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Kiwes

An Timeless Treasure. . .

Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2018

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In my quest to read the greatest American horror stories of all time, I'm so elated to say I've finally reached Lord of the Flies. Oh my, what an epic story in great proportions! I think what scared me the most about this story are the parallels between the timeline in the story and our time we're living right now.

Our story begins with a plane crash that lands the boys on this beautiful coral oasis island in the middle of who-knows-where. Immediately, Ralph, being one of the eldest boys decides to take it upon himself to explore the island and find out how many others are there. He takes a conch shell and blows through it and discovers there are various size boys displaced the same as he.

Until they can be rescued, Ralph takes a poll and asks the boys to vote who should be their chief to help guide them. Hands down, Ralph wins. It is realized very early that the littler boys are frightened and crying for their mothers, while the bigger boys begin to think of survival straight away. As they explore and learn about the island, they find fruit they can eat, while some of them ate things that weren't so good, causing them to get sick.

The longer they stayed on the island, it was becoming obvious that a shift was changing within 'some' of the boys. Ralph could clearly see that his word was no longer being listened to. They seemed to be interested in Jack Merridew and what he had to say. After all, he was about killing pigs for meat to eat, and killing anything 'else' that stood in his way. As the story advances, it becomes very clear that these young boys have turned into total savages. They reverted back to caveman days without thought or a care in the world.

Eventually, as the boys began to divide, Jack's tribe was much larger than Ralph's. Poor Ralph had no one he could confide in or help him. Jack had a thirst for blood and didn't mind spilling it--and it did not have to be a pig's blood. If you didn't follow 'his' rules, you might find a spear stuck in your chest.

I've always heard about Lord of the Flies and I knew when someone said people are acting like the named title, I knew exactly what they meant. The saddest thing of all, Golding wrote this novel 64 years ago, and here I can see things happening to our country right now! Actually, not just our country, but the world. With social media and politicians who feel it's quite all right to say and act any way they please as if this is the norm! All the laws and rights we Americans have fought so hard for to ensure an equality for all Americans, was for not. Our country is reverting back to a time I dare not think of. Hmm, see the similarities of the story and today! Who knew Golding would tell a story that would eventually come true. How terrifying is that!

Tracey

Defect Product

Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2019

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3 stars. Arrived on time but the novel was unacceptable! The cover was great but all the pages were cut improperly. Picture as above.
Need to return this item but giving this a second chance, ordering another one.

Edit: Second book came in the same condition. Very confused. Changing to a 2 stars.

Frank N.

"Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us."

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2017

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I was tempted to give this five stars, since in so many ways it strikes me as the kind of masterpiece, like Heart of Darkness, that I imagine will retain its horror and readability for centuries. The prose veers (or as Golding would say it, "tends") from plain to painterly. The story is well known: a sort of allegorical morality play set in modern times -- fancy English boys left to their own devices don't so much as revert to darkness as discover primitive outlets for the darkness reflected in their greater society. This is what I love about Heart of Darkness: try as one might, Kurtz cannot be pigeonholed into good or evil. He is excellent at what he does, and what he does is evil. Kurtz is a true reflection of what excellence was to Colonial Europe, and in so far as Colonial Europe was good, cultivated, honorable, and esteemed, so is Kurtz. Kurtz isn't good or evil; he is true.

Golding's version is darker. It centers mostly around the corrupting power of urges to overwhelm social order. Freudian criticism abounds, but the parallel I kept coming back to was Rome. I found that Piggy, no matter how truly annoying he is (another brilliant stroke by Golding is to make Piggy strangely unsympathetic), recalled those numerous Republicans of the Early Empire who advocated in a shrill but useless manner for a return to Senate rule but were shunted aside and usually killed by deranged sociopaths who behaved quite like like Jack. But be it Freudian or historic, any framing of this book feels cheap and hollow because the story has such a complexity of primal urges that it feels almost biological.

Golding said he came up with the idea of book after reading his children "Treasure Island or Coral Island or some such Island" in the years of the hydrogen bomb and Stalin and asked his wife, "why don't I write a children's story about how people really are, about how people actually behave?" To me that's a chilling question and it reveals an architecture not based on rigid Freudian or historical or symbolic parallels. Its portrait of sadism could have been lifted out of the newspapers; its struggle for dominion over the weak is an almost sexual frenzy recalls everything I know about torture in the dungeons of Argentine or US military prisons. In this respect, I think the book, like Heart of Darkness, is timeless.

But I chose not to give it five stars because at the center of Golding's book is a kind of rigid Christian iconography, like that you find in the Poisonwood Bible, that offends me, perhaps because it reminds me of the way I wrote my Freshman year of college, or perhaps because that rigidity, that allegiance to a=b symbolic logic insults my intelligence. The martyrdom of Simon, I felt, demeaned the human quality of Simon. I liked him best because he struck me as the most shrewd and practical. Reducing him to an icon transforms him into a variable: Simon = Paul or Peter or whomever, but ergo facto Simon ≠ Simon. When he comes down to the beach mutting "something about a body on a hill" Simon ceases to be a reflection of human complexity, or biological completeness, and instead becomes a rehashed precedent from Sunday school.

I've often felt that Heart of Darkness' genius was that it somehow reflected the effect of Darwin and modern thinking on the antiquated ideas of Colonial Europe, ie Kurtz isn't good or evil because good and evil are artifices that wilt beneath analysis. When Golding adheres to this materialist perspective, the book is masterly. When he swears allegiance to worn out Christian parables, that complexity is reduced to slips of paper.

French Bulldog

A deserving inclusion in the Great Books of the 20th Century edition

Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2014

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Review of the Novel: As a teacher, I have to teach the same novels repeatedly. Quite a few novels that were immensely meaningful to me as a teenager are in hindsight only great young adult novels or at best great for only a few reads. The Lord of the Flies, however, is not one of those works. I must have read it closely at least ten or even twenty times by now, but I still find it engaging and stumble upon new realizations. Students who think they've already read (and/or failed to appreciate) the Lord of the Flies discover a work that shakes them to the core of their being, once I force them to slow down and really appreciate Golding's rich work. And I'm really not being hyperbolic. I just want to teach this novel over and over and over again.

Review of the Penguin Great Books edition (ISBN 978-0-14-028333-4): As for this edition, I highly recommend it. The cover is well-designed aesthetically and functionally. The binding is tight, especially for a paperback. The deckle edges are a nice touch. The font type and spacing is quite nice, not too big or small, so that it can pack in the entire novel into 182 pages of fine-quality paper that might actually be acid-free, even if not lignan-free, versus versus Riverhead edition's acidic 272 pages. The only downside to this edition is that the margins are a bit narrow for someone like me who loves marginalia. But otherwise, I'd highly recommend this edition.

OK, I'm done sounding super stuffy now.

Ehab

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2018

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all good

Zazu

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2017

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Came as expected

Top reviews from other countries

Mark Dyer

Of its time perhaps

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 9, 2019

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This is another in the series of books that I am making myself read in my late 50s that were books I was supposed to have read at school in the 70s (Brave New World, Animal Farm, and so on).

No doubt it was shocking when it was written but the world has overtaken it in shockability now (almost any American crime TV series, almost anything on the www). Like others in 'my' series I found this not spectacularly entertaining - although I do respect them for being perhaps the first of their kind. I found the prose to be adequate but not especially flowing - as compared to John Steinbeck, for example.

Having attended an all-male grammar school from age 11 to 18 none of the story surprised me; I imagine that if I had been at a boarding school from an earlier age I would be even more inured to the events. Maybe Tom Brown's Schooldays next.

Sam

A Gripping Tale of Societal Disintegration

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 20, 2019

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Knowing a little about the general plot and theme of the book, I must admit I was nonetheless taken aback by how dark the novel gets. Set on an unnamed island, the tale explores the fates of a group of children of varying ages, who find themselves stranded and unaccompanied by any adults after a mysterious plane crash.

At first, the children appear to maintain some semblance of order and cohesion as they elect the discerning Ralph as their leader. He is supported by the loyal and effervescent Piggy, a plump boy who, for large parts of the novel, is ostracised and bullied by the other boys. Yet, as the novel develops, we quickly realise that Piggy is the voice of reason and democracy in the text, though his words all too often fall on deaf ears.

Golding is masterful at showing the gradual decline of Ralph’s leadership, much of which is tested by the fractious and perverse Jack, who at once embodies the primitive and megalomaniac nature of man. While Ralph stresses the importance of maintaining a fire in order to attract passing ships, Jack’s desires are far more primordial as he sets about hunting the numerous pigs that inhabit the island, as well as the mysterious ‘Beast’, a creature whose existence is both denied yet feared by the boys.

As the days go by, the governance the boys initially upheld dissipates. The words of Yeats seem all too apt here: ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’. Without giving too much away, the ending is at once symbolic of lost innocence; these are schoolboys, yet they possess the same flaws that inhabit grown men.

Golding’s prose is extremely polished and there are numerous passages abundant in imagery that reflects the state of society the boys find themselves in. Golding is particularly adroit at juxtaposing the seemingly idyllic island with the anarchic primitivism of the boys.

This is a must-read for anyone who wishes to explore the great texts of the twentieth-century. It is widely read in schools but, as anyone who touches this book will discover, its relevance extends far beyond the walls of the classroom.

Elizabeth Hyland

Revision notes not included

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 27, 2018

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I ordered this for my daughter, as she is about to begin her GCSE studies, and her teacher thought it beneficial to read over the holidays. So I chose this version as the review which mat the hat gave in January 2018 said that notes were after the main novel, so did not interrupt the story. Perfect! Or so I thought...
On receiving our copy, I felt very disappointed that the notes were not included, as I believed and any possible advantage of choosing this copy had been dashed. Disappointed daughter and mother
I would appreciate any comments from amazon on this please

pdub

Great adventure story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 9, 2018

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I'm not a big reader or into books and rarely read of finish a book. My Daughter is coming up to her GCSEs so decided to give this a read and then pass it on to her once finished so I may be of some help (possibly!)

This has been on the curriculum for years but I don't recall studying it, instead we had the mind numbingly boring 'An Inspector Calls' ; so wish we'd had LOTF as it was a really good read, a gripping story full of adventure and raised lots of questions.

I'm enjoying alot of the online discussions into the book, but I do feel that its been over studied and people have read too much into the allegorical and theological notions contained within, but always thought provoking.

Worth a read even for non academic reasons!

SEA WARRIOR

DON'T LEND TO ANY RELATIVES SHOWING SIGNS OF NASCENT SAVAGERY

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 16, 2020

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This kept me absorbed and, being set on a beach, easily passed my Beach Read Test. Particular strengths of Lord of the Flies are its imaginative plot, unpredictable story-line and thrilling ending. The one weakness is that it can be difficult to navigate through some of the longer passages. Golding, like Gibbon, might have laid out more navigational markers. That said, having to concentrate now and again is good for the brain. Who might enjoy this? The book will work for both adults and teenagers - but my littlun nephews won't be getting a gift copy anytime soon. I will certainly read more of Golding's books.

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