The Spire the Novels." "A most remarkable book, as unforeseeable as one foresaw, an entire original... remote from the mainstream, potent, severe, even forbidding." – Frank Kermode, New York Review of Books, 30 April 1964. The Spire The Spire is a 1964 novel by the English author William Golding. "A dark and powerful portrait of one man's will", it deals with the construction of the 404-foot high spire loosely based on Salisbury Cathedral; the vision of the fictional Dean Jocelin. In this novel, William Golding utilises stream of consciousness writing with an omniscient but increasingly fallible narrator. Jocelin, the Dean of the
The Spire visits Roger and we eventually learn of his suicide attempt. Rachel Mason is Roger's wife. She reveals to Jocelin the reason why they cannot have children as attempts at sex result in fits of giggles. Pangall is the crippled and impotent cathedral servant. He is mocked because of his impotency by the workmen. Goody, who acts as an important object of love and lust, ultimately dies while giving birth. Jocelin initially sees her as the perfect woman. Anselm is largely critical of the developments concerning the spire, arguing that it is destruction of the church. Jocelin had been prepared to