید این کتاب رو دست بگیرید
What do You think about Free Fall (2003)?
Most people know about Lord of the Flies, which unfortunately eclipsed Goldings other works. This reminded me of Sartre's nausea. Written in the first person, the first few pages take some getting used to, but then the language flows along. It is fantastic, and I after reading this, my fourth Golding, I am even more of a fan than ever. The story of a man trying to discover why he is who he is, and taking us on that journey, is both philosophical and sad. We can feel what he feels, whilst still standing on the sidelines and tutting. A great read for those long waits at airports!
—Lester
This is my favourite book. It isn't for the story - though that is very interesting - it isn't for the cleverness of the twist - though it is clever - it's because it represents a brief period of clarity when one of the great writers of our time really got to grips with the business of what being human is all about. Golding exercises a subtle genius here and just lays out truths for you. There aren't necessarily answers to accompany those truths, but he says what you know, in ways that you couldn't say it - and somehow it's comforting to know he has seen and felt what you have.This is a book written by a literary giant, and what you find here rather depends on what you bring and at what point in your life you arrive.Here are snippets from a passage that reached me - if they leave you cold then maybe come back later:My darkness reaches out and fumbles at a typewriter with its tongs. Your darkness reaches out with your tongs and grasps a book. There are twenty modes of change, filter and translation between us.[...]Deep calls out to deep. Our communion (communication) must of needs be imperfect for we are fallen creatures, yet we must of needs make the effort.[...]I tick. I exist. I am poised eighteen inches over the black rivets you are reading, I am in your place. I am shut in a bone box and trying to fasten myself onto white paper. The rivets join us together and yet, for all the passion, we share nothing but our sense of division.Not a book for everyone, but perhaps a book for you....
—Mark Lawrence
I've been swithering about whether I should award this book three or four stars. I've opted for the larger award, as it is a rare candidate for a re-read. It took me a long time to get into this book, and didn't sit well with reading in small snatches. For a while, I couldn't see where it was going, but I've experienced this before with Golding's novels and know that the reader is rewarded if he/she sticks it out, and so I was. What made this novel more enjoyable than a simple fictional biography (for me) was the sequencing of the memories: the jumping to and fro gave an element of surprise combined with a satisfying picking up of a common thread, (a thread that only becomes apparent at the tail end of the book). The language in the first chapter or two in particular was brilliant. Really enjoyed it.
—Sarah
