Rites of Passage by William Golding (1980)

What a delight it is to read a book that is perfectly executed. As critical as I often can be, finding fault with books that critics have deemed praiseworthy, I can find no fault with this one. I am totally impressed.

Golding presents his story through a journal about a sea voyage to Australia as written by a 19th Century British aristocrat for the benefit of his godfather. Having read a considerable number of novels actually written in the 19th Century, I can say with assurance that Golding never falters in duplicating the style and language of the period. The journal writer, young Mr. Talbot, soon reveals himself to be self-absorbed, arrogant, and extremely conscious of class distinctions. At the beginning, the book presents itself as a conventional sea story and almost as a social comedy. However, just as Golding's most well known offering, The Lord of the Flies, seems at the beginning to be a boy's adventure story before it turns into a tale of savagery, Rites of Passage soon turns in a darker direction.

Lord of the Flies is a mostly straightforward book, which makes it admirably suited for study by young people. Even relatively inexperienced readers can understand its implications. Rites of Passage is much more subtle, with the journal writer seeming to be only marginally aware of the meaning of what he has experienced. But then comes the ending sentence of the book, which is the best last sentence I can ever remember reading. Suddenly we know that the protagonist understands, even though he may not admit it fully, even to himself.

This novel won England's Booker Prize in 1980, and just three years later Golding received the Nobel Prize for Literature for his body of work.