From Apophasis to Aporia: William Golding and the Indescribable

Abstract

Arriving back in England after the war, William Golding returned to his teaching position at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury. Golding was, for the most part, a reserved and aloof teacher, unsure of his abilities and dispassionate towards the prescribed lesson topics. However, he would on occasion find a reason to become energized by a subject, and speak to his class with candour and enthusiasm. One of his former students, Robert Naish, remembers one day on which Golding began enthusiastically to discuss religious experience. He recalls Golding carefully and systematically explaining his own method of stripping away the ego in order to approach the moment of revelation:

He seemed at one point to hesitate, leaning towards his blackboard, chalk in hand, and evidently wondering whether to bare his soul before such an audience. Then, deciding it was too late to draw back, he continued: ‘When you have completely penetrated past the trappings of your personality, you are left with… A presence? A feeling? I can only describe it as a shape like this’ — and he drew on the blackboard something rather like a pear lying on its side. The class erupted in silent hysteria. (Carey 126)