Lord of the Flies (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)

LORD OF THE FLIES, in its own way, says, "Hold on a second! Humans do need to be regulated. And they do need to protect themselves from each other." His tale is a warning: Humanity, without government, will degenerate into savagery and anarchy. And that is precisely what happens in this book. You know the plot, by now. But what has to be mentioned is that William Golding is a visionary who has the story-telling mastery to convey and do justice to that vision. LORD OF THE FLIES is a remarkable and powerful book, one that should be on everyone's bookshelf.


Award-winning, yet it [is terrible].   June 3, 2002
Ryk E. Spoor (Troy, NY USA)
25 out of 56 found this review helpful

This is one of the few books in my elite "bounce" category -- it bounced off the wall when I finished it. I am aware of all the praise that has been heaped upon this book. This is one of the times at which I must find myself unable to really even comprehend the reasoning (if any) that goes on in the minds of those who have handed out the awards.

_Lord of the Flies_ is, we are told, a novel about human beings and their nature. It's a shame we see so few human beings in the book. Golding seems to see savagery as the natural and instinctive state of humanity, a position that's logically untenable (if this was the "natural" way, exactly how did we acquire civilization at all, let alone keep it long enough to develop the printing press necessary to spread such [negativity]?)

Ignoring the stated literary intent, the book is on the surface the story of shipwrecked children trying to survive, a la Robinson Crusoe and Mysterious Island. However, in this aspect it also fails miserably, with characters not even covering the gamut of behavior one would suspect from children (at least some would have tried making a boat, one would think; while the exact time Lord of the Flies takes place is indeterminate, Kon-Tiki had sailed from Peru to Polynesia in 1947, something the character Piggy, at least, would probably have known), and with one of the most important parts of a survival story -- the survival science -- being gotten dismally wrong. This is most notable in having the NEARSIGHTED Piggy's glasses be used to start a fire, and it's one of the least excusable; even if Golding himself wasn't nearsighted, one would think he'd have one or two acquaintances whose glasses he could borrow for a second to test the idea.

Admittedly, Golding has an excellent grasp of the language and uses it well. The book is well-written in a technical sense. Yet it fails utterly on both its major levels, failing to convince me of its major thesis on human behavior, and wrecking the suspension of disbelief in its overt plotline.

I was personally quite aware of the potential savage nature of young people -- I was one of the bullied types -- yet the level of cynicism necessary to accept Lord of the Flies' ideas never came to me. I think Golding misses an essential streak of optimism that exists in young people, a willingness to try things and a dedication to survive that explains the fact that we're still a civilized species instead of a scattered group of savages barely above the flint-chipping level.


Frightening look at the inner beast in mankind   April 18, 2003
Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA)
22 out of 30 found this review helpful

This is such a meaningful book, with such relevance for our society that it's worth reading, even if you've already read it in school.

The story is rather contrived, yet believable. English schoolboys are stranded and forced to survive in the wilds. The school bully system, endemic in boarding schools and in schoolyards everywhere, devolves into pure savagery and of course, someone gets hurt. Badly.

The subject of bullies is interesting; Golding's depiction of tow-headed little rapscallions turning into real monsters is a metaphor for the lawlessness that lurks under a thin veneer of any society.

If you have kids in school, this is a great book to read at home and discuss with them. How did each character react to violence? How did they justify violence? How did they fight or accept evil? What would you do differently?


I have hated this book for more than half my life.   February 16, 2007
Jet Jaguar
18 out of 27 found this review helpful

I have for some years had an axe to grind with whatever committee of human waste it was that got together and decided what constituted classic literature. It must have happened at some point, that a group of people declared themselves worthy to judge for our youth what would teach them to love reading, what made a good story.

I love reading. I love a good story. I hate Lord of the Flies.

As hard as the educational system tried to force me to read and appreciate their endless list of disturbing books, I still love reading good ones. And when I think back on these school-supported pieces of filth, Lord of the Flies stands out as the top representative of what is awful in a book.

I get what the man was going for, what he was trying to say about humanity. I wish I could say he was dead wrong about human nature but indeed I think he accomplished just what he set out to do. That got the novel one extra star. No more. Yes, when left to their own devices, a group of innocents could very well turn savage.

And that's exactly what is wrong with making young people read it. Is there no other novel to teach them about human nature? They'll hate whatever we give them, true, and maybe that's why they have been given such vile specimens, to save the good books for them to appreciate later. But it's no excuse...

When I read this in school, it was horrible enough in print, but then they saw to it that we watched a dank, dark, desolate motion-picture rendition as well, in order that we might forever have burned into our memories the image of a little boy being speared by bullies and a plump boy being crushed by a boulder shoved by those bullies. All it did was give kids nightmares and serve to punctuate the message they'd been sending us all through school: bullies will have their way and adults will remain absorbed in their own problems and let them.

Some people like a book that makes them feel, whether the emotion be good or bad. By all means, if you don't care how you feel so long as you're feeling something, read this book.

But if you're a teen who has been depressed, living with harsh conditions, facing problems without seeming to find anyone on your side, lay the book down. Read a nice mystery, Jane Austen, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, something that will make life have a little joy in it. Lord of the Flies has been written with the singular ability to suck out whatever joy remains.

Shame on anyone who decides this is the sort of book, out of all that were ever written, that young people should read. We are not all stable, healthy, sheltered innocents who need to see the gritty side for our own good.

Now bring on the "not helpful" ratings that will be assigned by all those who have already read it and like it and don't really need to read a review anyway.


One-dimensional   June 2, 2000
Ilana Teitelbaum
17 out of 27 found this review helpful

First of all, I will admit to a profound distaste for heavy-handed symbolism, and since this book is nothing but--well, profound distaste on my part was inevitable. Personally, by the time I've finished analyzing how Piggy's glasses symbolize human reason, the pig's head represents human evil, etc., the book has lost its impact for me and becomes pretentious.

But that is not my main problem with this book. I find it frightening that so many people consider this book 'revealing' and a 'classic'. This seems to indicate that the message of this book has universal relevance for people. And this message is as follows: Humankind, homo sapiens, people as we know them, are intrinsically evil. Meaning, that deep down in our hearts we are nothing but wells of corrupt blackness, or as Conrad so aptly put it, hearts 'of darkness'. Anything good we do is a sham. We act a certain way only because civilization dictates it, but as soon as the rules of civilization no longer get us what we want, or they are no longer imposed on us, our natural tendency will be to fall into evil, our true, innermost nature.

Garbage. I for one do not believe that human beings are intrinsically evil. Are they intrinsically good, then? Of course not. I am not advocating a world view based on naivete. Human beings have a natural tendency for both good and for evil. How much these tendencies influence a person's behavior is entirely up to him: he is not wholly at the mercy of his baser instincts. Even in 'Heart of Darkness', upon which Golding based this work, Marlowe faced the evil and did not succumb to it. These boys are given no choice, as evil is the only true reality. There is no way to fight it; one can either surrender to it, or run from it by way of civilization. To take an active stand against it is impossible.

Even in 'Les Miserables' during the horrendous poverty and the barricades, where all of civilization is crumbling at its foundations and people are rotting because of it, there are glimpses into the beauty of humankind. Eponine, though sunk in squalor and darkness, finds redemption by saving Marius; this in contrast to her father, whose evil increases all the more. Jean Valjean sinks to the lowest level a human can sink to, yet there is hope for him; and because one person had faith in the good that was inside him, he, too found redemption. There is choice involved, and one can either strive for light, or fall into darkness. Maybe people like Golding because he unintentionally grants justification for the evil Man is capable of--after all, we can't help it. It's our nature. Therefore people need not bother to strive to become better than they are, to actualize the beauty within themselves. Humans have no inner beauty; it is imposed from outside to conceal the horror within.

But there is more. And by not realizing that there is more, Golding sells everyone short.