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William Golding
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Pincher Martin: Introduced by Marlon James Kindle Edition

by William Golding (Author), Marlon James (Introduction) Format: Kindle Edition
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 187 ratings
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Experience a shipwrecked sailor's psychic disintegration into 'a naked madman on a rock' by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies.

An hour on this rock is a lifetime.
Glistening limpets. The claws of a lobster. Wild tangles of seaweed. Slowly, his eyes open. Everywhere, there is sea. Only this jagged peak interrupts the vast expanse of the Atlantic: a tooth in a gaping jaw. But he will survive. Rainwater can be drunk; anemones eaten. He dries his oilskin beneath the screaming gulls, and discovers his papers: Christopher Hadley Martin, TY. Lieut., R.N.V.R. Weathering lightning strikes of memory, he must now reconstruct his fate - piece by terrible piece.
'Devastating ... Violently real ... The unique kind of novel that compels you to reread it.' Marlon James
'Wizardry of the first order.' Observer

'Terrifying . Magnificently original.' Sylvia Plath
'An amazing tour de force ... A blow-by-blow struggle for survival.' Stephen Spender
'Immense ... To read it is to undergo a shattering and memorable experience.' Kingsley Amis
'A master fabulist ... An iconoclast.' John Fowles

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  1. Print length
    199 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Faber & Faber
  5. Publication date
    August 1, 2013
  6. File size
    1140 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
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Editorial Reviews

Review

The utmost inventiveness ... No reader will forget the world it reveals. - Kingsley Amis

About the Author


Born in Cornwall, England, William Golding started writing at the age of seven. Though he studied natural sciences at Oxford to please his parents, he also studied English and published his first book, a collection of poems, before finishing college. He served in the Royal Navy during World War II, participating in the Normandy invasion. Golding's other novels include Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, The Spire, Rites of Passage (Booker Prize), and The Double Tongue.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00CW0JFYS
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Faber & Faber; New Ed edition (August 1, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 1, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1140 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 199 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 187 ratings

About the author

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William Golding

William Golding

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Born in Cornwall, England, William Golding started writing at the age of seven. Though he studied natural sciences at Oxford to please his parents, he also studied English and published his first book, a collection of poems, before finishing college. He served in the Royal Navy during World War II, participating in the Normandy invasion. Golding's other novels include Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, The Free Fall, Pincher Martin, The Double Tongue, and Rites of Passage, which won the Booker Prize.

Photo by See page for author [CC BY-SA 3.0 nl (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nl/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9 out of 5
187 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Steven E. Sanderson
5.0 out of 5 stars remarkable vision of the inner world as it leaves life
Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2023
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This book is unique in my experience, moving among a man’s sins, his dark nightmares, the inevitability of death in an unworthy life, and the bankruptcy of war. The protagonist, stranded on an uncharted rock in wartime, struggles to separate his life from his fate and loses reason and time as he challenges the reality of his death. Golding was a master of darkness.
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Badger
4.0 out of 5 stars Revelation earned
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2018
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Reading this novel was tantamount to dressing in the dark and realizing, when the light turns on, that you did so perfectly. The end is worth the journey of insanity and solitude that plagues the titular castaway
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Gwlny
3.0 out of 5 stars First read it decades ago and enjoyed it. Interesting premise an I know it's considered ...
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2016
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First read it decades ago and enjoyed it. Interesting premise an I know it's considered a classic, but second time around it just seemed a tedious read.
2 people found this helpful
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drdoug
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2022
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This is a little known book that should be heralded as a classic. It is very descriptive, very imaginative, very well written.
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Philip
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best stories ever. A tale for all to read.
Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2018
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One of my favourite books of all time. I won't give away anything. I read it immediately twice because I did not understand the ending and then a third time to figure out why I did not. I use it now while helping others who are learning English as it is a complex story and very entertaining. It opened up a door of whole different types of stories
4 people found this helpful
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Robert Kandell
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow. Just wow.
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2019
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This is my first time reading Golding. This is an excellent novel, with deep philosophical implications. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
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2theD
4.0 out of 5 stars Sympathetic plight turn suitable purgatory
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2013
William Golding's debut novel,  Lord of the Flies  (1954), is widely known for its portrayal of the savage child, the regressive state of human nature when faced with hardship. When stranded on an island and without adults for leadership or their rules to live by, the children descend into primality, vindictiveness, group delusion, and murder. Pincher Martin is similar in this regard but set on an isolated rock with one man, his plight, his thoughts and his delusions in solitude. Where Lord of the Flies can be seen as the state of individuals in society without control, Pincher Martin could be seen as the state of individual control without society.

Rear cover synopsis:
"Drowsing in the freezing North Atlantic, Christopher Hadley Martin, temporary lieutenant, happens upon a grotesque rock, an island that appears only on weather charts. To drink there is a pool of rain water; to eat there are weeds and sea anemones. Through the long hours with only himself to talk to, Martin must try to assemble the truth of his fate, piece by terrible piece."

------------

His navy ship having been sunk, Martin drifts in loneliness upon the Atlantic currents prone to undulation of oceanic waves and persistence of the blurred sun above. The valleys and hills of the wet ebony expanse seamlessly morph into a rocky island, a minute outpost of life amid the bleak seascape of his ship's destruction. Assessing his clothing and pockets, Martin sets his will to triumph over idleness while evaluating the topology of his rocky pinnacle for food, drink, shelter and zenith. With everything accounted for, he begins his monotony of daily routine, sets plans for his inevitable rescue, and bides his time with pet projects: digging channels for fresh water, constructing a dummy for sign of rescue and giving himself an enema.

Succumbing to the chill of the north Atlantic and the icicle of isolation, Martin's mind begins to slip into fantasy and nostalgia, flashes of disconnectedness with reality and the present; his personality fragments and regroups, temporarily destabilizes into a vivid chaos of confusion and impossibility. Martin idly longs for the boots he cast off soon after the sinking and cherishes the limited number of other items he has on his self, including a lifejacket, foil squares and string--each item is vital to his sanity and survival.

Lethargy and boredom dance at the periphery of his forced preoccupation; each idle second allows the ennui to well up and consume him, "there was nothing to do but protect normality" (175). Yet, the pain throughout his body makes his sluggish, a signal from the center of himself to rest for recuperation. "The chill and the exhaustion spoke to him clearly. Give up, they said, lie still. Give up the thought of return, the thought of living. Break up, leave go" (45). Thus, the cyclic battle of action and inaction grips Martin's life. Each errant detour into idleness is shaken back into life by Martin's "center", his central command for survival:

There was at the centre of all the pictures and pains and voices a fact like a bar of steel, a thing--that which was so nakedly the centre of everything that it could not even examine itself. In the darkness of the skull, it existed, a darker dark, self-existent and indestructible ... The centre began to work. It endured the needle [of pain] to look sideways, put thoughts together. (45)

This center of sanity is linked to his life before the accident, before entering the navy, before making enemies; his choice of actions from his past haunt even the busiest of his moments while perched on his rocky island. The restive center of himself "that could not examine itself danced on in the world behind his eyes" (84) where his own motives are shadowed by his struggle to merely survive. Atonement for his past sins is marked by this pebbly purgatory where he is unable to be saved or enter death.

------------

Pincher Martin is as minimalist of a novel as you can get--one character, one location. This minimalism results in a dichotomy: while scenes, sensations and occurrences often repeat, the entire still remains intense and somewhat dynamic. Martin bides his time by doing little construction projects on his islet--a channel for fresh water and a stone body to signal for help--but the majority of his time is seemingly spent scurrying around the same islet discovering landmarks of crevices, cliffs and crannies. His sense of wonder borders on naivety while his mind slips further into a delirium ripe for his undoing.

A simple Wikipedia search for Pincher Martin reveals that the description of the isolated islet fits the features of Rockall, about 600 kilometers WNW of Glasgow. Martin partitions the topology of the rock, each part with specific use or personal history. As Martin's scurries about the rock on his daily chores, the reader can oddly visualize the constricting clefts in the rock and barren winds outside of the rock. Then, when Martin splits from his reality, the reader also takes a trip from the islet to either his tainted past or his tainted perceptions.

There are very limited cues as to the passing of time on the island. Martin mentions not having had a bowel movement for a week, but the critical incidences of his stony abode are made without notation. Therefore, the reader can't identify with Martin's into sanity because it would seem unlikely that he would lapse into delirium in only a matter of days. Is hypothermia advancing his mental decay? Have more days or weeks actually passed than mentioned? Was his psyche already unstable? Relating a fourth possibility in the list, which crossed my mind when reading, would be a spoiler.

I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea that the book is simplistically about "the state of individual control without society", as mentioned in the introduction. On hindsight, the levels of depth in Martin's purgatory are as numerous as Dante's circles of hell. Which circle of hell does Rockall represent for Martin? As his concentration drifts, he relives moments in his past which point to the particular sins of his personal guilt. Martin is guilty of three of these sins, but which damns him the most: (1) The second circle of lust where he's blown by endless winds?; (2) The fifth level of anger where he battles eternally with rage on the water of Styx?; or (3) The ninth level of treachery where he becomes coldly immobile?

------------

Ignore any hype you hear or read of the reportedly shocking twist at the conclusion. Rarely am I shocked or awed by any conclusion, but I can appreciate the final twists of a novel like a connoisseur of cigars--with a sullen nod, tight-lipped grin, and softly-lidded eyes. Something mentally internal is definitely ratcheted when confronted by an ingenious twist or suitable conclusion. This is exactly what my general state of sensation felt when reading the final pages of Pincher Martin--satisfaction.
7 people found this helpful
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Vincent Nocella
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2016
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William Golding is one of my favorite writers of the 20th century. Enough said
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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clive stocks
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb unusual survival story
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 11, 2020
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This is an astonishing read about a lone survivor and sailor in the Battle of Atlantic who seeks to survive on a small rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean during World War 2. It is a remarkable short and punchy novel about one mans fight for survival alone against the elements and his battle to stay sane and healthy on a tiny outcrop of rock in the Atlantic. Probably one of William Golding's best novels. It is frightening and at the same time gripping and inspirational and shows a humans will and ability to survive against the odds. Shocking, beautifully crafted and written and very unusual. Read it and imagine what it must have been like for survivors of torpedoed ships in the Battle of the Atlantic in their struggle to survive the Cruel Sea. William Golding saw action in The Navy in World War 2 on a destroyer in the war against German Submarines so had first hand experience of the Atlantic War at sea. Read it alongside the Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monserrat. Both brilliant novels.Highly recommended.
5 people found this helpful
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D. Legare
4.0 out of 5 stars Derniers instants
Reviewed in France on December 26, 2013
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Il en est de Pincher Martin, comme de tous les romans brillants : il peut se lire à de multiples pour ne pas dire à d’innombrables niveaux.
Si on veut résumer ce roman sans pourtant le déflorer, on dira que c’est une histoire de survie. Celle d’un officier de marine qui se retrouve d’abord inconscient dans l’océan peu de temps après que son navire a été torpillé. Il reprend conscience, arrive à se hisser sur une sorte de roc qu’on ne peut que difficilement appeler une île, puis essaie de survivre jusqu’à un sauvetage hypothétique.
Mais Pincher Martin est tellement plus, tellement plus riche et plus dense que ces quelques 200 pages de survie, c’est un combat avec la folie, une dissociation totale du corps et de l’esprit, les souvenirs hallucinés qui assaillent, le remord et la culpabilité qui terrorisent, une confrontation directe avec sa propre mortalité qui paralyse.
Toutefois lorsque l’on en arrive aux dernières pages, Pincher Martin devient bien plus encore, une allégorie, peut-être, sans doute plus… La chute de ce roman est magistrale. On a qu’une envie ensuite, c’est de le relire, de guetter les mots, de fouiller le texte, de décrypter ce style syncopé, qui nous a fait perdre haleine et nous a étouffé à petit feu, comme si nous avions la gorge pleine d’eau, en nous laissant emplis d’interrogations.

Il y a longtemps, j’avais déjà beaucoup aimé William Golding avec ‘The Lord Of The Flies’ ou ‘Sa Majesté Des Mouches’, qui était déjà une histoire terrible de survivants, mais après l’avoir retrouvé avec Pincher Martin je me demande bien pourquoi j’ai attendu si longtemps. Ce roman ci est bien plus difficile d’accès, à tel point que pendant quelques dizaines de pages je me suis demandé si j’allais parvenir à en faire sens. Mais le jeu en valait certainement la chandelle.
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Julie
4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting and human view of the great man, and I enjoyed reading it very much
Reviewed in Australia on August 10, 2015
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An interesting and human view of the great man, and I enjoyed reading it very much. I wish the author wasn't so apologetic about his lack of academic qualifications, and lack of certain evidence of some of the background stories he tells. It is an unpretentious book, and all of these apologies are unnecessary. No one knows the truth, but the research he did is amazing. I recommend this book even if you have an academic background. I have a music degree, but it was refreshing to read such a simple story about an amazing subject.
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David Lohrey
4.0 out of 5 stars good
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 17, 2022
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good condition
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RoCoco
3.0 out of 5 stars Difficult but extraordinary
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2017
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Difficult but unforgettable - deliberately clotted, (barely grammatical, even, at times!) opaque prose which is nonetheless a virtuoso performance.
The flashbacks (seamlessly woven into the narrative) offer some contrast from the hallucinatory, claustrophobic descriptions of Martin's increasingly desperate struggle (there's only so much one can say about shellfish...) - perhaps most bizarre is the 'defecation-to-classical music' passage -[ he needs a good crap], which offers the poor sod temporary relief - and one is almost glad to arrive at the the final climactic mad scene - the 'end' is in sight! This was my first Golding novel - probably not the ideal introduction, but it should make 'Lord of the Flies' and 'The Spire' easier to read...
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