William Golding's classic novel starts out when a plane full of young British schoolboys crashes on a deserted island. As they all find each other, the leader (Ralph) begins delegating tasks. They soon discover that only a select group is responsible enough to do the tasks that need to be done. The older boys desert their posts at the signal fire to go out hunting, and this leads to a fight when they see a ship out on the ocean - a ship that would have seen them if the fire had been going. The boys dissolve into two groups - Ralph's group, of which there are few, and Jack (the older boy's) group. While Ralph's group stays civil, Jack's group dissolves into savagery and chaos - a clear allusion on Golding's part as to the darkness of human nature. Satan himself even makes an appearance to one of the boys, foreshadowing what is to come, incarnated as the Lord of the Flies - a man so covered in dark flies, his face cannot be seen. One of the boys is murdered during a hunting game (on purpose), and the dark pull of Jack's savage life tempts Ralph immensely. When the boys are finally rescued by Naval officers, one of the men asks Ralph what happened to cause all the savagery. Ralph weeps for his two lost friends as well as his lost innocence. I thought the book was overall very good, but very deep. I had to read several passages many times over to realize that the Lord of the Flies was, in fact, the devil. Reading up on Golding's life was very interesting to - he had several life experiences that contributed to his desire to write a book exploring human nature. I disliked that Golding was heavy on the descriptions. I prefer dialogue, and there wasn't much of that in the first half to three-quarters of this book.
Overall: 7 out of 10.
Details:
Paperback: 190 pages
Publisher: Perigree Books; 1954 19th Printing edition (1953)
Language: English
ASIN: B000FXT2LA
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