Lord of the Flies

By: William Golding

Narrated by: Martin Jarvis

Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's Summary

A plane crashes on a desert island, and the only survivors, a group of schoolboys, assembles on the beach and waits to be rescued. By day they inhabit a land of bright fantastic birds and dark blue seas, but at night their dreams are haunted by the image of a terrifying beast. As the boys’ delicate sense of order fades, so their childish dreams are transformed into something more primitive and their behaviour starts to take on a murderous, savage significance.

©1954 William Golding (P)2012 Faber Audio

Story of cruel innocence

It's a story of spiralling down into savagery and brutality, a story of making a choice between good and evil, peace and war, God and Satan. The name Lord of the flies is actually translated as Beelzebul, one of the three main fallen angels along with Lucifer and Astaroth.
It is revolting to see how quickly and without compunction children can lose their innocence and become unruly bloodthirsty criminals.
As for the narrator, I was overwhelmed listening to M. Jarvis' performance. His rendition was exceptional.

Classic - if a bit disturbing.

Another classic that I have been seeking on audio to add to my library for a while. This one because I had read it as a boy and enjoyed it greatly and wanted to add it to my rotating library of repeat listens. It makes it to that list very very easily.

The basic story is probably fairly well known. Group of boys. Desert Island. Add some time and wait for chaos to reign. I remembered that much from my boyhood read but there are layers here that I didn't get as a spotty teen.

And I'm coming to the conclusion that this is what makes a great book great.

Every time you read it it makes you think about some element of it differently and see some feature in a new light. Ostensibly this is a book about how small boys will happily become savages if left without authority. It is also wider, deeper and longer than that if you pause the recoding every now and then and let your mind wander over a scene for a few minutes and think about whatever else it throws into your head. Bit like tasting a good wine where you can (I'm told - cheap plonk man myself) start to seperate out individual notes from the flavour. "I'm getting - the beginnings of religion - the draw of superstition - mans inhumanity to man.........."

That said , if all you want is a good book with a good story well told and well read then this will do that for you too. Just that there is more there if you want it.

Martin Jarvis does an excellent job on the narration.

Add a small chapter at the end for ralph.

I loved the book but wish thet there was another chapter at the end for Ralph to get his justice and for Jack to be reprimanded.

Always a thought provoking classic

If you are not familiar with the book this is a great reading enjoy it

Golding says ululating a lot.

That's it, great book, killer ending, poor Piggy, oops spoilers, you knew, fifteen words byeeeeeeeeee!

Carried away in thoughts

I sometimes got carried away in thoughts. Not a good sign that it was a book for me.

The book was one of the best I've read, but

Overall this was a great book, but the emense amount of discription of the environment made it a lot more boring to read and listen to. Other than that the book was amazing, the story, characters and this weird concept made you really think about how cruel the world is. Hey, and I liked the narrator to!

Too many metaphors

It was a walk down memory lane, have not read this since a child. Unfortunately, I had never realised how repetitious and heavy-handed the Author was until now. Still a great look at Human behaviour and entertaining #Team Ralph

lord of the flies

Loved it! Narrator was excellent! Long time overdue book for me to 'read'. Well done

Important Ideas but a boring story

I appreciated the writing, themes, and ideas. However, the plot is slow and cumbersomeand I struggled to finish the book.

There's a reason it's a classic

A very well told story of descent into savagery. This is one of those "I really should read" books, which I am very glad I did.
Every part of this story is etched into my mind by the author's descriptive artistry brought to life by Martin Jarvis' exceptional story telling. I can still see Piggy quite clearly when I recollect the book, along with the pig trails in the jungle and the boys camp next to the shallow rock pool.
If you have any desire to read this book then I doubt it will be a disappointment.

Not a single word wasted.

Being uneducated and semi-literate, Lord of The Flies has been one of the many books floating around in the ether that was unlikely for me ever to read. It turns out that my nephew, who is also my ward along with his four siblings, must study it for his Junior Certificate state examinations in Ireland. So I got the audiobook. I'm sure, like many people, I have had a vague idea of what it was about. I didn't realise that it was so modern, what with aeroplanes and televisions etc. What impressed me was the simplicity in the style of writing. I'm sure that this book is not abridgeable, unlike Victor Hugo and even my dear sweet Charles Dickens, and in truth William Golding has not wasted a single word. As to Martin Jarvis, here is an actor who can really bring a book to life, he reads beautifully and interprets characters brilliantly. I would highly recommend this audiobook.

Atmospheric

This reading suits perfectly the dramatic story that unfolds. The pace at which the story is told does justice to the powerful atmosphere that Golding creates. I played the death scenes to class while they were studying it and it made the story all the most accessible to them.

lord of the flies

I read this book when I was 11 and enjoyed it then so I thought that it would be nice to give it another try and I must say it was just as enjoyable this time round, I found that I just had to keep reading until I had finished it. A great read, sad and funny.

Sadly a true depiction of mankind

Golding shows through the behaviour of the children in the book what happens in a lawless society and how quickly it descends into anarchy. Sadly I think this is a pretty accurate description of how mankind will behave and unfortunately the reactions of many people in our current Coronavirus situation, has done nothing to dissaude me of that!

Wonderful

I really enjoyed this book it gripped me throughout. The reader was fantastic and there was very little that didnt add to the story.

a bit sad..

I've always put off reading this, expecting it to be full of evil savagery.... but loved it! Most of it.... Martin Jarvis was the perfect narrator. I just didn't like the sad bits but then I guess, that was kind of the whole point of the story.... mans inhumanity to man.

Brilliant narrator for such a powerful book

I haven't read this for years although it's one that stays with you. As an adult revisiting it there's an added layer of nuance I think as you truly understand the last few lines.

The reader was superb and I really enjoyed this.

I hate it

** Spoiler **

Character 'Piggy' wasn't the only person who died during this story....I died trying to finish this boring, drawn out book.

While I appreciate William Golding's efforts to use children as a shock factor in leveraging the idea of break down of humanity and social order. I just don't buy it. When we think of children, they represent innocence through their naivity and lack of experience, lack the knowledge and ability to think objectively and clearly. To expect them to assume responsibility and understand order in a situation that they have not experienced or thought of is absurd and unbelievable.

Piggy, although fat, asthmatic and physically useless in terms of survival, is suppose to make up with it through his intelligence. Yet it was Ralph who used his glasses to create a fire, all while Piggy was in absolute distress that his glasses had been taken despite being explained for said purpose. Pathetic. Dialogue is a mess. Story is drawn out. Characters are dull as dishwater.

I zoned out a LOT during this book, and skipped a chapter just to save prolonging the agony any further.

Average (at best)

If I had to describe this book in one word, it would be 'average'. Having somehow never having read Lord of the Flies as a set text at school like so many others it had been in my to read list for longer than I'd care to admit. So when a friend offered me a copy I thought why not and gave it a go. My initial thoughts within the first few pages were that of discomfort as the sexualised images of young school boys did not sit well with me at all. I'd never heard of this being an issue with this text before which lead me to wonder whether it was just me who thought the descriptions of lythe, semi-naked bronzed young men were not necessary to the plot at all. I also struggled with the lack of timescale in the plot. Had the boys been on the island for days, weeks or months??? I'm aware that this may have been the intention of Golding in order to highlight how important order and structure are to society but as a result I felt that I couldn't appreciate to the fullest extent what the characters were experiencing. Alongside of this, the lack of character development was also frustrating. While each of the characters had a key quality that was necessary to the over-riding themes, they each just seemed like token pawns to the (lack of) plot rather than characters to which we got to know and love or hate. And without giving any spoilers away, the blurb for this book could be condensed into 'school boys get stranded on desert Island, school boys try to survive'. The fact that not much actually goes within the novel is so disappointing. This book could have been SO MUCH MORE.
I can see why this is a school/exam set text - the themes of race, power and relationships are examined at a very basic level. For anyone who has surpassed this level of critical analysis however I'd give it a miss and spend your time on something a little more complex with more of a plot line and character that you'll develop a relationship with.
3 stars rather than 2 because for some, this is the book that will have started them out on the path of literary appreciation and it has to be given some credit for that alone.