From the Bookshelf of Reading List Completists…

Lord of the Flies

William Golding

Start date: May 1, 2016

Finish date: May 31, 2016

Discussion: Group Reads

Why we're reading this: Co-Winner of the April 2016 Short Read Poll - so we will read it in May
[close] Co-Winner of the April 2016 Short Read Poll - so we will read it in May

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Group Reads

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What Members Thought

Jun 23, 2016 Sue K H rated it really liked it

Shelves: 000-classics-grp-read, modern-library-100

I'd give this 4 stars as a young adult book. Reading it as an adult however, I'd give it probably only 3. It was a quick read, where you want to keep turning the pages and I enjoyed it, but the symbolism was a bit over the top and the characters were underdeveloped. Piggy was probably the most developed but even his was minimal. Despite the lack of development, the book does still drive it's narrative and give some good food for thought.

There seems to be much analysis about this book that extra I'd give this 4 stars as a young adult book. Reading it as an adult however, I'd give it probably only 3. It was a quick read, where you want to keep turning the pages and I enjoyed it, but the symbolism was a bit over the top and the characters were underdeveloped. Piggy was probably the most developed but even his was minimal. Despite the lack of development, the book does still drive it's narrative and give some good food for thought.

There seems to be much analysis about this book that extrapolates how human nature is inherently savage without rules, civilization and order. However here, the savages had rules and order, they just had a more ruthless leader in Jack. They actually had less rules and order under Ralph than under Jack. Also, not everyone fell into savagery and some who did had regrets. Why? Were they defective humans? For me, this book is more about how easily people are led by fear, the corrupting influence of mobs and the human survival (fight or flight) instinct.

In the context of World War II, you can't help but think of the evil acts Hitler led some previously decent people to under his brutal reign. It would seem that too many rules and too much "order" only protect nefarious rulers whereas not enough rules or order leads only to the rise of such rulers. I don't believe this is because we are inherently savage, but because most of us are weak and unable to stand up to public ridicule, torture, starvation etc... In order to survive, people end up justifying and/or ignoring behavior that they know to be wrong precisely because of our inherently good nature. What we have is more of a survival instinct than a savage one. Most would choose to fight or flee the evil if they knew they could defeat or escape it. This survival instinct under the stress of a savage ruler turns the "fight" against what might anger the savage ruler. That does not mean people are inherently savages. There is evil in this world manifested by evil people who don't have a conscious, but those are the defective humans, not the other way around.

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Sep 04, 2014 Suzan (Suus Leest) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Originally posted on my blog

A plane crashes on an island. Only children survive. For them, this first appears a utopia: no adult supervision, Ultimate freedom. This changes quickly. Fights about who is to lead. The youngest children scared for a 'monster'. The perfect world collapses into a nightmare.
While I was aware of the horrifying turn the novel would make later on, the beginning of the novel felt like an adventure story. Perhaps I had understood other people wrongly, maybe this was not su Originally posted on my blog

A plane crashes on an island. Only children survive. For them, this first appears a utopia: no adult supervision, Ultimate freedom. This changes quickly. Fights about who is to lead. The youngest children scared for a 'monster'. The perfect world collapses into a nightmare.
While I was aware of the horrifying turn the novel would make later on, the beginning of the novel felt like an adventure story. Perhaps I had understood other people wrongly, maybe this was not such a haunting story. Obviously, I was too naive, and the tone of the story changed quickly.
In the very beginning, already, there is the notion of power, of leadership. Who is to lead the group? Even when we've only been introduced to two characters, there is already a clear 'superior'. When more children come together, this battle becomes even more intense. Without authority, the children immediately decided some structure was needed, tasks also are divided. However, this results in multiple quarrels. Reading the novel critically, the novel never starts out as an excitin adventure, it's already a dramatic horror story to begin with.
The structure they impose on themselves may delude the reader into thinking the children have it all together. Alright, there is a struggle on whom is to do what, but there's no real harm in that. Quickly, though, the children turn into savages, and the slight order they had is turned around. They split up into two camps who fight eachother brutally and this is when any reader will be disgusted and terrified.
A few things bothered me about this novel, probably all related to the fact that it is a children's book. The writing style was, to me, uncompelling, and resulted in me having a hard time reading the novel quickly as I was unable to concentrate for too long. I cannot truly remember what it was about the style, but I feel like it is likely a result of Golding's eyed audience. This is also the case in terms of morals: they are too obvious which annoyed me.
However, Golding makes up for this by writing no single sentence without allusions. Any sentence can be analysed, and on each page one can write a three thousand word essay. This is interesting and extremely entertaining, but only to a certain extend. I could not be bothered to actually look into each word in great depth, as that would slow down my reading so much, and honestly, I can only bring myself to doing that for some of my favourite novels, and this one is not one.
I do feel everyone should have read it. It is a classic, and it is rightly so. ...more

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