Rites of PassageRites of Passage

This trilogy comprises Rites of Passage (1980; Booker Prize), Close Quarters (1987), and Fire Down Below (1989). Together they tell of a voyage on an English ship bound for Australia in the early 19th century. Edmund Talbot, the brash young narrator, begins the books at the behest of his powerful godfather, whose patronage he enjoys and who has secured him a governmental post in the far-off colony. Talbot is an imperious, self-contented snob as the trilogy begins on board a rickety old craft: but for the first time in his life he is thrown into daily contact with all manner of people, from a wide social spectrum. Confined as his narrator is, Golding succeeds in showing him the world and as storms rage and human tragedy and comedy unfold, Talbot's journey becomes spiritual and moral.