[Pincher Martin] seems … to present, more clearly than any of Golding's other novels, a crystallization of certain distinctive features of his imaginative vision. (p. 247)

Whether or not we know about the ending, the greater part of the story must be read as an account of the experience of a living man struggling for survival in the sea and on the rock; there seems to be no other way of reading it. Only towards the end does this mode of reading give way to a different kind of response and it is essential for the effect of the book that the transition should be gradual. If Golding succeeds in his intention, the 'twist' on the last page should serve only to make us look back on our experience and recognize that our assessment of what we have been reading has indeed undergone a change. If we have really taken...