I recently read "Lord of the Flies" and then happened upon this lesser-known book by William Golding. I am a slow reader, but I read this novel surprisingly quickly, and was drawn in and eventually absorbed by the characters, their inner dialogues and their private universes. Matty, the "Anti-Hero/Martyr", represents many things for me--a prophet in the wilderness, a shaman, a clown, whom I would not consider to be evil; he is not vengeful, violent, nor is he vindictive. And yet in his silence, he can be frightening; he commits "a grievous deed" for which he turns to the Bible, and then to spirits/spiritual guides, in a quest for redemption. There is a dreamy, surreal aspect to the prose, that occasionally left me confused as to the exact nature of whatever reality was being described at a particular moment; for example, near the end of the book--is Sophy (one of two "evil twins") actually brutalizing the young boy that has been kidnapped for her, or only suffering from criminal delusions of grandeur? Is she merely imagining this violence? I am impressed with the way Golding develops both the inner and outer lives of the two little girls (Sophy and Toni), who start out innocently enough as children. Sophy and Toni grow up in an emotional vacuum, nursing dangerous fantasies, as a result of their father's neglect. Nevertheless--in the end, both girls make their choices about the type of individuals they want to be.

Certainly the traumatic childhoods of Sophy and Toni contribute to their respective downward spirals into delinquency. [And yet others, who in real life come from scarier circumstances than these two little girls, can go on to accomplishment, achievement and greatness in their adult lives.] Sophy and Toni are both very bright girls; at least metaphorically, the twins resemble Regan and Goneril from Shakespeare's "King Lear", minus Cordelia. Matty chooses his destiny as well; the difference being that I can sympathize with Matty, as he, and his life, has been so literally "scarred" from the beginning. Like Quasimodo, the archetypal "ugly monster" often has the biggest heart. Matty's deformity also makes him stronger than either Sophy or Toni; he is resiliently independent from a very young age. And as reclusive and mysterious as Matty is--I believe him to be compassionate. After reading this book, which contains some "Dickensian" aspects (particularly the character of Mr. Pedigree), in my understanding of the term--I can see why Golding became a Nobel laureate. Not only by means of his intellectual and creative gifts, but also via the empathy and understanding he shows for his characters. All of which Golding is able to elucidate in a prose that is often poetic, and explicit when necessary (surely this was much easier to do in 1979 when this book was published, then it would have been in 1954 when "Lord of the Flies" was published). I am looking forward to reading Golding's second novel, "The Inheritors". There is a lot to be learned from this multi-faceted writer. ( )

Not just dark, but utterly miserable. I put the novel down after the first part centred on a naive boy called Matty. Sure, the subject matter is necessarily disturbing. But I could neither identify with the characters, nor appreciate in any depth their difficulties. That said, the metaphorical opening scene, describing the London Blitz in WWII, is well written. ( )

Hellfire is a potent symbol and William Golding makes liberal use of it in his brooding and pessimistic 1979 masterpiece Darkness Visible. As a child Matty Septimus Windgrove (or Windrove, or Windrake--the reader is never offered a solution to the mystery of his name) emerges disfigured from a burning building during the London Blitz and responds to the scars and markings he is left with by withdrawing from the society that rejects him for being physically unappealing. At school he unintentionally exposes Mr. Pedigree, the only teacher who pretends to tolerate him, as a pederast. Mr. Pedigree loses his position and guilt for being the cause of this plagues Matty for the rest of his days. In adulthood he embarks on a quasi-spiritual quest (which takes him to Australia and then back to England) for meaning—or something like it—a quest that consumes the remainder of his life. Matty's inept and largely ineffectual goodness finds its moral antithesis in the Stanhope twins, Toni and Sophy. These two begin life as deceptively angelic little girls who grow up to become seductively attractive young women, and who respond to their inauspicious upbringing (absent mother, neglectful philandering father) by embracing evil. Toni leaves home to take up a career as a political terrorist. Sophy flees a mundane existence for crime, starting out in desultory fashion as a prostitute before graduating to petty larceny and then hatching a scheme to kidnap a boy whose wealthy parents will surely pay a king's ransom to get him back. Unfortunately, the men she enlists to help carry off the plan are clods and everything goes awry, foiled in part by Matty, whose life ends as it began: in flames. Golding's characters are never in a position to clearly articulate or even reflect upon what they are seeking. In a series of exquisitely cryptic journal entries Matty writes about beings (spirits?) that visit him, but how they influence him and the things he does is unclear. Sophy does not seem necessarily determined to become a criminal; crime is simply a default response to the intolerable boredom that everyday life inflicts upon her. In the end, Darkness Visible comes across as an indictment, but of what exactly? Golding judges neither his characters nor their actions. Mr. Pedigree, though loathsome, is depicted as a pathetic victim of perverse impulses that nature has made it impossible for him to resist. He does not want to be this way, but since he can't do anything about it he might as well make the most of it. The same could be said of Matty and Sophy. Each responds to the life they are given in the only way they know how. But is the reader expected to admire Matty’s heroism and condemn Sophy’s wickedness? In the psychologically complex and morally ambiguous world that William Golding conjures up in this novel, that seems far too simple-minded a response. ( )

Creepy as all hell. Brilliant. ( )

Ok William Golding books are über depressing. I didn't know at the time that I bought this book, that William Golding was the author of 'Lord of the Flies' (I missed it on the back of the book because well I only read the synopsis not the brief authors bio) if I had I probably would have put it back. Its not that hes a bad author or that his stories are bad, but wow they make me frown at the book as I read them. So as far as the actual story, I don't really know what to make of it. I wouldn't say I liked the book so much as it made me stop and think. I guess my over all impression is that wow some things are really fucked up and people can be blamed and horribly affected by things that aren't their fault D: ( )