So many of us have read or studied Lord of the Flies (1954), that it might seem as if it was the only novel William Golding wrote.

So today I’d like to talk about another I really enjoyed: The Spire (1964).

Its premise is deceptively simple. Dean Jocelin becomes convinced that God wants him to build a cathedral spire so tall that it should be impossible. The foundations are weak, and the warnings are clear.

Yet he presses on.

In society, we tend to value and admire certainty. The person who never wavers. The leader who refuses to change course. The visionary who ignores the doubters.

But Golding’s novel asks an uncomfortable question.

At what point does conviction become a refusal to listen?

Changing your mind is often treated as a weakness. 

In politics, business, and public life, a U-turn can seem like an admission of failure. Yet there is a different kind of danger in mistaking persistence for wisdom.

Sometimes courage means holding fast to an idea.

Sometimes it means admitting that reality has noticed something you haven’t.

Perhaps that is why Jocelin is such a fascinating character. His tragedy is not that he dreams too boldly. It is that he becomes unable to test the dream against the world around him.

“It’s simpler to believe in a miracle.”

Over to you: tell me about a text you’ve read in which someone refused to listen.