"What a man does defiles him, not what is done by others." -- Sir William Golding, in "Rites of Passage" (1980).
Nobel Prize-winning Golding's most prominent work, the classic "Lord of the Flies" (1954), is a stark and chilling story of marooned British boys eventually dispensing with "civilization" and reverting to "groupthink" and savagery. Born 110 years ago today, Golding struggled with alcoholism and associated "writer's block" later in life, but kept a diary of his dreams and recollections of his life from 1971 until his death in 1993.
