Books You Must Read – Lord of the Flies

Written in 1954,  this Book might knock you across the room.   Authored  by William Golding it is the story of  British school boys  stranded on an island after a plane crash.

All the adults die, the only survivors are these school boys of pre-adolescence.   They are all middle or upper middle class and go to one of those aristocratic types of schools.   These aren’t poor ghetto boys.  These are not the kind of rough necks, but soft boys who have never had to do any hard work.

Shortly,   Ralph, becomes the leader, because, it seems, he can sing High C.   The other boys not particularly persuaded either way, seem not that disturbed at first.

What is agreed on is that one boy will be ‘scorn’; this is a fat boy called ‘Piggy’.   He isn’t ‘elected’ or ‘appointed’ he just is there, available for insult.

Ralph takes control and tries to set up various protocols.    In time they begin to image there’s a monster which gives them an ‘enemy’ they can fight against.

The theme of the book is how boys, all likely middle and upper middle class can devolve to a level of savage.  How, in not a prolonged time they can congeal into a kind of ‘dictatorship’ which deteriorates into various factions, then pulls together again with the idea of some enemy, then split again.

The most significant part is how ridiculing Piggy, creating the village scorn is something you will often see in the educational and corporate world.  Creating the object of scorn is an important social adhesion.   How it is done in the book is something that will never leave your understanding.

The degeneration of people is the key feature.

Often there are stories about people being on a stranded island, most recently, the television serial; Lost.  But few stories ever map the de-evolution as painstakingly as this book.

It is a must read.