Fire Down Below (with An Introduction By Victoria Glendinning)

By (author) Golding, William; Introduction by Glendinning, Victoria
Short description/annotation
The third volume of William Golding''s Sea TrilogyA decrepit warship sails on the last stretch of its voyage to Sydney Cove. It has been blown off course and battered by wind, storm and ice. And after a risky operation to reset its foremast, an unseen fire begins to smoulder below decks.
Description
Lose yourself in an epic naval journey in the final novel in the Booker Prize-winning Sea Trilogy by the author of Lord of the Flies. I think there has been death in my hands. On the last stretch of its epic voyage from England to Australia, a disintegrating warship inches towards land. But there are still trials ahead, as the vessel is smashed against an ice cliff and blasted by a great storm, while the claustrophobic passengers battle erotic desires, masculine rivalry and violent power struggles - all experiencing a sea change in their natures. And when an unseen fire begins to smoulder below decks, the other side of the world has never seemed further away ... ''A truly noble achievement''. Patrick O''Brien ''Laden to the waterline with a rich cargo of practicalities and poetry, pain and hilarity, drama and exaltation.'' Sunday Times ''A tour de force ... A persuasive adventure, love story and allegory, as serious as it is entertaining.'' Penelope Lively ''The best novel I''ve read this year ... The language fizzes and spits.'' Daily Telegraph ''Reeks and resounds with authenticity ... The epic imaginative enterprise [is] as formidable a feat as the year-long odyssey it charts.'' Sunday Times ''Awesome ...Ambivalent, unresolved, walking a tightrope between reason and spirituality, tragedy and comedy ... So compelling and disturbing.'' Victoria Glendinning To The Ends of the Earth: A Sea Trilogy - Book Three
Biographical note
William Golding (1911 - 1993) was born in Cornwall and educated in Marlborough and Oxford. Before becoming a writer, he was an actor, lecturer, small-boat sailor, musician and schoolteacher. In 1940 he joined the Royal Navy and took part in the D-Day operation and invasion of Holland. Lord of the Flies, his first novel, was rejected by several publishers but rescued from the ''slush pile'' at Faber and published in 1954. It became a modern classic selling millions of copies, translated into 35 languages and made into a film by Peter Brook in 1963. Golding wrote eleven other novels, a play and two essay collections. He won the Booker Prize for Rites of Passage in 1980 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983. He was knighted in 1988 and died in 1993. www.william-golding.co.uk
Promotional headline
Lose yourself in an epic naval journey in the final novel in the Booker Prize-winning Sea Trilogy by the author of Lord of the Flies.