Lord of the Flies

By: William Golding

Narrated by: William Golding

Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

Get ready for an adventure tale in its purest form, a thrilling and elegantly told account of a group of British schoolboys marooned on a tropical island. Alone in a world of uncharted possibilities, devoid of adult supervision or rules, the boys begin to forge their own society, their own rules, their own rituals. With this seemingly romantic premise, and through the seemingly innocent acts of children, Golding exposes the duality of human nature itself: the dark, eternal divide between order and chaos, intellect and instinct, structure and savagery.

©1954 William Golding (P)2002 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Lord of the Flies gives the reader a lucid and chillingly objective mirror to our modern society. William Golding's narration is as impartial as his work, yet his grumbly, grandfatherly voice, complete with mid-sentence sniffs and swallows, is intimate." (AudioFile)

"Lord of the Flies is one of my favorite books. I still read it every couple of years." (Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games trilogy)

"I finished the last half of Lord of the Flies in a single afternoon, my eyes wide, my heart pounding, not thinking, just inhaling.... My rule of thumb as a writer and reader - largely formed by Lord of the Flies - is feel it first, think about it later." (Stephen King)

"This brilliant work is a frightening parody on man's return [in a few weeks] to that state of darkness from which it took him thousands of years to emerge. Fully to succeed, a fantasy must approach very close to reality. Lord of the Flies does. It must also be superbly written. It is." (The New York Times Book Review)

Wonderfully relevant!

This is one of my all time favorites! The illustrated struggle between man and himself is personified by the beasts in nature and the beast within his own soul! I home school my gifted son (11) and I am so glad that I chose this book for his in-class reading. I know that I don't have to mention the convenience of listening to a book, but the ability to follow along to the voice of the author is a special treat! Further, William Golding has a knack for reading his story almost as well as it is written!

Timeless story

My daughter really enjoyed the narration and was estatic that she found it on Audible. The story is timeless and still on high school reading list.

Worth reading

I vaguely remember seeing the movie and after hearing the reference in another book, I thought I would give it a listen. I figured that the author would provide insight into the book that other narrators couldn't provide, but I wasn't impressed with him. His voice got old after a while.

Lord of the Flies

Yes it met my expectations! Narrator was excellent! The Death of Piggy was a shocking and not at all expected!

OK, but...

As noted, author not great reader. Doesn't change voices for different characters, so hard to tell who's saying what at times.

Good story not a great performance

The story starts slowly but in the end is a profound examination of how easily we slide out of civilization into savagery. We need reminders of how fragile civilization is.
The reading is by the author but it is not real clear. It is one of the lesser readings I have found on Audible, though his brief reflections on the book at the end of the recording are interesting

Ok

Overall a good story but would have been a better audio if a professional rather than the author had performed the reading

A bad reading by the author of an unrealistic book

Slow, boring and unenthusiastic reading by the author
Unrealistic story, starts off by saying he wrote the story to show how young boys would really behave isolated on a deserted island, and then makes them go on to kill each other after only a short period of time
Generally boringly written (very subjective of course)

Kept reading mention of this book from authors....

This book has been mentioned in several books I have read and audio books I've listened to. With Authors like Stephen King making reference to this book I wanted to listen to it myself. I must say that I just don't see what the appeal is to this book. Characters are very important to me and I did not feel any connection to any of them. I love to read about how people survive in situation like this but this did not interest me. I wanted to love this, I really did, but I just could not get into it and was happy when it finished.

Sleepy flies

I did not like this at all, but I have a feeling I would feel differently if another narrator had been utilized. The story was decent and I could tell it had some very tense moments and a great deal of action, but Mr Goulding’s narration (to me) fell completely flat. His tone seemed incongruous to the tone of the book the whole time and I got the vibe (again this is possibly just me) that he was sleepy the entire time he narrated. At any rate I felt sleepy the whole tone I was listening to it. I’m sad there are no other options for narrators to this, which is a modern classic. Of course I recommend the book because the meat of the story was great, not a fun story but definitely one that you need to be a well rounded reader. Though, if you have a chance to get another narrator I would say to go for it.