Baby Got Books

Lord of the Flies

I’m certain that I read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies when I was younger, but not having any specific recollection of the details of the story (including the ending), I decided to re-read it. And much like Jack London’s To Build a Fire, another story I had read when I was younger but couldn’t remember the details of, when I read this one again, all of the imagery was different from what I had remembered. In both cases, even though I couldn’t recall specific elements, I had a vision in my mind of the respective settings, but when I read each of them again, the picture in my mind was completely different. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s sort of strange.

But on to the details. This is as intense a read as it gets. First published in 1954, the book tells the story of a group of British schoolboys who are marooned on a deserted island without any adults. As they try to sort out the roles and responsibilities necessary to sustain them and to maximize their chances of being rescued, they create the guiding principles for the society they create, but almost as quickly as they settle on their social contract and civil rules, their society begins to fracture and the boys begin to form alliances and devolve into a frighteningly primitive group of antagonistic factions.

A fair-haired boy named Ralph is the island’s first leader. But as he and another boy named Jack begin to disagree over the group’s priorities, it becomes clear that a power struggle is sure to ensue. Ralph works with Piggy, a fat, bespectacled boy, to try to govern the boys (including the “littluns”, the younger boys who cannot fend for themselves), while Jack and a group of the boys designated as “hunters” apparently make plans to govern themselves. And the tension that builds between them and the ways in which it manifests itself are so wrought with suspense, fear, uncertainty, and confusion that the reader can’t help but be riveted to the turning pages.

The story itself is a metaphor that reflects human nature, good and evil, and the underpinnings of any human society. But it is also filled with icons and imagery that serve to focus the reader on the fundamental nature of friendship, power, wealth/possession, adaptability, and the fragile nature of the human mind. Piggy’s glasses, the “beast”, castle rock, the shelters the boys build, and the “lord of the flies” (the identity/description of which I won’t reveal here) each represent something that the reader is forced to define for him or herself. And some of them represent things that are easily taken for granted until we are deprived of them.

This is a fantastic book. While Golding’s writing style and word choice take a little getting used to, once you’re in, you can’t get out.

An aside: The NYT’s review of a new biography of Golding begins: “In the late 1960s, some 15 years after the publication of “Lord of the Flies,” William Golding confessed to a friend that he resented the novel because it meant that he owed his reputation to what he thought of as a minor book, a book that had made him a classic in his lifetime, which was “a joke,” and that the money he had gained from it was “Monopoly money” because he hadn’t really earned it.”

Books, Fiction, Review | Shaft | July 27, 2010 8:22 am

2 Comments

By Dani in NC, July 28, 2010 @ 6:40 pm

This book is one of the few that I’ve read where I haven’t really read another book that compares to it. For instance, there are many books that are obviously a modern version of “Romeo and Juliet” or “Pride and Prejudice”, but “Lord of the Flies” doesn’t seem to have many imitators. Either that or I haven’t run across them yet.
By Shaft, July 28, 2010 @ 6:56 pm

That’s a great point, Dani. I guess there are plenty of books that examine the structures of society, but none that could portray the dynamics the way Golding has in this context. Rather than telling “the classic love story/tragedy” a la “Romeo and Juliet” by changing out the locale and the characters, what Golding has done, by setting the story amongst marooned youngsters, cannot be replicated without copying. The fact that they are youngsters resonates with just how immature any of us can be when confronted with potential chaos and anarchy.