Lord of the Flies

A delight to reread this work, which remains no less gripping/shocking even with age. While the novel opens slowly and much of the language used by the children may seem alien to a 21st-century reader, the underlying premise of Lord of the Flies remains as valid as ever: children, when left to their own devices and without the supervision of adults, will resort to tribal, brutal, hierarchical and atavistic behaviour. The crossover from innocent games to actions with real-life consequences (in the form of Simon's and Piggy's deaths) is a vivid and cruel one. Golding highlights how it is all too easy to get caught in the moment, especially if choices determine the odds of survival. Ralph rightly mourns "the end of innocence" and the "darkness of man's heart" (The link to Conrad is perhaps not accidental) at the novel's close. This reading of the novel also rendered stark the many unquantifiable (especially to young boys) mysteries of the island: the embedded and irrepressible force of nature. It seems hard to believe that "Lost" (and much more) could not have been influenced by Lord of the Flies. Essential reading, nine and a half out of ten.

By William Golding