Rating: 
Summary: OKAY idea, but this man was more of a pessimist than >I< am
Review: I was forced to read this book last year, my Freshman year. I was entertained by the PREMISE of the book at first.. but then lost all interest. Let's see here.. a Lord of the Flies Timeline: Day One--Plane crashes, kids gather, etc. They find and are unable to kill the pig. Day THree (aprox) The kids are now half naked, spear-toting, near-savages who cannot agree one anything (JUMP) Day Eighteen--Bloodthirsty, Chanting monsters who kill for pleasure I really think that Golding is a horrible man. We, as humans, DO have a dark side. But for God's sake, it would take MONTHS for the kids to fall THAT far! Years, maybe! (Of course, somethimes people survive just fine...take "Gilligan's Island" as an example. Then again, weren't we all hoping for SOMETHING to happen?) Well.. Stay away. Unless you really DO think that people could degenrate so fast.
Rating: 
Summary: Ok at best
Review: You could say it was a fabulous book because it demonstrated a point that humans are animals without society... yada yada yada. But a book should be more than that, it should be emotionally envolving. You should feel for the characters, but you just can't in Lord of the Flies. It's OK for illustrating a point, but not good enough to pass for a real novel.
Rating: 
Summary: When the Pig Head Talks, You Listen
Review: Several times during my childhood, I was left unsupervised with a group of boys in a swampy woodland for days. We ended up eating snakes, toads, insects and anything we could steal or terrorize from boys scout and National Guardsmen on training exercises. We also disintegrated into tribal savages like Golding describes in the Lord of the Flies. Between these interludes in the woods with the boy savages, I read this book (around age 10) and found it jibed with my reality. The words of the Lord of the Flies struck deep into me, for I knew that darkness well. Some believe the book overladen with "humans are evil" symbolism. Well, they are, and boys do revert to the lowest common denominator in the jungle, despite their best intentions.
Rating:
Summary: Vividly writen novel, symbolism goes as deep as you wish.
Review: Reading this as a school book I origionally dismissed this novel. However the heat from the desert island on which the group of stranded school children were deposited stayed throughout. Their sun bleached hair and sunburn added to the effect. There was a story within a story.One of survival of the children, what to eat how to catch it, all pragmatic aspects. The other is an underlying issue of human destruction of their environment on an island that once was pardise. I believe that some aspects of the symbolism have been materialised out of nothing, make what you will but I enjoyed that "oh yeah thats linked with that" part that you only get with a good book.
Rating:
Summary: A thematic novel whose theme is not well presented
Review: I read a lot of novels for entertainment purposes, but I'll start off by saying that those I read for school I usually like less then those I read on my own. It is possible I am biased. This novel seems to invite overanalyzation in the worst way. The flimsiest throwaway line can be sought out and examined for meaning. These meanings often reflect only what the reader wanted to see. I think Golding was trying to make a point and did a passable job at doing it. I think he lacks subtlety, however. The books that carry the most weight in my mind are those which do so in a manner you hardly notice, but at every turn Lord of the Flies screams out, "there is an innate evil in humans!" Its ending seems contrived and somewhere along the line it acquires a nightmarish quality that seems to me to detract from the theme.
Rating:
Summary: Great book that you can read over and over again.
Review: This book is a classic. The topics that he covered in this book are amazing. I have read it two times now, and I have found even deeper meaning in it the second time around. It is great for any age, and the book grows with the reader. The moral of everyone having the devil in us all makes for a great discussion in comparisons with such books as Les Miserables. Even though there is some big refrence to Christianity, that doesn't have to be the main focus, so it won't make everyone feel uncomfortable. If you get the oppertunity, read it. Then after a couple of years, read it again.
Rating: 
Summary: Great for Kids
Review: The strong point of this novel is that even people's criticisms are actually good in the book. The great irony is that the boys are saved by a man going off to war. I don't think Golding is making the glossy general staement that people have attributed to him (we are all simply bloodthirsty savages at heart) but that behind every person lies the instinc of survival and of the true key point of the book, the hunt
Rating:
Summary: Quasi-fascist pessisimism
Review: I must admit prejudice in my evaluation of this book; I completely disagree with the ideas behind Golding's fairytale. His metaphor is extremely narrow; English public school boys probably WOULD tear each other to bits if left unsupervised, but this says more of the British public school circle than it does of the human condition. I also don't trust the idea of our instinctual savagery, and the need for tightly structured hierarchies. Of course Golding shows that "civilization" doesn't eliminate violence and savagery; not in the boy's own island structure nor in sophisticated nation states. So, if you kill one person and it's murder, and if you kill 100,000 people it's foreign policy, which is better? I'm not sure that Golding really answers that question. However, he seems to say that our options are limited to this killing, either murder or war. Man is destructive. I disagree, so this book puts knots of exaspiration in my stomach. I don't believe we are doomed to cruelty; we all possess empathy, reason and creativity. The somewhat fascist undertones of this book, in perfect accord with our hierarchal society, bothers me. I wish there were other books in the school curriculum to balance out points of view in the classroom. This Hobbsian tale shows a point of view, but is not the whole truth of human nature.
Rating:
Summary: Golding Shows True Evil in Society and in Man
Review: In William Golding's allegorical novel "Lord of the Flies," he exposes men and society as basically evil at heart and corrupt. Excellent symbolism and plot. A true classic!
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read!
Review: I read this book a year ago, but I still remember almost exactly what happened. The book is burned into my memory. That's how good it was. It's a tale of a boy growing up, and the evil in our society. We see how the boys decivilize during their stay on the island, and degenerate into savage groups. As in Jack London's "The Call of the Wild," the characters revert to their natural instincts. In this case, the boys become savage group hunters, similar to eary humans thousands of years ago. This book is hard to understand; cryptic, but will give you a new view of the world.
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