Lord of the Flies

Good to finally grasp the full weight of the references our culture still makes to this classic.

It’s one thing to understand the concept: “Kids left to their own devices on an uninhabited island experience rapid societal and moral degradation.” It’s quite another to put yourself through the trial of experiencing the devolution. And reading it does mean experiencing it, thanks to Golding’s literary wielding.

The prose is vivid—almost cinematic—and possessed of a certain dark elegance, while still remaining accessible. That’s not to say I would ever recommend the book for kids under the age of 12. The violent shattering of youthful innocence is too complete. I’d worry for the young adolescent who wouldn’t be a touch traumatized by the telling, as progressive callousness is the very thing that haunts the theme.

"And in the middle of then, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart."

When I started reading this book, I was afraid it was going to be depravity for the sake of depravity. It helped tremendously to read the author’s explanation of why he wrote it and—almost as interestingly—why he chose a pack of male juveniles as his characters. Golding was trying to show how base evil tends to go hand in hand with the human condition. How very thin the line is between civility and savagery once sufficient pressure is applied. Personally, I think he was ahead of his time in identifying sociopathy in children long before it was a recognized (or diagnosable) state of being.

At any rate, it’s clear the subject matter still resonates. The glut of recent dystopians involving kids being pitted against each other and against their environment is proof enough. (Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Alive, etc.) It remains a popular psychological fascination to break down society and see how isolated youth handle it.

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

It’s disquieting and dismal. The ending comes abrupt, and somewhat lacking in both closure and satisfaction. I don’t regret reading it, but I can’t say I particularly enjoyed the experience.

I think the best part of the book is what Golding said after the story itself was finished: "A book is not what an author thought he put into it, it's what the reader gets out of it."

The point of this story is to take a hard look at what humans become when we are stripped of shelter, food, society, structure, and accountability and instead are reduced to animals. The author successfully deconstructs his characters into their basic essence, where fear and a pack mentality win out over courage and ethics nine times out of ten. While the story is brutal and disturbing, I feel it's honest. The writing can be difficult to digest at times (overly descriptive, a sometimes wandering narrative), but this is a book designed to force us to grapple with the question "Who would I be if I lost everything but my will to live?" In that respect, the author is successful, and it's a book worth reading.