The double tongue William Golding
Publisher: London : Faber, 1995.
ISBN: 0571175260
DDC: 823.914
LCC: PR6013
Summary:
The Double Tongue is William Golding's last and perhaps most superbly
imaginative novel. It is a fictional memoir of an aged prophetess at
Delphi, the most sacred oracle of ancient Greece, just prior to
Greece's domination by the Roman Empire. As a young girl, Arieka is
ugly, unconventional, a source of great shame to her uppity parents,
who fear they'll never marry her off. But she is saved by Ionides,
the High Priest of the Delphic temple, who detects something of a
seer (and a friend) in her and whisks her off to the shrine to become
the Pythia - the earthly voice of the god Apollo. Arieka has now
spent a lifetime at the mercy of a god, a priest, and her devotees,
and has witnessed firsthand 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 embody, are matched by her feminine
insight into the human frailties of the High Priest himself, a true
Athenian with a wicked sense of humor, whose intriguing against the
Romans brings about humiliation and disaster. This extraordinary
short novel, left in draft at the author's death in 1993, is a
psychological and historical triumph. Golding has created a vivid and
comic picture of ancient Greek society as well as an absolutely
convincing portrait of a woman's experience, something rare in the
Golding oeuvre. Arieka the Pythia is one of his finest creations.
Click on a subject to see other books listed with the same
subject or to drill down into components of the subject -- such as
geographical locations, dates and so on.
We query many merchants so that you can instantly
compare prices and
availability. You can even check historic prices and subscribe
for notifications. For a manual check, clicking on a link will open a
new window with a search for this book on the merchant's site of your
choice.
