The best thing about Lord of the flies is its portrayal of what will happen when a bunch of kids are dumped on an island is completely inconsistent with what actually happened when this occurred. Far from the vicious and dictatorial devolution portrayed in the book, when several school boys were marooned on an island in the South Pacific, they actually banded together, shared responsibility, and helped each other. Over 15 months six school boys cared for each other survived and built a culture that we all could learn from. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I have read the book many, many times over my life and I was very surprised how closely the series followed the book. It was just outstanding. Great book and I think it is a great series. Those young actors, wow. Thanks for the really interesting perspective on the series Meredith.
One odd side note about "Lord of the Flies": science fiction writer Robert Heinlein was not a fan of the book, so he actually wrote his own novel as a rebuttal to "Lord of the Flies". That book is "Tunnel in the Sky", about a group of teenagers stranded on another planet with no adults who are forced to work together in order to survive.
When I was young I never made the connection between the two books, probably because I read the "Tunnel in the Sky" several years before "Lord of the Flies". Many years after reading both, I came across that bit of information.
Sadly, recent events suggest that "Lord of the Flies" is a more accurate take on human nature, but the Heinlein book's optimism about human nature does make it fun to read.
I remember watching the move on the late show when I was about 14, in the late 60s, and was then prompted to read the book. I found both the film and book to be distressing.
My interpretation was: A bunch of English "public" school boys (what we'd call preppies) get stranded on an island, and in a frighteningly short time they become for all intents and purposes savages, right down to Piggy getting shoved off a cliff, and he split his head open and died.
Then a ship comes along and rescues the surviving boys, and almost instantly they become crying school boys again.
The message I took home at the time was how thin the veneer of "civilization" is and how quickly it can return, both occurring in changing circumstances.
Apologies if I forgot or mis-remembered some important details
"It feels like right and left are unable to see each other anymore, I don’t think this is just about the rise of rise of a powerful right wing. I think this is also about the way that the left wing behaves towards that right wing"
What? Full stop. I am utterly sick of "both sides do it" apologists. There's ONE President leading America into fascism right now, not two, and there's no equivalent on the left. There's ONE cult of personality. There's ONE "Secretary of War" leading a disastrous, utterly stupid and self-defeating invasion of Iran. There's ONE party that's deporting ebola sufferers to Kenya. There's ONE party that regularly quotes Nazis, and there's ONE party urging White Europeans to join the modern version of the Nazi Party circa 1921.
I'm part of the "left wing". I don't want to tear down the White House to build a "ballroom". I don't want a UFC event in the center of Washington, celebrating and glorifying violence. I don't want to round up and deport migrants, or send them to "Alligator Alcatraz", or whatever the violent right wants to call it's modern day concentration camps. I don't want to jail women for having or seeking an abortion, or to jail their doctors for providing one. I don't want a 1.7 billion dollar slush fund to go to the crooks, cranks, and agitators who support right wing violence. And I'm definitely not going to read or support people who claim "there's fine people on BOTH sides".
I follow the Contrarian for Jennifer Rubin and Norm Eisen. This kind of "both sides" drivel for the last 30 years in America, is a major reason we have Trump grifting billions of dollars from us, right now and probably for the next few years. People are free to have their opinions, but I'm not going to pay for this. And yes, the recent iteration of "Lord Of The Flies" is pretty good, but it's not nearly as good as the 1963 film written and directed by Peter Brooks.
Spot on. There's one party that realized that their platform had and has absolutely nothing to offer the American people, and instead of changing their platform, decided to lock in telling nothing but lies and spreading hate from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, and a bunch of corrupt people from state houses to congress all the Fox talking heads that followed have not only continued, but become much worse. To hell with that both sides baloney.
Jack, thank you for telling it “like it is.” It’s clear you are fed up by the minimizing of the dire circumstances we find ourselves in now. No one is coming to the rescue. No “making nice.” Thank you for your candor. We’ve almost have made it through May. Truly, Steps 1, 2,& 3. “Came to believe…” Onward. Courage, wisdom.
Again, another great review and insight but it gets too close to home for me. Here is the urban equivalent. Teenage mother, WCN minister father, 4 kids in seven years, he is fat and lazy probably defiling teenagers in his church, she is working four jobs, raising as many kids, teaching piano to the black son of the black custodian of the church who helped her with her babies, letting that quite talented son perform in the recital at the church and getting run out of town in the middle of the night b/c of that. Plenty of death threats. This was the 60s. It’s no different in South GA. Even the governor is a klansman racist. These people have been perfecting oppression for more than 250 years while the rest of us have been trying to get better at equality, égalité and and ensuring we all do better. Even the adults are struggling with this.
This version of the classic was, for me, especially moving and powerful. The faithful rendition of the original story is the best so far in film, imho, and the acting was almost shockingly good. I expect an Emmy nomination for David McKenna, the remarkable actor who inhabits Piggy!
I have likened the times we are living through now to The Lord of the Flies for a while now. The total breakdown of society in the story is our reality. I appreciate these writers bringing this story to a new audience as it is relevant in so many ways. Horrifying though. Who will save us from ourselves?
There were no girls on the island; all of the characters in Lord of the Flies are boys. Would it have made a difference if the children were all girls? Or if there were both boys and girls on the island? There is plenty of social-psychological thinking that boys/men tend to be more violent than girls/women. It is no accident that the majority of violence is committed by boys/men across the globe, and across historical time periods. In play, groups of girls tend to work cooperatively, while boys in play tend to be competitive with each other. It would be interesting to consider what kind of society a group of stranded girls would have created.
One thing about that book that doesn't seem to get much discussion is the fact that they descend into violence all because of lies. There is in reality no "Beast" that they have to be afraid of. So for me the lesson is not "people are at their core bad without the veneer of civilization" but more "people can get manipulated away from their true core by lies."
EVERY DAY I SEE AND HEAR OF ENOUGH HORROR WITHOUT GOING LOOKING FOR IT.
FOR EXAMPLE, TODAY I HEARD OF A NUT JOB WITH A SHOTGUN WHO KILLED HIS GIRLFRIEND, HIS SIX YEAR OLD SON AND HIS DOG. THAT IS (MORE THAN) ENOUGH FOR A MONTH.
Could never read it but your review will make me do something…read or see. I guess I felt like my childhood was like the book and I was the oldest child so I was in charge. Scary as hell.
When I was in high school, I defiantly refused to read that book. I remember telling my teacher Golding was a pervert. Now Animal Farm I could relate to that.
The best thing about Lord of the flies is its portrayal of what will happen when a bunch of kids are dumped on an island is completely inconsistent with what actually happened when this occurred. Far from the vicious and dictatorial devolution portrayed in the book, when several school boys were marooned on an island in the South Pacific, they actually banded together, shared responsibility, and helped each other. Over 15 months six school boys cared for each other survived and built a culture that we all could learn from. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I have read the book many, many times over my life and I was very surprised how closely the series followed the book. It was just outstanding. Great book and I think it is a great series. Those young actors, wow. Thanks for the really interesting perspective on the series Meredith.
One odd side note about "Lord of the Flies": science fiction writer Robert Heinlein was not a fan of the book, so he actually wrote his own novel as a rebuttal to "Lord of the Flies". That book is "Tunnel in the Sky", about a group of teenagers stranded on another planet with no adults who are forced to work together in order to survive.
When I was young I never made the connection between the two books, probably because I read the "Tunnel in the Sky" several years before "Lord of the Flies". Many years after reading both, I came across that bit of information.
Sadly, recent events suggest that "Lord of the Flies" is a more accurate take on human nature, but the Heinlein book's optimism about human nature does make it fun to read.
Wow, I've never read Tunnel in the Sky. I will check it out. thanks!
I remember watching the move on the late show when I was about 14, in the late 60s, and was then prompted to read the book. I found both the film and book to be distressing.
My interpretation was: A bunch of English "public" school boys (what we'd call preppies) get stranded on an island, and in a frighteningly short time they become for all intents and purposes savages, right down to Piggy getting shoved off a cliff, and he split his head open and died.
Then a ship comes along and rescues the surviving boys, and almost instantly they become crying school boys again.
The message I took home at the time was how thin the veneer of "civilization" is and how quickly it can return, both occurring in changing circumstances.
Apologies if I forgot or mis-remembered some important details
"It feels like right and left are unable to see each other anymore, I don’t think this is just about the rise of rise of a powerful right wing. I think this is also about the way that the left wing behaves towards that right wing"
What? Full stop. I am utterly sick of "both sides do it" apologists. There's ONE President leading America into fascism right now, not two, and there's no equivalent on the left. There's ONE cult of personality. There's ONE "Secretary of War" leading a disastrous, utterly stupid and self-defeating invasion of Iran. There's ONE party that's deporting ebola sufferers to Kenya. There's ONE party that regularly quotes Nazis, and there's ONE party urging White Europeans to join the modern version of the Nazi Party circa 1921.
I'm part of the "left wing". I don't want to tear down the White House to build a "ballroom". I don't want a UFC event in the center of Washington, celebrating and glorifying violence. I don't want to round up and deport migrants, or send them to "Alligator Alcatraz", or whatever the violent right wants to call it's modern day concentration camps. I don't want to jail women for having or seeking an abortion, or to jail their doctors for providing one. I don't want a 1.7 billion dollar slush fund to go to the crooks, cranks, and agitators who support right wing violence. And I'm definitely not going to read or support people who claim "there's fine people on BOTH sides".
I follow the Contrarian for Jennifer Rubin and Norm Eisen. This kind of "both sides" drivel for the last 30 years in America, is a major reason we have Trump grifting billions of dollars from us, right now and probably for the next few years. People are free to have their opinions, but I'm not going to pay for this. And yes, the recent iteration of "Lord Of The Flies" is pretty good, but it's not nearly as good as the 1963 film written and directed by Peter Brooks.
Spot on. There's one party that realized that their platform had and has absolutely nothing to offer the American people, and instead of changing their platform, decided to lock in telling nothing but lies and spreading hate from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, and a bunch of corrupt people from state houses to congress all the Fox talking heads that followed have not only continued, but become much worse. To hell with that both sides baloney.
Jack, thank you for telling it “like it is.” It’s clear you are fed up by the minimizing of the dire circumstances we find ourselves in now. No one is coming to the rescue. No “making nice.” Thank you for your candor. We’ve almost have made it through May. Truly, Steps 1, 2,& 3. “Came to believe…” Onward. Courage, wisdom.
Thank you Jack. That same sentence stopped me cold. It’s time we stopped blaming the democrats for what republicans have wrought
Again, another great review and insight but it gets too close to home for me. Here is the urban equivalent. Teenage mother, WCN minister father, 4 kids in seven years, he is fat and lazy probably defiling teenagers in his church, she is working four jobs, raising as many kids, teaching piano to the black son of the black custodian of the church who helped her with her babies, letting that quite talented son perform in the recital at the church and getting run out of town in the middle of the night b/c of that. Plenty of death threats. This was the 60s. It’s no different in South GA. Even the governor is a klansman racist. These people have been perfecting oppression for more than 250 years while the rest of us have been trying to get better at equality, égalité and and ensuring we all do better. Even the adults are struggling with this.
This version of the classic was, for me, especially moving and powerful. The faithful rendition of the original story is the best so far in film, imho, and the acting was almost shockingly good. I expect an Emmy nomination for David McKenna, the remarkable actor who inhabits Piggy!
I have likened the times we are living through now to The Lord of the Flies for a while now. The total breakdown of society in the story is our reality. I appreciate these writers bringing this story to a new audience as it is relevant in so many ways. Horrifying though. Who will save us from ourselves?
There were no girls on the island; all of the characters in Lord of the Flies are boys. Would it have made a difference if the children were all girls? Or if there were both boys and girls on the island? There is plenty of social-psychological thinking that boys/men tend to be more violent than girls/women. It is no accident that the majority of violence is committed by boys/men across the globe, and across historical time periods. In play, groups of girls tend to work cooperatively, while boys in play tend to be competitive with each other. It would be interesting to consider what kind of society a group of stranded girls would have created.
One thing about that book that doesn't seem to get much discussion is the fact that they descend into violence all because of lies. There is in reality no "Beast" that they have to be afraid of. So for me the lesson is not "people are at their core bad without the veneer of civilization" but more "people can get manipulated away from their true core by lies."
I NEVER SAW "LORD OF THE FLIES", FOR GOOD REASON.
EVERY DAY I SEE AND HEAR OF ENOUGH HORROR WITHOUT GOING LOOKING FOR IT.
FOR EXAMPLE, TODAY I HEARD OF A NUT JOB WITH A SHOTGUN WHO KILLED HIS GIRLFRIEND, HIS SIX YEAR OLD SON AND HIS DOG. THAT IS (MORE THAN) ENOUGH FOR A MONTH.
ARE WE ALL IN A GLOBAL MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS?
YA DON'T SAY!
Could never read it but your review will make me do something…read or see. I guess I felt like my childhood was like the book and I was the oldest child so I was in charge. Scary as hell.
please proofread your essay before you publish it. There are so many typos I had to stop reading.
When I was in high school, I defiantly refused to read that book. I remember telling my teacher Golding was a pervert. Now Animal Farm I could relate to that.