You ever had one of those days where you thought “humanity is scum.” That you just want to taunt every homo sapien straight to their conceited face. There are numerous cynics out there that look upon humanity with sheer hopelessness and whenever in public go out with a T-shirt with arrows pointing all around saying “I’m with stupid.” And then some…
And by some I mean this dipstick.
This is William Golding and this is his (un)godly offspring to the world…
Lord of the Flies is an interesting novel. It serves as a political allegory on humanity’s savage instincts using children stranded on a desert island. Looking back on it now I find myself shouting “SHUT IT GOLDING, YOU’RE MAKING THOMAS HOBBES LOOK LIKE A KINDERGARTEN TEACHER!!!” Geez, so little faith in humanity. I mean what more can I say times were turbulent, I mean he fought in a world war and experiencing the thrill ride that was Cold War Paranoia. As you can see by the cover about, you can just tell it ends up going just splendidly.
It begins with the crash of an aircraft filled with dozens of children, all of them small boys ( and thank goodness or this text would’ve been even darker) on a desert island. They were flying not because they were on an innocent field trip, ha ha ha NO!!!! It was because NUCLEAR WAR HAS BROKEN OUT!! But don’t worry, this is only the beginning Anyway, the main character Ralph sets out rounding up the survivors; calls an assembly, and gets himself voted leader almost unanimously. The key word is almost as his rival Jack demands he be appointed as leader. So he offered the job of getting a band together and looking for food while Ralph and others concentrate on building a fire to attract ships. But conflict soon arises between the two rescue and survival and Jack goes insane after he decorates his face with some paint and looks at his reflection in the water. It’s like the Joker’s origin in the 1989 Batman film, except in this case the guy is only like TWELVE!!! But it doesn’t hinder his ability to win over the crowd and soon the guys are going around having wild dances and when that’s not happening murder sows for sport. HEAVEN AL-MIGH-TY!!! Just tragic if I’m honest.
But to once more, to be honest it’s not like this Maze Runner-ish “utopia” was going to last long. I mean have you seen kids in school? They’re a few senile geezers away from creating something that would widen the smile on the Guy Fawkes guy’s mask from V for Vendetta. What would you expect? Congress? Actually, I guess they not much different since everyone there acts like a bunch of children. Ha ha ha, I’m I right? Can someone give me a high five?
This book is great for a number of reasons: from an ambient setting, great writing and characters that I’m actually fond of and get to connect with. But I and a lot of other voracious readers think that what really seals it, is the theme concerning the folly of human nature and the primal nature of man. It’s striking, it’s self-reflecting, it’s poignant and it just pulls you right into the debate of our own being. The whole thing: it’s just an allegory for our childish tendencies to throw people and civility under the bus in the name of personal gain. We’re nothing but dumb juveniles, just like the ones in the book, dumb, selfish, pigs slaying juveniles (oh, we kill innocent porcine alright, it’s just that most of the time we let others do it for us. If you say “I don’t because I don’t eat meat, well you can still just go die in a hole.) All of this begs to ask the question: “Was Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight actually onto something, what if he really is just “ahead of the curve so to speak”
My grade: eight skewered sows out of ten.