I always enjoy reading ‘Lord of the Flies‘, and I’ve read it a good few times now. A lot of people I know really dislike the book because they were forced to read it in school, and dissecting a piece of work under classroom conditions doesn’t always show something in it’s best light. But I think this is one of the first books I ever really fell in love with. I don’t think I got the significance of everything when I first read it, and probably still don’t. Golding’s language is so sparing and poetic, it’s a strange contradiction, like a blunt subtlety.
“A single drop of water that had escaped Piggy’s fingers now flashed on the delicate curve like a star.”
Isn’t that just beautifully written?
Well, it gets me in the guts. The way Golding portrays children just makes perfect sense, it feels so incredibly natural. It doesn’t seem forced. When I read the book for the first time as a teenager, I wasn’t so far away from the age of the protagonists, and I instantly recognised, in a distant way, that hierarchical system children adopt amongst themselves. It has a lot of the subtleties that adult societies house, but it’s far more basic and crass. The whole thing whiffs of Herbert Spencer’s ‘survival of the fittest‘ shtick, which Golding communicates so effortlessly.
So yeah, I really adore this little book. Plus I’m a sucker for a talking pig’s head on a stick.
“You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?“
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