Lord of the Flies (1954)

Have to confess I’ve never read this, so I thought I’d listen to it as a compromise. Owing to its reputation, I expected a far more brutal story. No doubt much is lost owing to what once was shocking pales in significance as time progresses. Still, undoubtedly a classic and deserving of such status. ( )

I remember reading this as a child, and it's interesting how much I do and don't remember.......I knew Simon went a tad peculiar, but never remember what happened next. I also thought something else happened to Piggy (whose real name we never know), and a lot earlier in the book. [return][return]Much of the book is now iconic - the painted children, the hunting of the pigs, the conch, the rules versus the return to savage.

Twisted and disgusting, but a great book. One of those that are very thought provoking, but I would rather the content stay on the pages XD ( )

I doubt there’s anything to say about this book that hasn’t been said already, and by more informed people than me, so I’ll keep it brief. It was a reread for me, I first read Lord of the Flies at school (like most people). I enjoyed it a lot second time round, despite knowing what was going to happen. It’s gripping, chilling and most of all convincing. It’s also admirably brief, packing a huge amount of memorable incident and insight into such a short novel.
The edition I read had a decent intro from Stephen King, who clearly admires the book greatly. Although apparently not enough to emulate its brevity. ( )

Most people have probably read this in their school years and probably found it an unforgettable book and experience. We've read many books in jr. high, high school and college, but few will have remained with us as vividly as this one. Why? Because it reveals to us the self within us that our life is spent suppressing, denying and wanting to not believe it could be within us. We ALL have that 'self' buried within us and it is only 'by the grace of god' that we keep it there.
Yet we know that the guards at the WW II death camps, the Khmer Rouge, the Red Guards and the armies of Joseph Stalin who "purged" millions were not evil, sick people; they were otherwise normal people who found themselves doing things they abhorred because deep within them was that very thing Lord of the Flies reminds us of: we all have the capacity for savagery.
For me, reading The Lord of the Flies for the second time made me admire the book even more than a younger me possibly could have. No longer overwhelmed by the plot and what it reveals about the inner me and the inner you, I found myself entranced with the genius of Golding's skills. He understood so much about the nature of individuals and the nature of groups. He knew how hard it is for one good man to stand up against the pressures of groups of regular men misled. Normal young people became Nazis because Hiltler had no single truly good man with leadership skills to stand against him, and even the religions that should have provided moral compasses failed in their jobs.
Golding understood that societies need rules and controls. He understood that achieving the common good, whether it is rescue from a far-away island or social isolation in the time pf pandemic, requires people of insight, wisdom and a higher morality to influence others and to support the rule of law. A moral leader focuses on long term goals led Americans to sacrifice and come together to prevail in WW II; an immoral leader supports polarization and self-interest as his nation faces a pandemic.
Golding understood the importance of the symbols of power, authority and governance. In this novel, the conch, an ordinary seashell, became the symbol of that power and both advisories, Ralph and Jack, understood its power.
What struck me most about the book really occurred in Chapter 7. It was here that I most saw the parallel to today's polarized political atmosphere. There are those who will always pursue short term goals, short term solutions to temporary problems and authoritarian and even amoral leadership. They are the majority, actually. Then there are the others, the Ralphs and Samanderics who know that to achieve long term goals, the goals that will eliminate future short term problems, requires sacrifice and discipline. The former group lights a fire for temporary use and then ignores its potential while the latter group supports "lighting a beacon" for future success. Probably the greatest irony of the book is how the smoke of the beacon played so heavily in the ending of the book.
Another thing that I understood better after re-reading this novel is what classics and true literary fiction offer that is not found in lesser works. These superior works understand the psychology of individuals and the psychology of groups. Few novelists delve into the souls, inner thoughts, motivations and influences that have formed their characters, but the great authors do. And the great writers understand that the psychologies of the individuals become parts of a mass psychology, even a mass hysteria, when individuals become parts of a group. That 'mass psychology' is very different from the psychologies of the individual member of the group.
Chapter 7 of Lord of the Flies, Tolstoy's description of the Napoleonic sacking of Moscow in War and Peace, and Twain's description of the lynch mob in Huckleberry Finn are just a few of the places genius authors rise about their contemporaries. These are the measures of true 5 star books!
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