I was Piggy (well, in personality at least, though not in portliness). I hated everyone who picked on him. I still do. Should people be forgiven for what they do on a deserted island? That depends on whether you think their true nature has revealed itself, or their humanity has been corrupted by circumstance and stress. In a world where almost every human trait is now considered a product of both nature and nurture, would Golding have written his tale differently today? No, I don't believe so. He was quite ahead of his time to believe some of the boys, though certainly not the majority, still remained moral despite the situation. The question is, what would have happened to me? It was impossible not to wonder after I read this book.

Mix a desert island and a bunch of young kids/teens, add a dash of fear and a twist of rebellion, and you have His Majesty of the Flies.
It's a dark book that sometimes shocked me but brilliantly reflected adults and society's world.
Two camps formed between efficiency and reasoning, wanting everything immediately, and hindsight, madness, and survival; only the strongest will survive.

“Maybe there is a beast... maybe it’s only us.”

Story ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This story shows how people, even the most innocent ones - children - change when there are no rules and no structure.
How they point of view changes, their feelings toward other humans beings or living things in general.
I think the concept and the story itself was really really good, but while reading it, it felt really slowly. The last 10 % were the most shocking and made the story so good.

Writing style ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The writing seemed a little bit plain, but it was still enjoyable.

“What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?”

Lord of the Flies is now one of those books I WISH I had studied in school, I’d have loved to have delved deeper into the symbolic meanings and themes, instead of just having my basic reader experience! There’s probably so much I’m missing... it almost makes me want to read through the spark notes for the novel!

It really provides a fascinating insight into how quickly chaos can ensue once civilisation ceases to exist. And it’s somehow even more terrifying once you consider the fact that these are young boys. In a way it made me think of Under the Dome - it’s definitely possible that this was its inspiration given how much King loves this one!

Speaking of King, I was MAJORLY geeking out at the stone formation being called Castle Rock - I quickly darted to google to confirm that yes, King named his town after the fictional mountain fort in Lord of the Flies. Somehow I didn’t know this - but it does make complete sense given the glowing introduction King has provided in this edition.

Unfortunately I found the writing a little dry at times and I also got quite frustrated as well as it wasn’t always clear who was speaking? This is one of my major pet peeves in books - GIVE ME SOME INDICATION. A few of the characters felt interchangeable which didn’t help - even now I can only really distinguish Jack, Ralph and Piggy.

But otherwise I really enjoyed this and some of the imagery will stay with me forever - particularly when it came to the beast and their “gift” for it!

Really glad I finally read it! 4 stars.

"We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?"

You did everything adults would do. That's what went wrong.

There is much to be said against this novel, and it has been said, eloquently, poignantly, many times. Let me make a case for keeping it on the curriculum despite the dated language, the graphic violence, the author's personality...

There are two myths about adolescents, and this novel does away with them in a - admittedly - drastic way. First of all, there is no general innocence in adolescents. They do what grown-ups do, but in a less mature and experienced way. That means they cheat, lie and steal, and use violence to achieve their goals, and they are vain and interested in dominating and manipulating others. But they are also caring, loving and resourceful, and willing to serve the community in which they participate.

The second myth regards the helplessness and general dependence of adolescents, which is also only true as long as they have grown-ups around. Leave adolescents alone, and they will organise themselves. The best example of what happens to a group of teenagers left alone is shown if a teacher in a (civilised) school in a (civilised) country leaves for just a couple of minutes.

If you have never experienced the amount of destructive power that is possible in that short time-span, you might think Golding exaggerates. Unfortunately, I can see any group of students turning into the characters in The Lord Of The Flies if they are put in the situation. I even know who would be the leaders, who would fight, who would bully, who would play along, and who would go under. Add teenage girls to the mixture and hell breaks loose.

Reading this novel with teenagers - if it is done with a big heart for their developmental stages and their hormonal glitches - gives them an opportunity to discuss a topic they already know everything about from their own lives but often keep hidden from naive, romantic grown-ups: the heart of an adolescent has dark corners, and it is important to shed light on the pain young people are able to cause each other if they are under the impression that they are not seen by the higher authority of the grown-up world.

Teenagers are grown-ups in training, and they make all the beginner mistakes without having the perspective to see the end of the tunnel.

Reading offers perspective!

Interesting story. For me it doesn't hold up by current day tastes. It's definitely a parable or allegory of social mores, how man once left without social structure degenerates to base instincts. I liked it well enough but would have preferred more details in order for it to work. There was a plane crash? Where was the wreckage? It describe the path cut in the jungle but doesn't describe the wreckage or how the children survived. Skipped right over that part. The kids just appear on the beach. The author, I think was too en rapt with the symbolism and theme rather than telling the story. For example, everyone eats fruit but there is never a description of the fruit or how they eat it, what it tastes like. The author flies over all these sort of details and focuses on proving his theme.
David Putnam author of the Bruno Johnson series.

ویلیام گلدینگ در کتاب بسیار معروف خود سالار مگس ها به سرشت شر انسان و غلبه آن بر خیر پرداخته . از نگاه او انسان همان گونه شر می سازد که زنبور عسل تولید می کند . او از آزمندی ، خشونت و خودخواهی که در ذات بشر نهادینه شده سخن گفته . به نظر گلدینگ آدمیزاد بیمار است – نه انسان هایی استثنایی ، بلکه آدم های معمولی . او در سالار مگس ها هم به همین نظریه پرداخته ، این که انسان جانور است و سرشتی جانور خو دارد .
کتاب گلدینگ در ایران بیشتر به نام سالار مگس ها ترجمه شده و به چاپ رسیده اما نشر نیلوفر عنوان کتاب را بعل زبوب انتخاب کرده . در مقدمه کتاب توضیح داده شده که بعل در زبان سامی نام هریک از خداهای محلی قدیم ، مخصوصا در سوریه و فلسطین بوده . پرستش بعل معمولا مراسمی مانند باروری و قربانی انسان همراه داشته . نام بعل که ابتدا توسط عبرانیان برای خداییان خود استفاده می شده به تدریج و در میان مبارزه میان شرک کنعانیان و توحید عبرانیان با معنای شیطان مترادف شد . بنابراین بعل زبوب یا خدای مگس ها ابتدا نام بت و خدای مردم فلسطین بوده که بعدها با تحریف یهودیان یکی از نام های شیطان شد .

سالار مگس ها ، شر همیشگی انسان و غلبه آن بر خیر

در اولین برداشت شاید بتوان کتاب مهم گلدینگ را مانند سند و مدرکی برای لزوم قانون و حاکمیت آن دانست . گلدینگ تلاش ساکنان جزیره که البته پسر بچه هایی کوچک هستند برای قانون گذاری و اعمال قانون و البته رعایت آن در محیطی مانند جنگل را به تصویر کشیده . در گام اول با انتخاب رالف به عنوان رهبر این کودکان و وضع قوانینی هرچند حداقلی و البته اجرای نصفه و نیمه قوانین توسط پسر بچه ها ، شرایط تثبیت شده و به آرامی رو به بهبود به نظر می رسد . آنان در حال ساخت پناهگاه ، جمع آوری آب شیرین و از همه مهمتر روشن کردن آتش و نگه داشتن آن برای نجات خود هستند . اما آنان که کودکانی 6 تا 12 ساله هستند نه قادر به اجرای قوانین هستند و نه اهمیت آنرا می دانند . خود رالف هم شخصیت و کاریزمای یک رهبر را ندارد . فرامین او مدام به دست جک که پسربچه ای جنگجو و ستیزه جو است به چالش کشیده می شود . کم کم پسر بچه ها به دو گروه موافق و مخالف رالف تقسیم می شوند . اکثریت به رهبری جک از گروه جدا شده و سبک و زندگی دیگری انتخاب می کند آنان شکارچی می شوند و به شکار خوک می روند . با خون ریختن و شکار کردن و رنگ کردن صورت خود با خون خوک به خوی وحشی گری خود و یا همان شر درون مجال جلوه گری می دهند و کم کم وحشی می شوند .

خوکو بکش ، سرشو ببر ، خونشو بریز

خوک در کتاب گلدینگ نقش بسیار مهمی دارد ، خوک و شکار خوک است که به جک قدرت داده و گروه شکارچی او را از گروه رالف متمایز می کند . خون خوک هم کاربردی مانند ماسک دارد ، در حقیقت همین ماسک خون آلود است که شکارچی ها را همانند وحشی ها ساخته و تفاوت بزرگی میان آنان و گروه رالف ایجاد کرده . سر خوک هم که قرار است قربانی جک به هیولا باشد عملا نمادی مانند پرچم وحشی ها را پیدا کرده و قلمرو آن ها را نشان می دهد . سر خوک در حقیقت جزیی از همان بچه هاست ، همان ذات شر که در وجود انسان است و قابل شکار نیست و با قربانی دادن هم رام نمی شود .
خوکه یکی از پسر بچه ها که به سبب چاق بودن به این نام تحقیرآمیز خوانده می شود نقش مهم در داستان گلدینگ دارد . او را می توان نماد عقل و یا دگر اندیشی میان پسر بچه ها دانست . تقریبا پشت تمامی ایده ها اوست و دیگران از جمله رالف اندیشه های او را اجرا می کنند. نویسنده ضعف همیشگی این طبقه را با نشان دادن ناتوانی بدنی خوکه بیان کرده . او بدون عینک چیزی نمی بیند و بیماری آسم دارد . خوکه نه از طرف حاکمیت و رقیب آن جدی گرفته می شو�� و نه بچه های دیگر ارزش او را قدر می دانند و سرنوشت او هم سخت دردناک است .
گلدینگ با مهارت و استادی تقابل تمدن و وحشی گری را نشان داده ، تمدن با وجود آنکه راه نجات پسربچه ها به سوی دنیای خارج است اما از آن جایی که نیاز به همکاری ، مسئولیت پذیری ، تلاش و زحمت دارد کم کم از طرف پسران نادیده گرفته می شود . دربرابر نجات ، آنان بازی ، شنا ، سرگرم شدن و شکار و خون ریزی و از میان محدودیت های وضع شده از طرف قانون و رالف ، بی قانونی ، آنارشیسم و جک را انتخاب می کنند . با دور شدن آنان از تمدن ، خوی وحشی گری در میان آنها افزایش می یابد . آنها پس از شکار خوک نوعی رقص سنتی اجرا می کنند که فرقی با آیین وحشیان ندارد . در جهان نویسنده ذات شر و خوی وحشی گری به نژاد ، رنگ ، سن و یا جنسیت بستگی ندارد و همه افراد به گونه ای آن را دارند .
پایان کتاب نشان دهنده بن بستی ایست که در جهان 1954 و هنگام جنگ سرد وجود داشته و البته الان هم به گونه ای دیگر وجود دارد . گلدینگ به خوبی پوچی ، بی هدفی و از همه مهمتر بن بست اخلاقی را در سالار مگس ها نشان داده ، جهان پدران که نابود شده و جزیره پسران هم ویران و آتش هم خاموش شده .
گلدینگ کتاب را با کنایه و طعنه به پایان رسانده ، جزیره پسران فرق چندانی با جهان ویران پدران ندارد ، گویی در جهان او مجالی برای خیر نیست و شر است که همه جهان را فرا گرفته است .

I had never read this classic before now. It was one of the options in Advanced Literature, my freshman year of high school, along with Wuthering Heights and Dune. I ended up choosing Wuthering Heights, which, is an excellent read if you're into the gothic romance stuff. So, I was bringing adult eyes to a book that most people seem to have read as a young adult. And, I have to say, I was enthralled.

As I mentioned in previous reviews, my undergraduate degree is in political science. For whatever reason, I love studying the building blocks of society, the structures of power, and the shifting sands of public opinion and group think. Lord of the Flies is a powerhouse of a book for all of those things.

For those like me who haven't read this (I imagine there must be somebody out there), we start out on an island. There has been a plane crash and only children have survived. We're on an island full of boys- no girls, interestingly enough. I guess Golding didn't want to muddy the waters with gender issues in addition to the social hierarchy stuff. So, there's a charismatic boy named Ralph who meets an overweight kid. Overweight kid shares with Ralph in confidence that the boys back at school used to call him, 'Piggy', but he'd rather be called anything but that. They find a huge conch shell on the beach and use it to call the other survivors to the shoreline. They're sharing names and Ralph tells the group to call the fat kid, Piggy. Now, that was a huge red flag to me. When you tell somebody a secret and, not ten minutes later, they turn around and use that secret against you, you've got to know that you've got problems heading your way.

Well, the newly christened Piggy doesn't have a lot of choice in the matter, because there's an older group of choir boys on the island and the head of that group doesn't like Piggy. So, to protect himself from the provocations of the bigger and stronger boy, Piggy allies himself with Ralph. The entire group takes a vote and decides that Ralph is going to lead this rag-tag bunch. Ralph wants to keep a smokey fire burning at all times, in order to attract the attention of any passing ships, and get the heck off of the island. Choir boy leader, Jack, wants to hunt the wild pigs on the island for meat. He becomes strangely obsessed with this chore and begins to go a bit bonkers- sort like Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. Remember, there are no adults around to keep the peace. And then things start to fall completely apart...

That's the basic plot. Now, for those people who studied this in school:  What was with the pig head and flies? I was clued in that this was an important part of the story because of the title... but I just couldn't figure it out. Simon, the sensitive and perceptive boy, has prophetic visions about it but then, before he can share the secret of the soldier stuck in the trees, he's killed by the mob. So... what does it all mean? Is it because, underneath, we are all thinly disguised beasts? If there wasn't the rule of law, would we all be running about, sacrificing pig heads to the monsters under the trees? Or, are we the monsters and that is why the pig head was speaking to Simon? Anyway, I'd appreciate clarifying thoughts on it. I asked my husband, who read this in both grade school and high school, what it meant and he couldn't remember. I suppose I could just Google it, but I'd much rather talk about it with other bookworms.

Now for some quotes: "This is our island. It's a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we'll have fun. pg 54 ebook. Famous last words, right?

Superstition and fear enter the picture in some of the first moments on the beach: "He wants to know what you're going to do about the snake-thing."... Either the wandering breezes or perhaps the decline of the sun allowed a little coolness to lie under the trees. The boys felt it and stirred restlessly. pg 55 ebook. Golding could have taken this story a completely different direction and made the beast real. It would have been so cool in a science fiction type of way. Oh well.

My favorite character was, of course, Piggy: "Ralph moved impatiently. The trouble was, if you were a chief you had to think, you had to be wise. And then the occasion slipped by so that you had to grab at a decision... Only, decided Ralph as he faced the chief's seat, I can't think. Not like Piggy. ... Piggy could think. He could go step by step inside that fat head of his, only Piggy was no chief. But Piggy, for all his ludicrous body, had brains. Ralph was a specialist in thought now, and could recognize thought in another." pg 125, ebook. You think Roger ever got any psychological treatment for being such a psycho and killing people? One can only hope.

One of the original young adult dystopian reads, Lord of the Flies is an excellent pick for reluctant readers. Don't let the label of "classic" fool you. It has a very fast pace and I'm still picking apart the details in my head even though I finished it a couple days ago. Some read alikes: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (of course) and The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey (fresh take on a dystopian world, accepted social order, and power struggles between characters).

I would presume that swathes of humanity in the West (and millions elsewhere) already know the story of a civilian plane crash around (Second World) war-time in which groups of upper class English schoolboys find themselves marooned on a deserted island, where there is a limited wish to remain civilised and a rampant descendance into savagery!

This startlingly immense debut novel by William Golding is woke-ism at its best! What, I hear you say? Yes... Golding, got the idea of the book from the 'Christian' pro-colonialism The Coral Island, when he though that the idea of marooned English schoolboys remaining civilised whilst encountering external evil as preposterous; and indeed the concept of the civilising power of colonialism; the beauty of his inversion of the original source was his idea that the evil the boys would face would be from within! A true modern classic and one of the greatest debuts of al time! All the stars, a 10 out of 12, Five STAR READ.

2024 read
PS Although read at least three times as a child, this was my first reading in over four decades as an adult!

every time i think about this book, i think about that story of the group of boys who shipwrecked on an island and lived in full-on peace and harmony until their eventual rescue.

seems like you're kind of outing yourself on this one, william golding.

also every time i think about piggy to this day it makes me want to cry.

that's all i got.

this is part of a project i'm doing in which i review books i read a long time ago. this one is particularly enlightening, wouldn't you say?

Over the years I must have read this book five or six times. Last night I was reading it on a train with a highlighter in my hand, because I decided to teach it this year again. Teachers wreck books, of course. We all know that. On the other hand, whatever you have to study-read, you tend to carry a bit of it with you. You don't forget that book, at least. Although I must add, that it's quite risky introducing to a Scottish classroom a book with the memorable words: "The English are best at everything...."

I wasn't sure how much it would have dated. I must have read it for the first time 30 years ago. Published in 1954, the phrasing would have been pretty modern then. Even now, most of it has work well. The phrase that jumped at me -- and it only appeared once -- was when Piggy (I think) compared the boys detrimentally to 'niggers', instead of just 'savages'. Ouch. Mental note to make them look hard at this bit. After all this is such a horrible little group of boys. As complacently white as can be, one group of them from a choir school (or a public school with a choir), no less. And Ralph, the 'hero', son of a naval officer.

Golding, as a teacher in an upmarket school, presumably knew those sort of boys all too well. The boys being prepared to carry the empire forward.

Except the setting suggests the empire may not be going forward. Somebody somewhere is fighting a war that is evidently nuclear. It's never quite clear what is going on or how the officer turns up cool as cucumber on a naval cutter at the end.

Most of the young people in my class this year have (sigh) seen the film, so they know what happens. The group of boys marooned on an idyllic Pacific Island first start off having a sort of cheery adventure. There are references to Coral Island, Swallows and Amazons and Treasure Island too. They want to have fun, and one of their number -- Jack -- talks a great deal about 'fun', though his idea of fun is killing pigs.

They arrive a fairly civilised little group but they gradually degenerate. Golding's moral message is about the "darkness of man's heart" and it's a good moral companion to Heart of Darkness now I come to think about it. The boys natural fears escalate and the younger children create a mythical 'beast', which then seems to materialise as a fact when the body of a dead airman, killed a war fought in the skies overhead, floats down to the island in a parachute.

But the real beast is their own desire for control and domination, as well as an interesting bloodlust -- the word 'lust' is used of this, and the killing of the first pig is certainly described with unmistakable sexual resonance. One of the boys pushes a sharpened stick "up her ass". There are no girls in the group -- what a different novel it would have to have been if there were! -- but the pig they kill is a sow, and they interrupt her in suckling a brood of piglets. What a strange, strange thing to put into your novel. Not just the killing, but the slaughtering of a mother pig and a kind of sexual frenzy. Yuk!

But hey -- he's intending to shock. He's intending to show that this blood lust thing isn't far away from human kind, or male human kind at least, and that it doesn't take much to call it out. Even Ralph, the Aryan protagonist, feels himself getting caught up in it. Paint your face, start whooping and chanting and you can do, it seems, almost anything.

The kind, poetic, imaginative Simon gets butchered (teeth and nails at this point -- not spears). PIggy is despatched by Roger, the executioner. The whole of their little society is clearly turning into a Stalinist regime, with each boy taking his place, as prescribed by Golding, which is what you get to do when you write an allegory.

It's a powerful read, though more repetitive, in linguistic terms, than I remembered - almost as repetitive as D H Lawrence in places. At the highpoint, towards the end, when Ralph is completely isolated and being hunted down, the word 'ululation' is done to death. But at least you can't read this book without learning what it means!

What I both like and don't like about it is the way it makes me want to argue. The whole thing is completely manipulated. Is this what would happen? Would the darkness of man's heart take over?

I have not much doubt that man's heart is dark, I guess, but when I got off the train I left my very lovely reddy-orangy furry scarf, and the chap who was sitting opposite me (I didn't speak to him during the journey) ran after me with it. It brightened my day. Perhaps he was a 'Simon' and would quickly get trampled if our civilisation were to decline.

But look Golding, my lad -- that bit where you allow the man in the parachute to get dumped, dead, on the island, scaring the boys out of their wits -- if that hadn't happened -- your choice plot element -- well, the three boys Jack, Roger and Ralph, would have established Absence of Beast. It might all have turned out very differently.

If Piggy hadn't been wearing glasses, there would have been no fire....

If it had started raining sooner....

If Ralph had been a bit more intelligent....

If the pigs had been a bit better at getting away....

On an island, living on fruit and getting scratched and cut, one or two of them would have developed fatal infections and their main enemy would probably have been illness and death, which would have drawn them together a bit. Even the biting insects would probably have driven them potty. One or two of them, it's my bet, would have descended into depression and just dwindled away.

It wouldn't have been like The Coral Island, but it wouldn't have been the inevitable collapse of civilisation either.

Steven King likes this book. It fits beautifully with his love of dramatic thriller, increasing isolation of central brave character, and underlying opposition between good and evil. Here evil wins, though.

Ralph is about to be exterminated when the officer arrives, so the deus ex machina is just there as an ironic way to end the book. That bastard is even 'embarrassed' when Ralph bursts into tears. That's British stiff upper lippery for you.

I don't believe, in the boys' behaviour. I don't believe that Jack, the killer (I nearly said Jack the Giant-Killer), is there just below the surface, although I do believe that wars bring out the worst in us. I don't believe that Roger -- just a little boy -- is the natural henchman, with a desire to execute his peers running just below his veneer of civilisation.

But then perhaps I do. I've seen it, haven't I? Seen nasty young people doing nasty young things nastily. Conditioned into that, in their turn, by not very delightful adults, damaged adults.

Oh bloody Golding -- go away! I put my money on man's intelligence. You gotta use your head to survive, whichever allegory you seem to be inhabiting. And sometimes you do survive and sometimes you don't, but the 'darkness of man's heart' is offset by the light, which always returns.

The trouble is, the dark heart goes for power - doesn't it? And the desire for power and control over others can be wielded quickly and wrongly by just a few people. It's what's happening all over the world at this minute.

And yet -- the majority are good-hearted souls, who will pick up your scarf on a train and return it to you. There are more good guys than bad ones. Some of them are quietly and happily reading books at this minute. Otherwise, what would be the point?

This tends to me among the top five books I recommend to anyone who cares to ask.

Questioning and undermining Rousseau's 'noble savage' was one of its essential goals (as Alan mentions below), hence the positioning of a classic dystopia in an idyllic setting and the choice of 'boy-scout' perfect protagonists. It is as good a dystopic novel as they come. And essential because most dystopic novels were set in urban settings, giving the illusion that extreme control leads to dystopia. Golding shows that extreme freedom can too.

It is a great work because it speaks so truly of the human tendency away from organized civilization. To me, the one fault is the ending -- the time scale given to the thought experiment was too narrow, allowing only one swing of the societal pendulum.