Nome legal: Williams, Gordon MacLean
Outros nomes: Yuill, P. B. (joint Pseudonym with Terry Venables)
Data de nascimento: 1934-06-20
Data de falecimento: 2017-08-20
Sexo: male
Nacionalidade: Scotland
UK
Local de nascimento: Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, UK
Educação: John Neilson Institution
Ocupações: novelist
ghostwriter
screenwriter
Agente: Michelle Kass Associates
Fatal error: Call to undefined function isLitsy() in /var/www/html/inc_magicDB.php on line 425: Gordon M. Williams (1934-2017) was a Scottish author. Born in Paisley, he moved to London to work as a journalist. He has written for television and is the author of over twenty novels including From Scenes Like These, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1969, Walk Don't Walk and Big Morning Blues. Other novels include The Camp, The Man Who Had Power Over Women and The Upper Pleasure Garden.

He ghosted the autobiographies of association footballers Bobby Moore, Terry Venables and manager Tommy Docherty.

In 1971, his novel The Siege of Trencher's Farm was filmed as Straw Dogs. Sam Peckinpah's cinematic treatment marked a watershed in the depiction of sexual violence in the cinema, though the most controversial scenes are absent from the book. Other film work includes The Man Who Had Power Over Women, from his own novel, and Tree of Hands, as scriptwriter from a Ruth Rendell novel. Williams also wrote The Duellists, the book of Ridley Scott's film.

While working as commercial manager of association football club Chelsea F.C., he renewed his collaboration with Venables, resulting in four co-written novels. From the novels grew the 1978 TV series Hazell which the pair co-wrote under the shared pseudonym P. B. Yuill.

Membros

Críticas

The Siege of Trencher's Farm por Gordon M. Williams

Gordon Williams' novel is full of allusions to ancient blood and hidden rites of England's West Country. Its moody, threatening atmosphere established in just a few pages, The Siege of Trencher's Farm goes on to describe a terror that takes place over just a few hours one night, in the midst of a winter snow storm, just before Christmas.

Williams has a gift for describing visceral situations, as we see the rational George Magruder, an American professor of English, plunged into a primal fight for survival in which only his instincts will matter. The wimpish Magruder becomes transformed. From a henpecked husband, he turns into a one man combat team, defending his home, wife, and daughter. The novel seemingly flies in the face of contemporary feminism (1969) and reexamines the role of masculinity in modern life. Magruder has literally allowed himself and his family to become vulnerable to murder because of his commitment to "civilized values" that dismiss the evolutionary needs to protect home and family from wild intruders.

The novel provides a cathartic experience. Not just for the reader but for Magruder as well. Only at the end, upon vanquishing his foes, does he regain his manhood--literally.

It is easy to see how Sam Peckinpah became enthralled with this book as the subject for his film, Straw Dogs. Peckinpah was an enthusiast of Robert Ardrey and Ardrey's notions of Territoriality. Ardrey himself was a screenwriter, but his true interest remained in ethology, where he was a populizer of such academicians as Konrad Lorenz. According to Ardrey's explanation of Territoriality, animals, especially primates, gained a sense of self identity through their association with a home territory, for which they would always be able to leverage greater psychological advantages over intruders in defending it to the death. Much of that seems to be at work in both Peckinpah's film and in Williams' novel.… (mais)

Assinalado

PaulCornelius | 4 outras críticas | Apr 12, 2020 |

The Micronauts por Gordon Williams

Jorden, ca 1990
En plantesygdom har reduceret fødeproduktionen, verden mangler mad, en slags verdensregering World Food Control kæmper for at få regnestykket til at gå op. Der er død over to milliarder mennesker før en opdeling i Scheduled Zones og Outlands er gennemført. Scheduled Zones lever under hård men retfærdig fødevarerationering.
Lederen er en ældre herre, Commisioner Towne, som for relativt kort tid siden er blevet enkemand, da hans kone Beatrix døde. En ung bureaukrat Assistant Comptroller Larson opsøger Towne for at gøre opmærksom på at noget dyrt udstyr og store mængder titanium er forsvundet. En George Richards er leder af Special Research Projects og ser ud til i alt fald at burde vide hvor sagerne er blevet af. En professor Bob Bruce og politichefen Staff Commander Andrei Khomich og hans håndgangne mand, løjtnant Robinson bliver sendt afsted for at finde ud af hvad der er sket.
Sporene peger mod et Project Arcadia, som holder til på et rekreationscenter. Khomich og en deling soldater fra Special Duty (som går i sorte uniformer) tager ret ublodigt kontrollen over Arcadia og den vagthavende leder Jany går ret hurtigt til bekendelse. Projektet er ganske overraskende avanceret. Man har fundet ud af at lave små udgaver af mennesker i skala 1:35 og desuden fundet ud af at overføre den klonede persons personlighed til miniudgaven. George Richards er både til stede og ikke til stede, for han ligger i kryogen dvale i fuld størrelse samtidig med at miniudgaven spankulerer rundt i en stor have, som bruges som forsøgsområde. Bortset fra at han lige har udsendt et nødsignal og nu er meldt savnet et sted i området. Khomich og Bruce bliver lynhurtigt klonet sammen med en SD Corporal Carr og Captain Robinson og overført til Arcadia hvor de møder Anne Richards, som er Georges kone, Lena Davidson, Stanley Magruder og stationslederen Gerhardt Muller.
Anden del af historien foregår i Arcadia, hvor redningsholdet Robert Wilson Bruce, Andrei Ilyanovich Khomich, Anne Richards, Stanley Norris Magruder, Lena Elizabeth Davidson, Hugh Telfer Robinson og Fitzroy Waverley Carr bliver sendt ud uden bare en lille træningsrunde for at blive vænnet til omgivelserne. De møder diverse insekter og Khomich får også ram på en harmløs bille. Magruder har planlagt at efterlade Robinson, Carr, Khomich og Bruce ude i vildnisset, men de andre skifter mening, da Bruce redder Magruder fra at blive til larvemad. Bruce er så modig at Khomich også får respekt for ham. De møder det oppustede lig af Groebli, som var med George Richards hold. Det lader de ligge og i stedet slår de ly for natten lidt længere fremme. Her bliver de overfaldet af en flok elskovssyge hanmøl og i forvirringen smutter Carr og Lena for at komme først til George Richards. Lena laver også en ondartet forhindring til de andre ved at skære en orm i stykker, så den kan lokke rovdyr til. Det koster Robinson livet, da en skorpion kaster sig over ham. Lena ødelægger også en overgang over en lille å, men Khomich og Anne improviserer vha en plastikflaske, så de faktisk kommer lige så hurtigt frem som Carr og Lena. Det er heldigt nok, for Carr bliver fanget i et edderkoppespind, som Lena nok ikke kunne have reddet ham ud af. Khomich redder Carr og giver ham så en solid gang bank! De leder efter den redningskapsel, som George skulle være i, men kan ikke finde den. I stedet finder nogle bladskærermyrer dem og efter lidt tid kommer de til at tænke over at myrerne kan have flyttet redningskapslen. De kontakter hjemmebasen og får droppet en anden slags myrer i nærheden, så de kan få George Richards ud af myretuen. Undervejs bliver Magruder desværre spist af myrerne. De får kontakt til Towne, som bliver rasende på Khomich, fordi Richards og Bruce stadig er i live, selv om det er afklaret at de ikke er del af en sammensværgelse.
Towne har ellers haft travlt med at rydde rivaler af vejen, reelle som indbildte. Fx er Larson kommet til at falde ud af et vindue.
Anne, Carr, Lena, Khomich og Bruce når lige at undslippe inden tropper med flammekastere brænder hele Arcadia af. Og nu er de så overladt til at klare sig selv indtil de politiske vinde vender og Towne bliver afsat.

Ideen er pænt skør. Lad os skrumpe folk og så slippe dem løs i den omgivende natur. Hvorfor ikke bare bygge nogle huse uden sølvfisk og den slags og så lade nogle folk tilbage i den "store" verden og bruge lidt tid på at avle mad til minimenneskene? Eller klone de samme folk i mange udgaver eller ... Samtidigt fortæller de at miniudgaverne kun har en milliard hjerneceller, mens normale mennesker har 15 milliarder, men det er lige meget. Og selv om de er skrumpet ned i 1:35 kan de tale normalt? Men de brænder sig på småsten i solen og kan holdes fast af en soldug? Udfra nedskaleringen skulle de kun have 350000 hjerneceller, men alligevel skulle det give mening at transformere tilbage fra miniput til menneske? Og et pattedyr på den størrelse skulle vel bruge hele tiden på at spise? Og de påstår også at de små udgaver kan formere sig? Endda stabilt, så de ikke får stort afkom? Og alle de her gennembrud i genetisk forskning er sket i et enkelt isoleret laboratorium med begrænsede midler?
Mængden af plothuller er enorm. Vores fem helte er heldigvis beskyttet af plot armor.… (mais)

Assinalado

bnielsen | Jun 8, 2019 |

The Siege of Trencher's Farm - Straw Dogs por Gordon Williams

I've just finished reading this book and I have to say I have rather mixed feelings about it.

(For what it's worth, I decided to chase it down here at the Brooklyn Public Library after I'd seen both versions of "Straw Dogs." I was simply curious to know something about a story that had gotten so much directorial/cinematic attention.)

My overall reaction? I think that Sam Pekinpah's original version (with Dustin Hoffman and Susan George) was better than Rod Lurie's version (with Alexander Skarsgård and Kate Bosworth), and that both film versions were better than Gordon Williams's book.

Obviously, it takes a good story (or at least a well-written script) -- just for starters -- to make a good movie. And Gordon Williams's story is not without its virtues.

But I, for one, struggled continually with a little thing called 'pronominal reference' -- i. e., I just didn't know exactly who was the author of a particular action much of the time, and consequently had to go back and re-read -- sometimes, paragraphs at a time -- to figure it out. This, to my way of thinking, is not star-quality story-telling.

I also couldn't authenticate a lot of the dialect he uses for the principal antagonists in this story. It's a British vernacular I've not only never heard, but also can't imagine.

All of the above notwithstanding, the story is an entertaining one. I would simply suggest that you skip the book and see Sam Peckinpah's film version of "Straw Dogs."

RRB
07/22/13
… (mais)

Assinalado

RussellBittner | 4 outras críticas | Dec 12, 2014 |

They Used to Play on Grass por Gordon Williams; Terry Venables

Given that this book was written such a long time ago, it's impressive that it managed to predict so many of the headaches that afflict modern football. It even predicted the millionaire footballing playboy with a David Beckham-style character. Initially the footballing action takes second place to the inter-relationships between the players, some of whom are well fleshed-out, others take some remembering. There is an extended match sequence at the end, by which time you need to care about the characters and who wins, as it does go on a bit. A rather predictable weepie moment (if you're a girlie) at the end concludes a reasonably good story.… (mais)

Assinalado

jayne_charles | Aug 30, 2010 |

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