Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies , William Golding's classic tale about a group of English schoolboys who are plane-wrecked on a deserted island, is just as chilling and relevant today as when it was first published in 1954. At first, the stranded boys cooperate, attempting to gather food, make shelters, and maintain signal fires. Overseeing their efforts are Ralph, "the boy with fair hair," and Piggy, Ralph's chubby, wisdom-dispensing sidekick whose thick spectacles come in handy for lighting fires. Although Ralph tries to impose order and delegate responsibility, there are many in their number who would rather swim, play, or hunt the island's wild pig population. Soon Ralph's rules are being ignored or challenged outright. His fiercest antagonist is Jack, the redheaded leader of the pig hunters, who manages to lure away many of the boys to join his band of painted savages. The situation deteriorates as the trappings of civilization continue to fall away, until Ralph discovers that instead of being hunters, he and Piggy have become the hunted: "He forgot his words, his hunger and thirst, and became fear; hopeless fear on flying feet." Golding's gripping novel explores the boundary between human reason and animal instinct, all on the brutal playing field of adolescent competition. --Jennifer Hubert

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am I missing the point? - Rated
Found it very hard to get excited about this book. The prose doesn't seem to exactly sizzle and it was tough trying to empathise with the characters. I found myself longing for something interesting to happen but it never came.

I'm well aware of the parallels Golding was trying to draw between the behaviour of the children and the real world. Countless essays have explored in depth of relationships between the characters as their plight worsens, so without a doubt it does stand up to critical analysis.

But it also 'does' bore me.

The Lord of the Flies - Rated
An absolutely brilliant book. Extremely powerful. I read it for GCSE and do not regret it. A brilliant work by Golding, some would say it was semi-autobiographical. The main theme being; 'the disease of being human' and how wrong the book 'coral island' was, which was why Golding wrote it. After years of teaching at a school of public boys, and serving in the navy, he knew the perfect life on Coral Island would not be possible.

Absolutely recommend, and remember the context. Golding poured his heart into this, no wonder he won a Nobel Prize for literature for this book.

Ghastly misanthropic tabloid book - Rated
A caricature, a vicious and nasty attack on humanity - it could only have been written by a deeply religious person!

Read it with a Notes book or similar! - Rated
In order to get the most out of this book, it is imperative that you get a Notes book or something - anything, even if it's a GCSE cheats guide or similar!! Reading it alone, I'd give it 3 or 4 stars, but once you're really actively thinking about the relationships and characters and symbols and the island, etc etc, you can't stop! It's like a neverending discovery of connections both within the book and between the book and the real world. Even now, 6 years after first reading it, I can think of the symbolism and make new inferences. It really is a truly brilliant book.

A 17yr olds p.o.v - Rated
I didn't read this book at GCSE but decided to read it this year to see what i was missing out on. I'm not overly smart but i got 12 A-C's gcse's etc, i actually found this book to be slightly challanging to read, the detail is amazing but i found it quite difficult to get into until the last little bit. It's shocking and moving and really gets you thinking. Although it is slightly hard to get into i would recommend it to a friend as it is simply just something you have to read.