Lord of the Flies (Abridged Audio Edition)

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Summary: A good book
Review: Recently I read lord of the Flies it was a very interesting and enjoyable book. The story has timelessness to it. The plots and characters are very entertaining. The first thing I noticed when I read the book was its reference to the atom bomb. This is the author's way of giving a time for when the story occurred. Also people were afraid of a nuclear war during those times so it sheds light on what life was like. The author did an excellent job of describing the atmosphere. He spent lots of time giving details on the characters and the island. I liked this because it helps readers get a better feel for what the author intended them to imagine. Another aspect I liked was how the boys developed into 2 societies showing the break that develops. It was nice to see how the two groups had a difficult time working together. It showed the stubbornness people could have when they feel they are right. Inside the society the characters where very enjoyable with their thoughts and dialogue giving a very realistic sense. Something I thought was unrealistic was the violence some of it seemed pointless. Often I thought that it was not realistic. Another part I hated was the dramatic character change as if the characters were always the same and the way they were. The story started off innocent despite the accident and turned into this is in many ways also comparable to frame story. It had little adventures in side the big story of survival. The thing I liked most in the book was the conflict. The boys who had split into tribes had to deal with and survive each other. But they also had to deal with the conflict between themselves and the environment-facing extreme whether and hunger. I would recommend this book to any one who likes action and lots of sometime over used detail. This is a book that is hard to sit down once you start it.

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Summary: Lord of the Flies
Review: Lord of the Flies is a powerful story about a group of English schoolboys who have survived a plane crash and are stranded on a deserted island. In the beginning it seems like the boys will have quite an awesome adventure--they are completely on their own with no adult supervision. One of the oldest boys, Ralph, attempts to get the others organized so that they will have food, shelter, and a rescue signal fire.

Ralph's logical approach to survival is soon challenged by Jack, the novel's antagonist, who is also in charge of the hunting. His desire for total power is quickly evident as he and his followers become increasingly wild, barbaric, and cruel. Their cruelty extends beyond simply hunting animals for food. Soon they are hunting and killing each other.

While I did not particularly enjoy reading this book, I believe that the way the different characters are developed is interesting. Each of the main characters seems to represent an aspect of human nature and society. For example, Ralph represents the civilizing instinct in human beings compared to savagery represented by Jack. Simon, who is shy and more sensitive than the others, seems to represent the natural goodness found in people. Roger represents exactly the opposite--he is sadistic and very cruel. I think my favorite character is Piggy, because he is a very logical thinker and smart. Because I found this character appealing, his murder was very disturbing to me.

Actually, the entire story was disturbing. It was hard to imagine that the boys waging this "war" against each other were so young--the oldest was only twelve years old. It was interesting to me that the more violent the story got, the older the boys seemed. I think what I didn't like was the implication that humans are innately evil. Goodness was portrayed as an aspect of civilization. As civilization deteriorated throughout the story, cruelty and violence increased. It seemed more natural to be evil than to be good. The severed pig's head (named the Lord of the Flies) mounted on the stake in the forest seemed to represent that innate evil. Since I don't believe that humans are naturally cruel and violent, I found this book difficult to read. It is not a book I would recommend.

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Summary: a visionary!
Review: cast away on a deserted island, a pack of children, unsculpted by civilisation, spurred to act only as they have learnt through observing "grown-ups", motivated by a will to survive as in their own prespective, the Lord of the Flies is a literary masterpiece that delves into the psyche of "civilisation" and its disposition. Golding is a visionary, as with several of his likes - Huxley and Orwell et al, creating a scenerio that might appear to most, so cliché, so meaningless, yet undeniably profound. children, indulge in the mundane - play mostly; or so it is thought. Golding uses children, the root and beginning of each human existence to express civil and social evolution, perhaps even communisim and democracy, leftist and rightist attitudes. justice and injustice. his presentation may be basic, but such are our origins. this is a throughly entertaining, thought provoking and undeniable classic of our time.

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Summary: PERFECTION!!!!!
Review: Lord of the Flies by Golding is a perfect novel.
It is the story of English School boys during the war times. The boys are on an airplane heading for sanctuary from the war, but their ship crashes and the boys are deserted alone on an island in the middle of nowhere without any adults. The children plan to set up their own government to rule them. They believe they can create the perfect civilized government on their own. One of the boys even comments; "We're not savages, we're British"

But the boys soon give into their animalist urges of hunger and fear and turn into reck-looses and savages in the name of survivial.
This story is perfect social commentary.
Also like the children becoming savages with out parents to guide them; its an example of how humanity becomes animals without a God. As suggested by the very title of the book "Lord of the Flies"; which is a biblical name for Satan (Beelzabub -Mt.10:25;12:24,26/Lk. 11:15/ Mk.3:22)

This book is a clear example of what happens when people worship the god of the earth by give into their animal instincts and choose to ignore the God the father.

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Summary: Stephen King was right
Review: Though I have always been an avid reader, I didn't ever get a chance to read Lord of the Flies until late in high school. The main reason I read it is because one of my favorite authors, Steven King, praised it in two or three of his books. Though it wasn't quite as thrilling as I was expecting, I still enjoyed it, especially the way the author told the story. Most of all, I enjoyed the way the author explored how violence tennds to become a part of human nature. Also, the books insightful and disturbing points are driven home harder because it's children that are doing all the depraved and evil things that take place in the book. Good job Mr.golding

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Summary: Overall Good Book
Review: I recommend this book for high school students who enjoy to read. It is a good book for a person who likes a little bit of adventure and some excitement. The one thing I did not like about this book is it does get dull during the middle of the book but it picks up a little bit in the end. It should be a book that you would want to read instead of being forced too.

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Summary: Shocking
Review: I loved this book. It explores social interactions between young males, and the limits of the conscience. The ending was shocking... be prepared for an exciting story! (This is middle school reading)

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Summary: Lord of the Flies = Awesome
Review: Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel about a group of British boys stranded on an island after a devastating plane crash. In the very beginning, the boys try to cooperate to find food, make shelter, and light a signal fire, therefore maximizing their chance of being rescued. They all elected Ralph as the leader since he seemed to know what to do to keep them alive. However, some of the boys become lazy, and would rather play and have fun instead of work. As Ralph's power and influence over the other boys begin to decrease, his antagonist, Jack rises with power. Jack was the leader of the group of boys responsible for hunting. But soon Jack and his group of boys become obsessively fond with hunting and is overcome by a sort of frenzy. Soon he begins to paint his face giving himself the look of a savage. Disgusted of Ralph's rules, Jack and his group of boys split from the rest of the group and move to another part of the island. Soon after, the situation becomes worse, and Jack's "tribe" are now hunting Ralph's group. The former instinct of civilization and order has become savagery, violence, and chaos.
Almost all the characters and elements in this book symbolize something. This book is not just about a struggle for survival on a deserted island, it is about a conflict between two types of human nature that both exist in every individual. The first is to live by rules, act peacefully, and do things for a common good. The other is to act violently, obtain power through force, and to satisfy individual's immediate desires. These two characteristics can be seen in the two major characters Ralph and Jack. The main conflict to the whole story is civilization versus savagery. The lord of the flies is a sow's head impaled on a stick. The sow had been killed by Jack and his hunters and its head was meant to be an offering to the beast that all the little boys seem to think is living on this island. The lord of the flies is implying that there is evil in every human heart, and this is the major theme of this book.
Overall, I thought that this was one of those books that would make you think about all the hidden themes and ideas expressed throughout the book. This book, I believe, is a book that everyone should read.

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Summary: Lord of the Flies
Review: Without going into a long-winded review, I would like to say that this novel is beautifully written and is highly thought-provoking. This, no matter what kind of reader you are, is a book you should read.

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Summary: Dream-like sensations and ethereal experiences
Review: The dark, indistict and yet highly suggestive cover of the Riverhead edition (1997, introduced by E.M. Forster)peopled with its shady, human-like silhouettes and snaps of muted color, provides a better glimpse than any other edition of an important theme of the novel--illusion, and its power to become real in the minds of those possessed by fear. Chimera.

I think this theme is as important now, as it has ever been, perhaps more so considering the recent fears in the most powerful nation on Earth. With fear and vulnerability gripping America, the world has turned from being an oyster to a threat. People are frightened by the stories churned out by their media. There is anger, feelings of extreme vulnerability in the face of the invisible. Leaders fan the breezes of these highly charged feelings to create monsters lurking on the fringes of stable, rational society, ready to tear it up. Democracy, in the face of such invisible, powerful threats, can seem altogether too inadequate and fragile. Another response--a more powerful one--is needed. Force, the erosion or elimination of democratic rights, the tightening of controls. And of course, hunting down the beast. To ensure that all this is accepted by the very people who have the most to lose, a leader maintains the illusion of dark, evil forces bent on the destruction of a nation. And so on....Think of Jack and his tribe...then think how it all came about.

Simon is the first to see that there is nothing to fear on the island, but the children themselves , with all their fears of the dark. Think of the littl'uns, missing the comfort, security and reassurance of adults, their parents. They cry at night, they see snakes twisting about in the jungle-fire (in reality the burning vines waving about as they are being consumed by the flames)and mistake their nightmares for the real thing. Jack capitalizes on their fear, while at first being afraid himself. He is a young child after all, which is easy to forget.

Right from the start Golding works in images of how the island paradise has the potential to be turned into something sinister and deadly. We hear the "witch-like" call of a bird, see the "skull-like" coconuts strewn under the trees. Is it all really there? It takes the active imagination of the human mind to turn trees, coconuts, birds and the jungle into something awful. Something that can kill. Our confidence that what we can apprehend "reality" directly through our senses is put into question, for it is always through an interpreting mind that our sense perceptions are filtered. Our terrified minds "see" snakes, moving shadows..."hear" witches shrieking in the forest, our bodies "feel" the cold touch of a creature crawling over us...and we react according to how we understand our sensations.

The lyrical prose of the novel helps us experience what the boys do through connotation, metaphor, simile. This is what literary language does best: offers us experience, rather than information. Golding, being the brilliantly suggestive writer that he is, does just that. He offers us images, illusions in the shape of lengthy, highly detailed and descriptive scenes, which make very real a dream-like, unreal experience. Simon's experience of the butterflies dancing is just one example of this. In the same chapter, a storm is moving up. Or is it a storm? Golding uses the image of a great battle brewing, with the added image of "drums rolling". Rather than being a natural occurrence, the storm is presented to us as a powerful army preparing to unleash itself on the small, isolated island. The army is put there by a human mind. And it becomes very real for both Simon and for the reader. By personalizing Nature,(which is how the children experience the island) we tend ascribe to it intentions and purpose. In this way, the storm becomes menacing and seems to focus on the children, forcing them to cower in their flimsy huts when it trummels the island.

And that brings me to the next point about illusion and reality. Not only are the boys creating reality, so is the reader for him or herself, by recreating through the words on the page a surrogate experience. Some reviewers mistake the words on the page for referring to a reality that they never lived. This is not to say that they are naive enough to believe that the novel is based on real-life, but they write as if there is some truth-value to the details. This is the conduit metaphor that Bruce Pirie writes about in _Teaching High School English_, which powerfully drives the reading and interpretation of much literature. What is missed is that stories, whether spoken or written, are always constructed affairs. And that pertains to any story, including our own descriptions of ourselves. We are not giving "reality" of our true self when we tell someone about who we are: we are presenting a version that we believe to be accurate and true. What gets left out is the amount of selecting of perceived personal attributes that go into the description of our self (the unique, single "self" being another illusion of Western society...how many "selves", do you construct and present to the world every day?).

Does Golding not wish us to consider how the use of language constructs the very reality that it is supposed to refer to? His very skill in getting readers to describe Jack, Ralph and the others on the island as though they were real and to live the children's experiences may attest to this to.... as well as a history of High Schools reading literature in a realist tradition.

Anyway, enjoy the novel...or the illusion of directly living another's experiences. Plenty to enjoy there.