Author: William Golding, E. L. Epstein

Publisher: Perigee Trade

Pub. in: July, 1959

ISBN: 0399501487

Pages: 208

Measurements: 7.3 x 4.8 x 0.5 inches

Origin of product: USA

Order code: BA00430

Other information:  

The book by the Nobel Prize winner has sold more than 14.5 million copies to date.

MSL's mission is to bring the finest American books/ideas into China and to encourage the dialogues and the understanding between the Chinese and the Americans as well as the Western society in general. With this guiding principle in mind, we do a lot of research before we decide on any single title. Lord of the Flies is one of the books that has well met our selection standards.

Golding's Lord of the Flies is so brilliant because it manages to succeed on two separate levels of writing and tell two completely different tales at the same time. The first way to look at Lord of the Flies is to view it as a dark adventure story about shipwrecked young boys struggling to survive on an island in hopes that help will find them. If Lord of the Flies was only about this idea it still would be a very good novel, but like all the great novels of the century, Lord of the Files takes us beyond a simple tale of adventure in to a symbolic, surrealistic parable dealing with the inner world of the human condition.

The story, on its surface is very simple. A ship is wrecked and many young British schoolboys are abandoned on an unknown island, far away from any adults. The main characters come off as realistic, never over the top, but completely grounded and hold true to form throughout the novel, even if they do change and evil envelopes some of them.

We have Ralph, most likely the main character of the book. He is the protagonist, but a deeply flawed individual. He has spasms of pride, anger, and fear, but he seems to be the most in control of himself. He is, at first elected chief of the island, but soon social order breaks down and chaos emerges. Jack is our antagonist, but it is a slow regression. At first, Jack is likable enough, but because of his pride and jealously, it ultimately leads into his dissention down to evil. Jack becomes the leader of another tribe of boys, basically Golding uses these to boys to separate good and evil. There are other vital characters as well. Simon is a confused and good spirited child, but eventually stress overtakes him and he begins to hallucinate and lose his mind. Tragedy also strikes him in one of the most eerie scenes in the novel. We also have Roger, who seems almost sinister from the get go. Golding uses words to symbolically describe Roger and the negative influence he will have as the novel progresses. Finally, we have Piggy. He is your typical outsider. Piggy is a boy that a school class would make fun of. He wears glasses, but is outspoken instead of withdrawn, as we might typically expect from people similar to him. He is one of the most complex, intelligent characters in the book, even if his backbone is not sturdy. There are other characters in the story, but these five are the anchors.

Lord of the Flies is not so much concerned with story as it is with symbol and its characters. The story really doesn't exist. The boys get stranded, fight over who should be king, hunt for food, try to survive, and eventually cave and crumble under the stress of the situation they are in. The boys act and think a bit old for their age, but that is expected in a parable such as this. I don't believe Lord of the Flies was written mainly for plot and story, but to expose the idea of humans left to their own devices with ultimately result back to being carnal and evil without a proper environment to shape them. Although this is the main idea, I believe, Golding is smart enough to let us know that this is not the condition that ultimately will happen to humans left on their own, but rather what could happen. Otherwise, why would we still have characters in the book that never do result to being carnal and evil, such as Ralph and Piggy?

There are many things to admire in Lord of the Flies. One is its hypnotic, descriptive imagery. One reads this novel more like a dream, a nightmare, than a straightforward tale. There are multiple references to the heat, the sun, and the cliffs, all which serve as underlying symbols. Apart from that, the struggles described here concerning the boys are astounding. One of the landmark scenes is Simon's hallucination with the talking head of a boar which foreshadows things to come. This is a completely realistic portrait of what it might be like to go insane. That is one amazing scene. The closing scenes when Ralph is running and fleeing are scary and tense, and it is hard to remember that we are dealing with just boys. There are two deaths that occur in the novel. They are graphic, painstaking, but at the same time mixed with a level of profound solitude and depth that are vacant from most novels. We feel everything going on here: the sadness, the joy, the loneliness, the fear, the isolation, the frustration. Golding does a superb job of allowing the readers to feel these emotions rather than telling them they should. Good books always do that: allow their reader to think freely and make up their own minds about ideas presented and give the reader emotions to remember. Lord of the Flies follows this pattern to perfection.

People who take Lord of the Flies as just a simple adventure story are missing the big picture. This is a book that requires more than one reading. There is so much depth, so many symbols, and so many ideas about the very nature of humans it is a lot to take in, even though it is only a 200 page story. A story that reads like a dizzying nightmare, but at the same time feels so vivid and realistic. Highly recommended.

Target readers: General reader

Better with Sun Also Rises (Scribner Classics) (Hardcover) :

			2 Buy with : ¥ 356.00
			Quantity:  +112345678910