Pincher Martin Author:William Goldin Pincher Martin is an elemental adventure story, a tale of frightening suspense. It is also, as all great literature must be, a story of man's ultimate struggle -- not so much with fate and death as with himself. — Pincher Martin, sole survivor of a torpedoed destroyer, is miraculously cast up on a huge barren rock in mid-Atlantic. Pitted against ... more »him are the sea, the blaze of day, the biting cold of night--and the almost unimaginable isolation of one man alone facing ever-present, unpredictable death.
There is the desperate matter of existence--to drink, there is a pool of rainwater; to eat, there are seaweed, shellfish and sea anemones.
There is the far more desperate matter of survival--a man's will to live. And that is the core of this staggering story. Christopher Martin's will to live is the sum total of his life, the manner of man he is, and how and why he became that man. Thus, out of a raging tale of physical and psychological violence, comes a deep exploration of ordinary day-to-day living and its ultimate meaning, a meaning which, like that of Golding's Lord of the Flies, extends far beyond the suffering of one man and a single catastrophe.« less