Close quarters

by William Golding

Hardcover, 1987

Status

Available

Publication

New York : Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1987.

Description

The second volume of William Golding's Sea Trilogy In a wilderness of heat, stillness and sea mists, a ball is held on a ship becalmed halfway to Australia. In this surreal, fête-like atmosphere the passengers dance and flirt, while beneath them thickets of weed like green hair spread over the hull. The sequel to Rites of Passage, Close Quarters, the second volume in Golding's acclaimed sea trilogy, is imbued with his extraordinary sense of menace. Half-mad with fear, with drink, with love and opium, everyone on this leaky, unsound hulk is 'going to pieces'. And in a nightmarish climax the very planks seem to twist themselves alive as the ship begins to come apart at the seams.

User reviews

LibraryThing member otterley
This, the second book in Golding's late sea trilogy, is a wise, warm and witty book. Edmund Talbot, his bumptious and naive narrator, is the very fallible heart of the novel, increasingly coming to terms with his imperfections, but still self consciously on his dignity in the most unprepossessing
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of circumstances. A cast of sharply drawn characters surrounds him, portrayed through Talbot's distorting self regard, but also showing themselves in variegated colours - through Golding's clever and sympathetic pen. And of course the sea and the boat exist as a microcosm, a real fragile world of mystery, threat and transformation.
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LibraryThing member ecw0647
One should never ignore any nautical fiction – or non-fiction for that matter. There are so many classics. William Golding (of [book:Lord of the Flies] fame) won all sorts of prizes including the prestigious English Booker Prize for [book:Rites Of Passage], I stumbled across its sequel, entitled
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Close Quarters in a bibliography of books about the sea. Both books recreate life aboard a nineteenth century sailing vessel as seen through the eyes of Edmund Talbot, a passenger on his way to the Antipodes. Rites and Close Quarters are narrated in the form of his journal. Rites ends with the mysterious death of Robert Collev, a clergyman on board, Ironically, Close Quarters, the sequel, begins with Talbot's qualification that he no
longer has any story to tell. Wrong.

The ship is severely damaged during a freak squall because of the inaction of a drunken mate. Becalmed after the storm, they drift close to another British ship bound for India whose captain reports that the war with France (subject of all those O'Brian and Forester novels) is over. The crews and passengers use the ships' proximity and lack of momentum to celebrate the end of the war with a dance. Talbot
falls in love with one of the other ship's passengers, momentarily causing him to contemplate abandoning his prospective career in the Antipodes. That momentary love affair colors his actions for the rest of the voyage.

Wind arrives suddenly and the ships must continue on their way. Golding must have done his research, for the setting rings true. Eighteenth century ships were micro-universes, at the mercy of the sea, waves and wind. There is a vivid scene as Talbot makes his way below decks toward the bow, inthe darkness of the hold, the only light supplied by swinging lanterns providing tiny beacons as the ship
rolls wildly, its motion intensified by the damaged masts. Much shorter from the wind damage, they increased the rocking motion of the ship, much as the oscillations of a pendulum are much quicker, the shorter the pendulum. A completely dismasted ship "can have a roll so brief there is no living within it," explains one of the crew.

Soon Talbot's philosophical speculations become intertwined with seasickness, sloping decks and the realization that the ship is in danger of sinking. The ship's carpenter poking around, looking for spreading planks does not increase his confidence. Nor does the movement of the deck as the waves slide under the keel. The lieutenants reveal they no longer are able to sail before the wind and must rely on the currents to drift them "downhill" (as he is told to reassure the other passengers) until they reach Australia. Unfortunately, how they get there Golding postpones to the third volume. Creep!
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LibraryThing member soylentgreen23
Golding is famed for his 'Lord of the Flies' but his Sea Trilogy is a greater achievement, putting you right in the action and perfectly recreating the trials of travelling by sea from England to Australia.
LibraryThing member Lukerik
Precise control of tone.

On page 66 someone asks “And who is Miss Chumley?”, but it’s not until page 87 that Miss Chumley makes her appearance in these terms:

‘The lightning that struck the top of the mizzenmast ran down, and melted the conductor into white hot drops. The mast split and
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flinders shot every way into the mist. The deckhead burst open and the electrical fluid destroyed me. It surrounded the girl who stood before me with a white line of light.’

This is only a page after we’ve met the teeth-grittingly awful Lady Somerset which I’ll edit down as we don’t have all day:

‘...she broke from him, insinuated herself in my direction, gazed earnestly up into my eyes as if we were present at an occasion of most moving importance, then insinuated herself back to our captain and murmured in a deep contralto voice, “Such pleasure!” … I was lifting my hand towards hers when with a movement like that of weed in water she swung both hands in the other direction and moaned again.
“Dearest, valuable Janet!”
There was little doubt about the nature of valuable Janet.’

Yet later when Talbot goes down into the bowels of the ship and speaks to the Purser and then Summers and Benét the tone becomes sinister and ominous.

Other sights to enjoy as you read are how the ship appears to take on a supernatural aspect, like she’s something alive and responsive. Talbot and the ship appear to be linked in some way. He is injured as she is damaged; she comes to close quarters with the other ship as Talbot comes to close quarters with Miss Chumley; Talbot is torn from Miss Chumley as the ship begins to fall apart. The ship seems to respond to Talbot, sometimes in sympathy and sometimes in revolt.

The novel’s a lot of fun. Highly readable, funny and sinister by turns. Hope Golding writes a third part.
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Language

Barcode

11871
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