LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
The first time I read this book was almost ten years ago, when I was a sophomore in high school. That was also the only other time I’ve read it, and this time around I was reading the same copy as I did then - so it had all sorts of things highlighted, the things I thought were worth highlighting back then. An interesting experience, if I may say so.
It wasn’t quite as good as I remember; certainly the prose is awkward at times (although I’ve been spoiled by Williams of late - all prose seems awkward next to his, I think). There’s also a subtext of weird sexuality that doesn’t get developed as fully as it could. (I’m thinking specifically of Ralph, Jack, and Simon climbing the mountain, which reminded me of Michel Tournier’s (later) Friday, and the later killing of the first pig - a female - and the extremely erotic language used to describe it. Oh, and the fact that after that incident, the ‘beast’ in the hunters’ chants becomes masculine.)
Those things aside, however, I still think it’s a classic of depressing, dystopian, misanthropic literature, and worth repeated readings. Certainly it’s not as good as Heart of Darkness, but it’s close. I don’t know why I like books like this so much (see, recently, The Road), aside from my obsession with castaways. While I think it’s a pretty accurate description of the evil human beings are capable of, and the ease with which we can commit brutal atrocities, I don’t think it’s the complete picture. Maybe I need to confront the darkness in order to make the hope I have in God’s infinite grace seem worth having - if I ignore or gloss over the depths of depravity to which we can descend, it somehow lessens or cheapens the wideness of his mercy.
I think, also, that the converse is true. At the end of the novel, the boys, who have become little savages that Hobbes would be proud of, are rescued by a naval officer: the boys are hunting Ralph, and the officer who rescues them is on a hunt for enemy ships. It’s not exactly a subtle parallel. But Golding’s assertion that people are fundamentally bad, no matter what the circumstances - which goes back at least to Hobbes, and was presented in its fullness by Nietzsche - cheapens and ignores the selfless goodness that people are capable of. It is, I think, easier to be a nihilist than a Christian; but that’s a discussion for another day.
October 4th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
This . . .
“Golding’s assertion that people are fundamentally bad, no matter what the circumstances - which goes back at least to Rousseau and was presented in its fullness by Nietzsche”
. . . is easily right, but I have to say it defies everything I thought I understood about Rousseau and Nietzsche. I understood Rousseau to think that man was good, that civilization was a disease, and that if we could only drop some boys off on an island they’d find bliss.
As for Nietzsche, the only thing I think he would ever call bad would be someone’s cowardice in not embracing their natural disposition towards freedom and selfishness. Again, I think Nietzsche sees civilization (or at least Christendom) as the thing that’s corrupted man.
I think both Nietzsche and Rousseau are explicit about their idea that things don’t HAVE to be this way, and man isn’t fundamentally bad, no?
October 4th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
You’re right about Rousseau - the philosophical father of the “noble savage” conceit. Good call. I was actually thinking of Hobbes, and that whole “the life of man is solitary, nasty, brutish, and short” thing. That’s what I get for posting while tired (and drinking). (But hurrah for the ability to edit posts!)
As far as Nietzsche goes: what he calls good and what I’d call good are mostly opposite, so I stand by my assertion, though I’ll modify it. Nietzsche would’ve loved this book, considered Jack a hero and Ralph a coward, and been pissed off when the British Navy magically appeared at the end. I think he felt much the same about human nature as Hobbes, but in reverse, if that makes sense. So where Hobbes saw ’savage’ man at the mercy of stronger men, and thought that was a bad thing, Nietzsche obviously thought the strong man was right in his subjugation of the weaker. What I was driving at was their shared conception of “the state of nature,” despite their antithetical interpretations of it.
Oh, and it’s good to have you back.
October 4th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
I’ m here, I’m here! And I’ll keep blogging too! Just give me a second, ok! Life is busy! Please love me! I want to read Liberation Biology next.
October 4th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
liberation biology? sounds fun. i’m about halfway through lewis’s last book - the discarded image.