This book is horrifying. I'm scared like hell. Totally.
I was expecting an adventure book telling about some children who got stranded in an island, but ended up with goosebumps.

A bit of synopsis: A number of English school boys suffered from a plane accident causing them to get stranded in an uninhibited island. The period was maybe during the World War II. Trying to be civilized, they elected a leader for themselves as well started the division of tasks (hunters, fire-watchers, etc). Things tur More...

UPDATE: I was very saddened to read this Guardian article about Golding's manipulation of the classroom as a means to inform this work. Here is the dichotomy between contextual analysis and the reading of a book in isolation. It's of no consequence to anyone but me that my previous rating is reduced to no stars, but a writer searching for plot events or people on which to base characters has a moral obligation, particularly when dealing with children, not to indulge in the seductive siren call t More...

Lord of the Flies is one of the most disturbing books I've ever read. It was required high school reading and since then, I've read it four more times. It is as disturbing now as it was then. Using a group of innocent schoolboys stranded on an island, the author very realistically portrays human behavior in an environment where civilization no longer has meaning.

I read this book a long time ago, long enough to where I barely remembered anything past the basic premise. So I picked it up again, only to wish I hadn't. There's a reason why they teach this book in middle school--in order to enjoy this book, one's intellectual cognizance must be that of a child, because otherwise you'll spend the entire time picking out everything that's wrong with the book. And there's a lot to pick out.

From what little of the story that is actually coherent, I can see why t More...

I was tempted to give this five stars, since in so many ways it strikes me as the kind of masterpiece, like Heart of Darkness, that I imagine will retain its horror and readability for centuries. The prose veers (or as Golding would say it, "tends") from plain to painterly. The story is well known: a sort of allegorical morality play set in modern times -- fancy English boys left to their own devices don't so much as revert to darkness as discover primitive outlets for the darkness reflected in More...

I was Piggy (well, in personality at least, though not in portliness). I hated everyone who picked on him. I still do. Should people be forgiven for what they do on a deserted island? That depends on whether you think their true nature has revealed itself, or their humanity has been corrupted by circumstance and stress. In a world where almost every human trait is now considered a product of both nature and nurture, would Golding have written his tale differently today? No, I don't believe so. H More...

Rating: 3.5

A group of British boys get stranded on an island after their plane crashes. At first, the kids revel in their freedom, and lack of an authority figure. But slowly, these well educated kids turn into savages, and give way to their natural animalistic side. The political and biblical undertones of this novel are very interesting. So is symbolism of the conch shell and lord of the flies. It has a deeper meaning than what meets the eye.

I think the characters, and their development thro More...

What happens when a group of school boys get marooned on a desert island following a plane crash?

They've got no adult authority.

They all descend into savagery.

Golding highlights our edgy similarity to the spirit of wild beasts.

This is replete with biblical motifs.

A hard book to rate as although its well written and is very thought provoking, the content gets unpleasantly graphic and some aspects are awkwardly dated (eg the assumption the British boys should be jolly good chaps - “we’re not savages, we’re English”).

PLOT
It starts off as a conventional adventure: a mixed group of boys (some know each other; many who don’t) survive a plane crash on a desert island and struggle to survive. It is somewhat confused and confusing at first – perhaps to make the r More...

I hated this book. First off, as I remember, it talks about humans failure to govern ourselves, or more broadly the failures of human nature. There are a few reasons why I think simply dropping a group of kids on a desert island does not in fact prove anything.

1) These kids were raised in a capitalist, nominally demcratic society. The first thing they do is appoint leaders. As someone who spends my time working in consensus based groups seeking to challenge hierarchical structures, I have a stro More...

This tends to me among the top five books I recommend to anyone who cares to ask

This programme contains dramatic reenactments and material that may be disturbing to some audience members.

Ah, these words, spoken in a robotic monotone American accent, are more likely to excite me than any others right now, because they are intoned prior to the commencement of this tv show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGIDTo...

I Shouldn’t Be Alive is perhaps, on oh so many levels, the most aptly named programme ever to make it onto tv. I think its run has ended now and that no new episodes More...

Original post at Book Rhapsody.

***

Intro

This is the book that me and my friend call “The Book That Cannot Be Named.” It is currently in my Top Ten Books of All Time, although it is now standing on shaky grounds because my current read is impressing me big time.

Anyway, why is it that we gave it that name? A better book title? No. It’s for the simple reason that my friend hates it to the bone. He can’t believe that I love this book. He thinks it’s an utter waste of time, lacking any literary aspira More...

Lord of the Flies written by William Golding is about a large group of private school boys that end up stranded on a deserted island after their plane crashes. Due to the war that is happening in reality at the time of the crash the boys wonder if this was a crash, or an attack. Either way, one thing becomes clear to them rather quickly. They are without any adult supervision which they find frightning and exciting all at once.

Though there are many different characters in this story, four main More...

Just read this book actually. Didn't read it in school growing up. I must have skipped over it or something. I was drawn in very fast by the exciting premise. Kids on an island! No adults! Kind of like that movie Camp Nowhere except more morbid. I was carried through the book quickly until somewhere in the middle I began to lose steam, but then i was drawn back in towards the end of the book by the profundity of the statement Golding was trying to make. I was trying to figure it out. It asks the More...

I absolutely hated this book. That's my over-riding memory of it I'm afraid. I had to read it in secondary school when I was about 12 and I never remember disliking a book so much which was surprising as I was a voracious reader.

I just remember having absolutely nothing in common with the characters - a group of English upper / middle class school boys whereas I was a Scottish working class girl. I just could not relate to the story at all and just wished they would all kill each other as soon a More...

I just don't buy it.

This book is famous for unmasking what brutes we are, just under the surface, but, well, for all the hype, it just isn't convincing. People--even teenage boys--just aren't as savage as Golding seems to want us to believe, and nothing in this book persuades me otherwise.

Perhaps if I'd gone to English boarding school I'd feel differently--but then that's the real irony of this book, that the brutality from which the British Empire was supposed to save so many people and culture More...

BOYS WILL BE BOYS THERE'S A PIG'S HEAD.

A British airplane crashes on a deserted South Sea's island, in the middle of an atomic war.All the grownups are killed and only children 12 and younger survive.How are they to cope? (Basically an allegorical story of what is human nature , good or evil ?)Ralph is chosen leader,"Piggy", the intellectual sidekick.This beautiful tropical coral isle ,with a lagoon,palm trees and plenty of bananas and other fruit.Wild pigs in the forest,fish in the ocean, so no worries,right?Wrong!Ralph has a rescue More...

I remain convinced to this day that The Lord of the Flies as a controversial classic is one of those books that depends upon how you read it. I think that at the surface it appears to be a text which is simple and a little dull. When I read it back in 2007 or so I found it incredibly dull. The richness and life I saw in other classics were not apparent. However now that I think back and reflect upon this novel I see it as a grand story, one that extends beyond whatever the perversities of the au More...

William Golding, Prémio Nobel da Literatura em 1983, escreveu a sua primeira obra em 1954, “O Deus das Moscas”, que se tornou desde o primeiro momento um sucesso e que ainda nos dias de correm é uma das suas obras mais aclamadas.

Tendo em consideração todas as opiniões que tinha acompanhado sobre esta obra, que inclusive me levaram a adquirir a mesma, foi com grande expectativa e curiosidade que iniciei esta leitura.

Com a Inglaterra a enfrentar uma guerra nuclear são enviadas várias pessoas de a More...

Simply, it is such an excellent and influential novel of adventure with a story that is incredibly interesting and entertaining, which is also dramatic and emotional. It takes place in a very unusual setting and explains and shows what we can become if we do not have respect, rules and order which could cause deadly and irreversible chaos.
The author, William Golding, describes the novel in a deep and detailed manner not wanting to leave out any insignificant detail; so it makes the story more r More...

NOT TO BE READ FOR THE FAINT OF THE HEART!!!
( I say this because this book is completely messed up.)
Characters:

Raplh: He is a handsome boy with the need to keep everything in order. The most important thing to him is fire and the possibility of being rescued. (view spoiler)[Ralph was the only boy whom did not die or become a savage. (hide spoiler)] He is what mostly keeps most of the boys from losing order and turning into inhumane creatures. Later, even he can't seem to control them.



Simon: He is one of the most complicat More...

Inicialmente dei apenas 4 estrelinhas, mas após refletir verdadeiramente no seu significado e na mensagem que nos transmite, optei por atribuir 5 estrelas! :)

Achei "O Deus das Moscas" um livro deveras impressionante: tem como cenário uma ilha deserta, onde se despenhou um avião que transportava crianças na tentativa de as dispensar dos horrores da guerra, mas, em vez disso, atirando-as para os horrores da luta pela sobrevivência...

No início tudo corre bem: pode-se dizer que os rapazes eram feliz More...

I HATE THIS BOOK!!!

I've got the conch now, so listen up!

In Lord of the Flies Golding deconstructed civilization, wiping it out and showing us our world in chaos. It's not pretty. Man without governance is apt to slide into savagery. At first the castaway children on this deserted isle set up rules and leadership, but law and order is overwhelmed when the majority discover there is no immediate consequence if they give in to their wants and desires. In the place of civility, a brutal world is born in which might is More...

This book is one of those that I regret not reading earlier in my life. There are just too many lessons that one can learn and apply at various stages of one's life. Wikipedia says that there have been two movie adaptations of this classic novel originally published in 1954: the first one in 1963 and the other one in 1990. However, they did not count its Tagalog movie adaptation in 1976 entitled Alkitrang Dugo directed by Lupita Aquino-Kashiwahara starring, among others, the young Roderick Paula More...

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label

Essay #46: Lord of the Flies (1954), by William Golding

The story in a nutshell:
First published in the beginning years of Mid-Century Modernism but not a bestseller u More...

Well, this is my 2nd reading and I'm sorry to say, it's not getting any better. I made a pact w/ my sons that I would read anything and everything with them that they read for school. And for the most part, I am thrilled to keep my word. Unfortunately, there are a few exceptions....and this is one of them. I seriously wonder if it's because I'm reading from the point of view of a "mom" and I just want to shake these kids and how badly they behave. I understand what the author is saying about soc More...