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About the Author
William Golding (1911-1993) was a Booker and Nobel Prize-winning author, best known for his first novel, Lord of the Flies, published originally in 1954 and adapted for film in 1963. His other works include The Inheritors (1955), Pincher Martin (1956), The Spire (1964), Rites of Passage (1980), The Double Tongue (published posthumously in 1995) a now rare volume, Poems (1934) and the essay collections The Hot Gates and A Moving Target. Golding was educated at Marlborough Grammar School and at Brasenose College, Oxford. Before his writing career, Golding was a schoolmaster. He was also a keen actor, musician and small-boat sailor. In 2008, The Times ranked Golding third on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
From Publishers Weekly
Nobel Laureate Golding, who died in 1993, explores the disturbing relationships between the mystical, the sacred and the profane in ancient Greece in his 13th and final novel. Narrated by an octogenarian prophetess named Arieka, the book proceeds in rigidly linear form to recount her life from birth onward, employing a distinctly British voice that is mildly philosophical, occasionally graphic, often self-deprecating and generally rather arch. The young Arieka is ugly and dangerously naive, and she apparently possesses mysterious powers and a propensity for mischief that make her impossible to marry off. In late adolescence, she is "adopted" by Ionides, the High Priest at Delphi. Worldly and somewhat cynical, Ionides manages the renowned Delphic oracle like a lucrative tourist site, often fabricating prophecies to soothe the masses. Knowing that Arieka would make an ideal Pythia?the double-tongued Lady, voice of Apollo?he takes her under his care, educating her in a massive bookroom. That Arieka herself is never fully realized as a character is partly the result of her "occupation"?she is, after all, a medium, the human mouthpiece for the prophetic god, and not much else?and in part because she has been left in draft form amid an essentially unfinished narrative. The novel's philosophical framework is in place: questions about faith and exploitation, slavery and freedom abound, as do musings on human societies and their all-too-human perversions. But the plot (and an underdeveloped subplot in which Ionides attempts to subvert Roman rule) feels rushed and inconclusive, and its characters, while articulate, remain curiously soulless.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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- PublisherFaber & Faber
- Publication date2013
- ISBN 10 0571298532
- ISBN 13 9780571298532
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages192
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Double Tongue : With an Introduction by Meg Rosoff
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Double Tongue : With an Introduction by Meg Rosoff
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The Double Tongue (Paperback)
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Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. As a young virgin with disturbing psychic powers, Arieka was handed over to the service of the shrine by her parents. She has now spent sixty years as the very medium, the torn mouthpiece, of equivocal mantic utterances from the bronze tripod in the sanctuary beneath the temple. Over a lifetime at the mercy of god and priest and people she has watched the decay of Delphi's fortunes and its influence in the world. Her reflections on the mysteries of the oracle, which her own weird gifts have embodied, are matched by her feminine insight into the human frailties of the High Priest himself, a true Athenian, whose intriguing against the Romans brings about humiliation and disaster.This extraordinary short novel was left in draft at Golding's sudden death in 1993 but it is a psychological and historical triumph. An aged prophetess at Delphi, the most sacred oracle in ancient Greece, looks back over her strange life as the Pythia, the First Lady and voice of the god Apollo. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780571298532
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The Double Tongue: With an introduction by Meg Rosoff
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The Double Tongue : With an Introduction by Meg Rosoff
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The Double Tongue: With an introduction by Meg Rosoff
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Faber & Faber, 2013
ISBN 10: 0571298532
ISBN 13: 9780571298532
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Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. William Golding's final novel, left in draft at his death, tells the story of a priestess of Apollo. Her ambiguous attitude to the god and her belief in him seem to move in parallel with the decline of the god himself - but things are more complicated than they appear. Seller Inventory # B9780571298532
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