The Paper Men (1984)

by William Golding

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A friend challenged me to read this in a day, and that's exactly what I did. This long novella is very interesting though - and despite not receiving the attention that Golding's other works have, I think it's definitely worth a look. His tale of a writer and his would-be biographer, and the cat-and-mouse chase around the world, is stunning in places (though hard to follow in others). (

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soylentgreen23 | Jun 12, 2010 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
William Golding	—	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Bruning, Frans	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

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Series (with order)

Canonical title

Information from the Dutch Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to the English one.

De papieren man

Original title

Information from the Dutch Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to the English one.

The paper men

Alternative titles

Original publication date

1984

People/Characters

Information from the Dutch Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to the English one.

William Barclay

Rick L. Tucker

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Epigraph

Dedication

Information from the Dutch Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to the English one.

Voor mijn vriend en uitgever
Charles Monteith

First words

I knew at once that it was one of those nights.

Quotations

`The biography will be a duet, Rick. We'll show the world what we are -- paper men, you can call us. ... Think, Rick --- all the people who get lice like you in their hair, all the people spied on, followed, lied about, all the people offered up to the great public -- we'll be revenged, Rick, I'll be revenged on the whole lot of them.'

What would he turn up, dull and indefatigable, treading through my past life with his huge feet, shoving his nose down to that old, cold trail?

"I majored in flower arranging and bibliography."

Neither of us, critic and author, we knew nothing about people or not enough. We knew about paper, that was all. ... Then, paper man that I am, I began to think -- what a story!

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The Paper Men

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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0374526397, Paperback)

English novelist Wilfred Barclay, who has known fame, success, and fortune, is in crisis. He faces a drinking problem slipping over the borderline into alcoholism, a dead marriage, and the incurable itch of middle age lust. But the final, unbearable irritation is American Professor of English Literature Rick L. Tucker, who is implacable in his determinition to become The Barclay Man: authorized biographer, editor of the posthumous papers and the recognized authority.

(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:46:05 -0500)

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