Short description
Golding's best-known novel is the story of a group of boys who, after a plane crash, set up a fragile community on a previously uninhabited island. As memories of home recede and the blood from frenzied pig-hunts arouses them, the boys' childish fear turns into something deeper and more primitive.
Long description
Golding's best-known novel is the story of a group of boys who, after a plane crash, set up a fragile community on a previously uninhabited island. As memories of home recede and the blood from frenzied pig-hunts arouses them, the boys' childish fear turn
Review
A fantasy is a singular- and singularly believable spellbinder, and within the framework of its premises- achieves a tremendous impetus and impact. During an atomic war, a group of boys aged from about six to twelve crash-land on an uninhabited tropical island. There Ralph, a responsible boy, is chosen chief- and a certain routine established; a fire is made and to be kept going as a signal, huts are to be built, and certain of the boys are to hunt wild pig?? But as the days pass in increasing discomfort, there is increasing dissension between them; the littluns are frightened by the untold terrors of the dark, and the fear of breasties and bogeys spreads; the duties are neglected; and the older boys, save Simon and Piggy and Samneric (twins) desert Ralph, appoint a new leader, and run amok hunting savagely. In their primitive regression, they feel they must propitiate the beast and a ritualistic dance precedes the murder of Simon; Piggy, his specs taken, falls to his death; and finally Ralph is left to face the pack when a cruiser lands- to rescue them all.... A first novel, originally conceived and convincingly sustained, this should find an audience as vulnerable as its young derelicts. The publishers parallel this- not without justification- with Richard Hughes' High Wind In Jamaica. (Kirkus Reviews)