Review- Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Lord of the Flies on Goodreads

 BOOK SUMMARY:

Originally published in 1954, William Golding's Lord of the Flies is one of the most disturbing and celebrated novels of modern times.

A plane crashes on a desert island. The only survivors are a group of schoolboys. At first they revel in the freedom and celebrate the absence of grown-ups.

Soon though, as the boys' fragile sense of order begins to collapse, their fears start to take on a sinister, primitive significance. Suddenly, the world of cricket, homework and adventure stories seems a long way away. The boys are faced with a more pressing reality — survival — and the appearance of a terrifying beast who haunts their dreams.

‘No living writer has represented the fragility of man's enterprises so marvelously as Golding.’ A. S. Byatt, Evening Standard

Release date: 1999 (first published September 17th 1954)

Published by: Faber and Faber Limited

Page numbers: 230

REVIEW: 

Honestly, I was so looking forward to reading William Golding's Lord of the Flies because I've seen people read and praise it ever since I was in college which was probably six or seven years ago. Some of my classmates read it for their English class and I'd hear them discuss it, as well. When I see many people read and talk about a certain book, it's not necessary that I have to read the book, but if and when I do end up giving it a go, I have expectations.

Unfortunately, whatever few expectations I had from Lord of the Flie were completely shattered and destroyed because the book was boring, the plot was very, very slow and the story was just put in a manner so complicated that I barely understood what was going on. I will still defend the story and say that it is indeed unique and inspiring, but it would have been so much better had it been put in a simple manner.

I did with this book what I used to do with books that I couldn't really get into but still had to read for my literature class, and it's what I call "zombie reading". Now in this type of reading, I really don't care what's going on because 1) I'm not understanding it no matter how hard I try to concentrate, 2) the writing is too boring or the pace of the novel, too slow and 3) nothing seems to work. All three categories applied to Lord of the Flie, but I still continued reading it because I didn't want to give up and I kept hoping that it would get better.

I totally see why this book is called a classic and I bet I would have liked it if I had someone to guide me with it and with whom I could discuss it, which is why I feel that this book is great for literature class. But clearly, it wasn't for me. I do wish I had liked it more and been able to see what thousands others have seen in it, but I didn't. And I hope that's okay.

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